Mr Surgeoner's Higher History Revision

Mr Surgeoner takes the viewer on an enthralling journey through the SQA Higher History course.

Die Blechtrommel

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

Halbe Treppe

In the style of a documentary this tragic comedy tells the story of a relationship crisis between two married couples and their longing to break out of their miserable daily lives. In this East German post-wall movie Andreas Dresen introduces the sad everyday life of two couples from Frankfurt an der Oder in a honest and tolerable manner.

La Grande Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

The Reader

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.

Zeit der Fische

Buffalo Soldiers

A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Der Eiserne Gustav

Die Päpstin

A 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Ingelheim disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks.

Vergiss Amerika

Am Kölnberg

The tower block area "Am Kölnberg" has a bad reputation. People who - for any number of reasons - ended up on the edge of society, live here alongside refugee families and immigrants from all over the world. Unemployment, drug abuse and prostitution are part of everyday life for many of them. The film accompanies 4 people over a period of two years and portrays their life at "Kölnberg" with ups and downs. One thing they all have in common: The dream of leading a fulfilled life, far away from "Kölnberg".

The Price of Freedom

The son of a newspaper editor visits his uncle in Germany and learns how government control gradually took away the freedom of the people. He returns and influences his father to print news items which will lead the people of their community to see the world situation as it is instead of as they want to believe it is.

The Mortal Storm

The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.

Der Stolz der Firma

Der Stolz der Firma, meaning The Pride of the Business, is a classic German silent film from 1914. The film tells the story of a shrewd apprentice and is filmed in the comical style of director Lubitsch. This is one of the few Lubitsch films from World War I that wasn’t lost.

Paths of Glory

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

Mörderischer Frieden

Young Bundeswehr soldiers Tom and Charly are stationed in Kosovo with the KFOR peacekeeping force. Their mission is to secure peace. Although the brutal war between the enemy Serbs and Albanians is officially over, the hatred between people continues to smoulder. When Tom and Charly rescue the young Serbian Mirjana from the fatal shot of the young sniper Durcan, they get caught between all fronts. They lose their professional distance due to the resulting closeness to Mirjana - who has to learn that her father was a war criminal - but also to Durcan - whose entire family was wiped out. Soon they are entangled in a conflict about guilt, manipulation, love and revenge...

Auf der anderen Seite

The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.

Ballade vom roten Mohn

Guten Tag, Ramón

After five failed attempts to go to the United States, 18-year-old Ramón decides to look for a friend’s aunt in Germany, but never finds her. With no papers or money, and without knowing the language, he barely survives living on the street until he meets Ruth, an old retired nurse who doesn’t speak Spanish. Beyond language barriers and prejudices, they discover that solidarity and humanity make life bearable.