Mid-19th-century, Baltic Sea port city of Lubeck, Germany. Follows the fourth generation of the Buddenbrook mercantile family as Tony and Thomas reach the age of marriage. Fatefully impeded every step of the way, the Buddenbrooks struggle as economic hardship and personal defeats weigh down family relations.
After nine years in psychiatric detention Theo, who has brutally assaulted and raped three women, is released. Living in a supervised community, he connects well with his social worker Sascha, finds a job at a print shop and even a girlfriend, Nettie, his principal's brittle and estranged daughter. But even though superficially everything seems to work out Theo's seething rage remains ready to erupt.
Attractive uncompromising politician Mona Dengler is investigating the tobacco industry. Tomboyish bodyguard and single mother Johanna Sieber is assigned to protect her. This endangers Johanna's son. Mona unexpectedly falls for her.
A rebellious young woman is thrown out by her wealthy, but marbly parents and gets into a nightmare of poverty, prostitution and sickness.
Züli Aladag's critically acclaimed, but controversial movie deals with the conflict of Can, son of Turkish immigrants, and the Laubs, a supposedly liberal middle class family.
Margarethe von Trotta's TV movie focuses on a woman whose life is destroyed by her addiction to alcohol. Angela Rinser is a happy mother of two children and quite successful in her job as bilingual secretary. The sudden death of her husband changes everything. She starts drinking and loses her job. Her children Felicitas and Max try to hush up their social decline for years because they don't want to live in a foster home.
Johanna, a feisty 17-year-old German girl with dreams of becoming a fashion designer, discovers her biological father is Turkish. Without telling him of their relationship, she gets a job at his elegant restaurant and disaster follows.
