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Germany has given the world some of its finest filmmakers, Lotte Reiniger, Ernst Lubitsch, Douglas Sirk, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, to name but a few, as well as groundbreaking movements like German Expressionism and New German Cinema. The country has also produced some of the best horror movies in history, from terrifying silent classics about the supernatural to gripping crime thrillers and nerve-shredding cyberpunk tales.

While it's impossible to cover the depth and breadth of German horror movies in a short list, we can touch on some of the greats. Listed below are the 12 best German horror movies. All of these films prove that horror has always been political, mining the fears and anxieties of the times in which they were created to make a point about the world around us and that the genre has always been — and always will be — a vital part of movie history.

Unreleased in the United States until now, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s epic 1972 mini-series, “Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day,” is finally headed to American shores — with a fresh restoration to boot — thanks to New York City’s own Film Forum. The family drama will enjoy a two-week engagement at the movie house, with all 476 minutes gloriously accounted for.

“Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day” includes some of the German auteur’s favorite stars, including Hanna Schygulla, Gottfried John, Irm Hermann, and Kurt Raab. And yet it’s a change of pace for the typically dark-skewing filmmaker, piling on some of his usual obsessions — class issues, money issues, fraught relationships, very different people pushed up against each other — yet still emerging with a much more optimistic worldview than we normally associate with the prolific Fassbinder. It’s not exactly light, but it’s about as light as he ever got,...

At long last, a worthy digital transfer has been granted the rather grim and horrific Tenderness of the Wolves, an obscure title from the extensive universe of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, here serving as producer. The fourth title assembled under Fassbinder’s production company Tango-Film, Ulli Lommel takes on directorial duty for what stands as the his most notable title. But Lommel’s contributions take a back seat to leading star and screenwriter Kurt Raab. Both members of Fassbinder’s extensive cinematic troupe, having starred in 1969’s Love is Colder Than Death, along with several future affiliations, the film’s production history proves to have its own potent elements dictating the final memorable outcome.

Padded out with a ton of notable Fassbinder faces, it’s a wonder this title isn’t more well-known, even as a cult favorite. But its explicit homosexual content, derided as harmful and negative at the time,...

The catalyst behind Ulli Lommel's perverse horror masterpiece might be writer-actor-art director Kurt Raab. He's almost too convincing as Fritz Haarmann, an infamous real-life serial killer of young men who masks his abominable activities behind a snitch relationship with the police. He's an obscene cross between Peter Lorre's child-murderer and the ghoul Nosferatu. Tenderness of the Wolves Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 80 min. / Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe / Street Date November 2, 2015 / £12.99 Starring Kurt Raab, Jeff Roden, Margit Carstensen, Ingrid Caven, Wolfgang Schenck, Brigitte Mira, Rainer Hauer, Barbara Bertram, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Cinematography Jürgen Jürges Production Design Kurt Raab Makeup Elfie Kruse Editing Thea Eymèsz Original Music Peter Raben Written by Kurt Raab Produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Michael Fengler Directed by Ulli Lommel

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Movie horrors can't compete with real life any more, in an overcrowded, often hostile world that seems to encourage terrible crimes.

Stars: Kurt Raab, Jeff Roden, Margit Carstensen, Ingrid Caven, Wolfgang Schenck, Brigitte Mira, Rainer Hauer, Barbara Bertram, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Heinrich Giskes, Friedrich Karl Praetorius | Written by Kurt Raab | Directed by Uli Lommel

Normally films about serial killers focus on the creation of a monster, often focusing on the hero hunting them down and stopping them. What if the serial killer is somebody we become sympathetic to? That is the focus of Tenderness of the Wolves, aka Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe, the latest film to get the Arrow Video Blu-ray treatment…

Tenderness of the Wolves is based on the real life story of Fritz Haarmann a known thief and known gay man, at a time when it was illegal to be in Germany. Given a special license by the police to act for them as an informer, his illegal actions were often ignored. When too many young men were going...

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Germany, 1972

“Fassbinder is Petra von Kant.” So says frequent star and muse Hanna Schygulla as she discusses Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s working methods and his identification with his characters, both male and female. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is a notable case in point. Based on Fassbinder’s own complicated relationship with Günther Kaufmann, the genders are reversed for what became this tale of passion and despair between a successful fashion designer and the younger beauty who enters and upends her personal and professional life. Originally written for the stage, specifically for Margit Carstensen, who would take on the title role in the play and film, Bitter Tears is a fascinating examination of sexual intensity and infatuation gradually undercut by acrimony and deceit.

Though Fassbinder’s play was generally unsuccessful, he nevertheless moved full...

Kurt Raab, the hero of 1970's Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (screening as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's "Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist" retrospective), enjoys what Pritchett would have called a life of "congenial monotony" — though it hardly seems to afford him much happiness.

For roughly 80 minutes, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Michael Fengler plunge us headlong into the sprawling vanilla blankness of Kurt's daily routine, where at both work and at home he is permitted to occupy only the corner of the frame.

Kurt is a man who has long since receded into the background of his own existence: Whether pottering about the house he shares with his socialite wife (Lilith Ungerer) or toiling listlessly in an office where nobody pays him much mind, he...

German actor best known for his roles in the films of Fassbinder

Filmgoers familiar with the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder will certainly know Günther Kaufmann, who has died of a heart attack aged 64. Kaufmann had parts great and small in more than a dozen of the prolific German director's movies. He was what the Germans call a "Besatzungskind", one of the many children born between 1945 and 1949 as a result of relationships between German women and American soldiers. Kaufmann's black GI father, whom he never knew, returned to the Us before he was born in Munich. According to Fassbinder: "Günther thinks Bavarian, feels Bavarian and speaks Bavarian. And that's why he gets a shock every morning when he looks in the mirror." Kaufmann, whom Fassbinder always called "my Bavarian negro", played an important role in his life.

They first met in the autumn of 1969 on the set of Volker Schlöndorff's television film of Baal,...

German actor best known for his roles in the films of Fassbinder

Filmgoers familiar with the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder will certainly know Günther Kaufmann, who has died of a heart attack aged 64. Kaufmann had parts great and small in more than a dozen of the prolific German director's movies. He was what the Germans call a "Besatzungskind", one of the many children born between 1945 and 1949 as a result of relationships between German women and American soldiers. Kaufmann's black GI father, whom he never knew, returned to the Us before he was born in Munich. According to Fassbinder: "Günther thinks Bavarian, feels Bavarian and speaks Bavarian. And that's why he gets a shock every morning when he looks in the mirror." Kaufmann, whom Fassbinder always called "my Bavarian negro", played an important role in his life.

They first met in the autumn of 1969 on the set of Volker Schlöndorff...

Movie Poster of the Week is excited to be unveiling the exclusive world premiere of the newest poster from the man who may be the hottest designer in the independent film world right now: Sam Smith. I first wrote about Sam a couple of years ago when his poster for House, which he had done on spec for his local theater, was picked up by Janus Films for their national re-release. (I have since written about his design for Black Cat, while his Carlos poster for IFC made my best of 2010.) Now he is back working with Janus again on their much anticipated restoration of R.W. Fassbinder’s World on a Wire.

Made in 1973 for German television and rarely seen until it resurfaced at MoMA last year, World on a Wire is a three-and-a-half-hour, two-part, sci-fi head-trip of a movie about government conspiracies and parallel realities set in a world of gleaming ’70s corporate minimalism.