Bruno Ganz

Acting

Bruno Ganz

Born — Died

1941-03-22 — 2019-02-16

Place of birth

Zürich, Switzerland

Known for

Acting

Credits

83 titles

Bruno Ganz (March 22, 1941 – February 16, 2019) was a Swiss actor who debuted at the theatre in 1961 and gained there a good reputation as a solid, young actor. In 1970 he founded with 'Peter Stein' the theatre company "Schaubuehne" of Berlin. His debut at the movies was early and unsuccessful in 1960. Only in 1975 after "Sommergaeste (1975)" he could show his talent as a reflexive actor with tendencies towards introspection.

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 1 titles

2010s · 19 titles

Unknown poster
6.7

A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.

Unknown

2011

The Counselor poster
5.3

A lawyer finds himself in far over his head when he attempts to get involved in drug trafficking.

The Counselor

2013

The House That Jack Built poster
7.1

Failed architect, engineer and vicious murderer Jack narrates the details of some of his most elaborately orchestrated crimes, each of them a towering piece of art that defines his life's work as a serial killer for twelve years.

The House That Jack Built

2018

A Hidden Life poster
7.2

Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

A Hidden Life

2019

Heidi poster
7.3

Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.

Heidi

2015

In Order of Disappearance poster
6.9

Upstanding community leader Nils has just won an award for "Citizen of the Year" when he learns the news that his son has died of a heroin overdose. Suspecting foul play, Nils begins to investigate, and soon finds himself at the center of an escalating underworld gang war between Serbian drug dealers and a sociopathic criminal mastermind known only as “The Count.”

In Order of Disappearance

2014

Night Train to Lisbon poster
6.5

Raimund Gregorius, having saved a beautiful Portuguese woman from leaping to her death, stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author, which compels him to suddenly abandon the boring life he has led for years and to embark on an enthralling adventure. In search of the author, Gregorius acts as detective, pulling together pieces of a puzzle that involves political and emotional intrigue and the highest possible stakes. His voyage is one that transcends time and space, delving into the realms of history, medicine and love, all in search of true meaning to his life.

Night Train to Lisbon

2013

The Party poster
6.3

Various individuals think they’re coming together for a party in a private home, but a series of revelations results in a huge crisis that throws their belief systems – and their values – into total disarray.

The Party

2017

Remember poster
7.3

With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.

Remember

2015

The Tobacconist poster
6.4

Vienna, 1937, on the eve of the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. The young and inexperienced Franz Huchel begins to learn about both the joys and hardships of life by working as an apprentice to the mutilated war veteran Otto Trsnjek in a small tobacco shop, where he meets the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, who will become a valuable friend in times of chaos and uncertainty.

The Tobacconist

2018

Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen poster
7.5

A film where anything can happen - the hero and the heroine changes their faces, age, look, names, and so on. The only same thing: The love between man and woman... in an archetypical love story cut from 500 classics from all around the world.

Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen

2012

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas poster
5.9

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas

2013

In Times of Fading Light poster
6.6

Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the birthday celebrations of an East German family turn into a tragicomical moment of political and personal breakdown.

In Times of Fading Light

2017

A Jew Must Die poster
4.8

A film based on Jacques Chessex' novel of the same title; featuring André Wilms as Chessex and Bruno Ganz as Arthur Bloch, Swiss Jew killed by Swiss Nazis.

A Jew Must Die

2016

Winter Journey poster
8.0

Tucson, Arizona, September 1996. At the request of his son Martin, George Goldsmith tells him of his past in Nazi Germany as a member of a family of Jewish musicians and the strange history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a Jewish organization sponsored by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels.

Winter Journey

2019

Colors in the Dark poster
5.4

Anita and Fred have been a couple for 50 years, and happily married for nearly as long. They have two grown children, and their grandchildren are finishing school. Both can look back at a fulfilling past, but their lives are still rich and vibrant. The fact that Fred is terribly ill has been hidden from the family. For the first time in all these years, Fred takes some liberties, which his wife interprets as an affront. Never before has she felt so abandoned. Although she starts to question her relationship, a love like theirs cannot end so easily. Indeed it should never end.

