Fox and His Friends Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Two brilliant, beautiful dissections of class and cultural exploitation: Fox and his Friends, about a working-class gay man who wins the lottery, and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, about a marriage between an Arab mechanic and German cleaning woman. Fassbinder plays the title role in Fox and His Friends, a film about a working-class gay man whose lottery winnings attract unwelcome friends. Geoff Andrew of Time Out Film Guide calls it "a work of brilliant intelligence," adding "the director himself is suburb as the none-too-intelligent hero." (1975; 123 mins.)

A remake of Douglas Sirk's All that Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a favorite of director Todd Haynes and the source for his own Academy Award-winning Far from Heaven. An award-winner itself (receiving International Critics' Prize at Cannes,) Ali presents the heartbreaking story of an elderly cleaning woman whose marriage to a much younger Arab mechanic threatens everyone around them. Rolling Stone called it "the most beautiful film of 1974;" film critic Andrew Sarris hailed it as "a masterpiece...not to be missed;" and the New York Times recently ranked among "the most thought-provoking, and most beautiful" of Fassbinder's films. (1974; 93 mins.)