Synopsis

Not content to let Oppenheimer ask all of the big questions, German director Timm Kröger combines old Hollywood style with heady metaphysical substance in the intellectual thriller The Universal Theory. Set in 1962 at a quantum mechanics conference in an isolated lodge nestled amid the towering landscapes of the Swiss Alps, The Universal Theory is the story of a gifted young physicist, his curmudgeonly mentor, and an enigmatic jazz pianist who knows things about our wunderkind scientist that he’s never told another living soul.

Driven by mind-bending twists, improbable coincidences, and Hitchcockian suspense, The Universal Theory is a captivating nesting doll of a film that nods to the German masters of old Hollywood and considers the metaverse theory from a refreshingly intelligent point of view. Kröger — himself also a cinematographer — films his tale with an eye for the majestic natural beauty that surrounds our characters, effectively evoking both the paranoid postwar era and the brain-tickling complexity of theoretical physics.

Synopsis

Lubo, a traveling busker, is conscripted into the Swiss army to defend against a potential German attack. While serving, he receives the news that his wife has died and his three small children have been taken by the state as a part of a national reeducation program for Yenisch children. He flees his unit, adopts a new identity, and begins a desperate search to reunite his fractured family.

Featuring stunning production design and a sterling performance from Franz Rogowski (Transit, Passages), the film tracks Lubo’s odyssey as he uncovers the shocking truth about his children. Based on real-life events, the film is both an emotional character study and a penetrating historical epic.

Synopsis

In this sensitive adaptation of Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed autobiographical classic, nine-year-old Anna finds the world shift dramatically around her in 1933 Berlin. When her father, a high-profile Jewish theater critic, abruptly flees to Zurich to escape the Nazis, the family scrambles to follow, leaving everything and everyone behind⁠—from a beloved nanny and friends to cherished toys. A new life filled with challenges and privations, met with persistence and triumphs, lies ahead.