Colors in the Dark

2011

Dancing Arabs poster
6.5

A young Arab is caught between cultures as he is sent to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Israel in the 1980s.

Dancing Arabs

2014

Der Kleine Prinz poster
NR

"Der kleine Prinz" (The Little Prince) tells the story of a pilot who crash-lands in the Sahara desert and meets a young prince from another planet. The prince recounts his travels to different planets, each inhabited by a solitary adult with strange priorities like vanity, authority, and greed. On Earth, he befriends a fox who teaches him about the importance of "taming" and creating bonds. The prince eventually returns to his own small planet to care for his unique rose, which he left behind. (Synopsis generated by Google KI)

Der Kleine Prinz

2011

The Naked King - 18 Fragments on Revolution poster
NR

In 1979, a revolution in Iran. In 1980, a revolution in Poland. The fall of the Shah, the “King of Kings,” in Iran. Mass strikes and the foundation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland. What was in the minds of the young women and men who fomented revolution in their own country? What did they think when their revolution was quelled, or – as in Iran – an authoritarian regime was instituted under the name of an “Islamic Republic”?

The Naked King - 18 Fragments on Revolution

2019

2000s · 18 titles

Downfall poster
7.9

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

Downfall

2004

The Reader poster
7.5

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

The Reader

2008

The Manchurian Candidate poster
6.5

Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.

The Manchurian Candidate

2004

Youth Without Youth poster
6.1

Professor of language and philosophy Dominic Matei is struck by lightning and ages backwards from 70 to 40 in a week, attracting the world and the Nazis. While on the run, the professor meets a young woman who has her own experience with a lightning storm. Not only does Dominic find love again, but her new abilities hold the key to his research.

Youth Without Youth

2007

The Baader Meinhof Complex poster
7.0

When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.

The Baader Meinhof Complex

2008

Luther poster
6.5

During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

Luther

2003

Vitus poster
7.4

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

Vitus

2006

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Antipasto Umbro

2000

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust II poster
8.0

Second part of Goethe's Tragedy

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust II

2001

Hitler's Final Days: The Movie 'Downfall' poster
7.0

Countless valuable info of Der Untegang's production as choice of St. Peterburg, how the German producers have been envisioned this upper-class movie as final world about all happenings carried out at bunker upon Traudl Junge's notes.

Hitler's Final Days: The Movie 'Downfall'

2005

Bread and Tulips poster
7.1

An endearing light comedy about a woman who spontaneously becomes a resident of Venice after her family left her behind. While enjoying the wonderful people she meets she achieves a new life and the first time independent of her family.

Bread and Tulips

2000

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust I poster
10.0

Unabridged production of Goethe's Faust Ⅰ by Peter Stein's Faust Project.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust I

2001

Epsteins Nacht poster
9.0

Jochen Epstein is released from prison after serving 15 years for murder. He is determined to emigrate from Germany and leave the past behind him forever. But familiar places, repressed memories and a never-forgotten girlfriend break the armor that the old man has built around himself. It all began on his last night in freedom: during a chance visit to a Christian service, Epstein believes he recognizes his former concentration camp tormentor Giesser in the parish priest.

Epsteins Nacht

2002

The Dust of Time poster
6.4

To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.

The Dust of Time

2008

Copacabana poster
2.0

No synopsis available yet.

Copacabana

2008

Behind Me poster
NR

A three-year journey with actor Bruno Ganz. He plays various roles in various places, but he also plays Bruno Ganz – filming and directing friends. Again and again he works on the role of Dr. Faust, the figure who – speaking for us all – desperately wants to discover “what holds the world together at the core”. A thousand days of searching for one's own destiny, with despair as the only companion, and placing hope in the creative power of poetry.

Behind Me

2003

Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II poster
5.1

The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne to usher Catholicism into the 21st century. Born in Poland and forced to carry on following the untimely death of his family, Karol Wojtyla endured both personal hardships and the rape of his homeland by the Third Reich to spread the word of God through the Catholic Church. Later, as Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla was beloved by millions of Catholics worldwide. From the sexual-abuse scandal that shook the American Catholic Church in the later-20th century to the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and the near-fatal assassination attempt made on his own life, Pope John Paul II endured to bridge the gap between various faiths until his death resulting from Parkinson's disease in April of 2005.

Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II

2006

Claudio Abbado: Hearing the Silence poster
NR

World-renowned maestro Claudio Abbado opens up about his life and work in this profile that effectively combines images of the conductor in rehearsal and in concert and interviews with friends, colleagues and Abbado himself. The video includes footage of Bruno Ganz, Daniel Harding, Marcel Prawy, Albrecht Mayer, Wolfram Christ, Kolja Blacher, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and more.

Claudio Abbado: Hearing the Silence

2003

1990s · 5 titles

1980s · 10 titles

Wings of Desire poster
7.8

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Wings of Desire

1987

In the White City poster
7.0

Fed up with the sea, Paul, a Swiss mechanic working in the noisy bowels of a merchant ship, lands in Lisbon.

In the White City

1983

Circle of Deceit poster
6.2

To escape his crumbling marriage, German journalist Laschen travels to Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay. Together with his photographer, he meets some influential people and discovers the everyday face of the war.

Circle of Deceit

1981

Lady of the Camelias poster
6.1

A young girl from the provinces, comes to Paris with one goal: to become a part of the rich bourgeoisie. To achieve this she will use her unique beauty and charm.

Lady of the Camelias

1981

The Architecture of Doom poster
7.4

Featuring never-before-seen film footage of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, The Architecture of Doom captures the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture. From Nazi party rallies to the final days inside Hitler's bunker, this sensational film shows how Adolf Hitler rose from being a failed artist to creating a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror. Hitler worshipped ancient Rome and Greece, and dreamed of a new Golden Age of classical art and monumental architecture, populated by beautiful, patriotic Aryans. Degenerated artists and inferior races had no place in his lurid fantasy. As this riveting film shows, the Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the retarded and sick, and finally to the persecution of homosexuals and the extermination of the Jews.

The Architecture of Doom

1989

Hands Up! poster
5.7

The reunion of a group of former medical students results in a flood of bitter memories.

Hands Up!

1985

Bankomatt poster
8.0

With three of his companions in a fatal gas-station robbery drowned while evading a police roadblock, the surviving young thug has no reason to turn himself in to the police, since they don't know about his existence. At least, that's the way his rescuer Bruno (Bruno Ganz) sees it. Besides, Bruno needs such an overly enterprising fellow to help him pull off a really big heist that he's been planning for a long time. It takes some doing, but the boy and his girlfriend are recruited by the older man, who has been keeping a low profile by working as a gardener.

Bankomatt

1989

El río de oro poster
4.4

During a long summer, the tranquility of a couple and their three children resting in a country house is altered with the arrival of the children's uncle, a character who exerts a curious influence on the boys and a morbid and strange attraction the wife. Twelve years after 'Los viajes escolares' (1973), his first commercial feature film, the Madrid director Jaime Chávarri returns to the same estate in the province of Segovia to shoot a new family story, about his own plot and script. Like its predecessor, 'The Golden River' contains a strong autobiographical charge and is full of personal resonances. But this new history of family ties is narrated from a perspective in which adultery manifests itself openly. Endowed with a slow narrative rhythm, the film presents an international cast headed by Ángela Molina, Bruno Ganz, Francesca Annis and Stefan Gubser. The film also has the presence of a very young Juan Diego Botto, in one of his first appearances on the big screen.

El río de oro

1986

Strapless poster
7.4

An expatriate American doctor in London allows herself to lighten up when her freewheeling younger sister and a mysterious man enter her life. Her inhibitions released, the beautiful doctor learns that freedom has its own price.

Strapless

1989

The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway poster
8.0

Larger-than-life American author Ernest Hemingway is the subject of this biopic that chronicles the famous writer's life from childhood to his suicide at age 61. Haunted by various inner demons -- including his father's suicide -- Hemingway serves in World War I, marries four times, and finds creative support from Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and other expatriates living in 1920s Paris.

The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway

1988

1970s · 6 titles

The Boys from Brazil poster
6.7

Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot, masterminded by Dr. Josef Mengele, to rekindle the Third Reich.

The Boys from Brazil

1978

Nosferatu the Vampyre poster
7.3

A real estate agent leaves behind his beautiful wife to go to Transylvania to visit the mysterious Count Dracula and formalize the purchase of a property in Wismar.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

1979

The American Friend poster
7.1

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

The American Friend

1977

The Marquise of O poster
6.7

A German Marquise has to deal with a pregnancy she cannot explain and an infatuated Russian Count.

The Marquise of O

1976

Knife in the Head poster
6.2

One night when seeking his estranged wife, Hoffmann goes to the youth center where she works. The police are there rounding up radicals who frequent the center - Hoffmann runs into the building and ends up being shot in the head. He awakens with brain trauma, partially paralyzed and unable to speak. The police accuse him of stabbing an officer; the radicals herald him as an innocent victim of police brutality. During his slow recovery at the hospital, Hoffmann must piece together his life and struggle to remember the events of that night.

Knife in the Head

1978

The Wild Duck poster
9.0

Consul Werle holds a reception in honour of the homecoming of his son Gregers. At the reception, Gregers meets his childhood friend, Hjalmar Ekdal, who is married to Gina, a former maid of the Werle family. Hjalmar is unaware that Werle had an affair with Gina and that their 14-year-old daughter Hedwig is not his child. Gregers moves in with the Ekdals with the intention of allowing unsuspecting Hjalmar and his family to share in the "happiness of truth". Hedwig is entirely devoted to a wild duck, which lives on a pond outside their house. When Hjalmar learns the truth about his daughter, he wants to leave his family. Gregers advises Hedwig to kill the wild duck so that her father, impressed by this sacrifice, will return home. On the following day, Hedwig's birthday, she doesn't shoot the duck, but shoots herself instead.

The Wild Duck

1976

Series credits

Scene of the Crime poster
6.2

Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.

Scene of the Crime

1970

Leute heute poster
5.2

No synopsis available yet.

Leute heute

1997

No artwork available
7.2

No synopsis available yet.

Menschen bei Maischberger

2003

Bambi poster
9.0

The Bambi, often called the Bambi Award and stylised as BAMBI, is a German award presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognize excellence in international media and television to personalities in the media, arts, culture, sports, and other fields "with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year", both domestic and foreign. First held in 1948, it is the oldest media award in Germany. The trophy is named after Felix Salten's book Bambi, A Life in the Woods and its statuettes are in the shape of the novel's titular fawn character. They were originally made of porcelain until 1958, when the organizers switched to using gold, with the casting done by the art casting workshop of Ernst Strassacker in Süßen.

Bambi

1948

Screen Two poster
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985

No artwork available
NR

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

Grimme Award

1964

No artwork available
5.7

No synopsis available yet.

Goldene Kamera

1984

Kulturplatz poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Kulturplatz

2004

No artwork available
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

German Film Award

1951

Boulevard Bio poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Boulevard Bio

1991

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Sternstunde Kunst

1998

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Bavarian Film Awards

1979

Zur Person poster
NR

A German television format in which Günter Gaus interviewed prominent members of German society, particularly politicians. More than 200 interviews were conducted over the course of 40 years.

Zur Person

1963

No artwork available
NR

Anwalt Abel is a German television film series, broadcast on ZDF between 1988 and 2002. 20 television films were produced, based on the detective novels of Fred Breinersdorfer.

Anwalt Abel

1988

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Our Best

2003

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Spiel für dein Land

2015

No artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Wim Wenders - Von Filmen und Träumen

2020

Das Jahrhundert des Theaters poster
9.0

"The Century of the Theater" - From the "birth of the director" to the "heroes of modernity" - an overview of the world of theater - illuminates the interaction with the history of the past hundred years is also shown.

Das Jahrhundert des Theaters

2002

Fathers and Sons: A German Tragedy poster
7.0

Follows two wealthy families in Germany during the first half of the 20th century. One of them is German, the other one Jewish.

Fathers and Sons: A German Tragedy

1986

No artwork available
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Tassilo - Ein Fall für sich

1991

La Storia Vera Della Signora Dalle Camelie poster
4.0

No synopsis available yet.

La Storia Vera Della Signora Dalle Camelie

1981

Il Grande Fausto poster
NR

The miniseries traces the life of Fausto Coppi, a cycling legend.

Il Grande Fausto

1995

Behind the camera