Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe

By Joe Jajdu

Budapest today is a palimpsest of its history and partially crystallized present. Its earlier history is best seen on the Castle Hill of Buda, the seat of Hungarian royal power since the beginning in the 13th Century. This peaked in the glory years of King Matthias' reign in the second half of the 15th Century, when Buda was one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Europe. The Ottoman conquest that followed a generation later was a catastrophe whose effect would last two centuries. However when the new Castle Hill of Buda arose, it became a version of Baroque central Europe, controlled by Imperial Vienna. Pest, on the opposite banks of the Danube, is a symbol of the grandeur of the late 19th Century metropolis. Elaborate, historicist buildings and monuments first inhabited by the members of the rising bourgeoisie that had achieved prosperity in the booming Budapest around the year 1900. This era still largely defines the visual appearance of the central city. Nearly half a century later Fascism, and then forty years of Communism, again produced economic dislocation and social tumult in the lives of the people. This is best shown through descriptions of the fate of individual families in Budapest. Since 1990 the metropolis and its people have gone through a frenzied transition for which there was no template: authoritarian socialist economy to volatile capitalism and democracy. The story of the key players and groups in this transition make this tumultuous process particularly vivid. Today Budapest is a city whose role in Europe is still being crystallized. However, inventive entrepreneurs and creative artists are making the city a more and more vibrant home for its citizens and a favoured destination for a rapidly increasing flow of visitors.

Daily Life in Rembrandt's Holland

By Paul Zumthor

Rembrandt's life coincided with what the Dutch refer to as their "golden age." This engagingly written study presents a rich picture of a dynamic society that had torn itself away from the mediocrity of its past - a stagnant nation of peasants and fishermen - to pursue an overseas empire that led to great financial wealth and a highly sophisticated cultivation of the arts. This classic work first appeared in English translation in 1963.

Among the myriad topics covered are homes, gardens, clothing, food, religion, childrearing, education, medicine, sports and games, holidays and celebrations, painters, musicians, writers, the theater, publishing, aristocrats, workers, peasants, the merchant fleet, the armed forces, trading and colonizing companies, fisheries, and the famous Holland dikes.

Germany: A New History

In one concise volume, Hagen Schulze brilliantly conveys the full sweep of German history, from the days of the Romans to the fall of the Berlin Wall. A story two thousand years in the making, it rings with battle, murmurs with intrigue, and hums with the music of everyday life. This richly various legacy, often overshadowed and distorted by the nation's recent past, offers a hopeful answer.

The Danube: A Cultural History

The Danube is the longest river in western and central Europe. Rising amidst the beautiful wooded hills of Germany's Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea through a vast delta whose silt-filled channels spread
across eastern Romania.

The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918

A new and revised edition of Alan Sked's groundbreaking book which examines how the Habsburg Empire survived the revolutionary turmoil of 1848.

'The Year of Revolutions', saw the whole of Europe convulsed in turmoil and revolt. Yet the Habsburg Empire survived. As state after state succumbed to the violent winds of change that were sweeping the continent. How did the Habsburg Empire survive? How was the army able hold together while the rest of the empire collapsed in civil war, and how was it able to seize the political initiative In this new edition, Alan Sked reflects on the changed understanding of the period which resulted from the first appearance of this book, and widens the discussion to look at the Habsburg Empire alongside the decline of the Russian and German Empires, arguing that it is possible to understand their decline from a broad European perspective, as opposed to the overly narrow focus of recent explanations. Alan Sked makes us look at familiar events with new eyes in this radical, vigorously written classic which is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of nineteenth-century Europe. 

The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000

By Mark Cioc

The Rhine River is Europe's most important commercial waterway, channeling the flow of trade among Switzerland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In this innovative study, Mark Cioc focuses on the river from the moment when the Congress of Vienna established a multinational commission charged with making the river more efficient for purposes of trade and commerce in 1815. He examines the engineering and administrative decisions of the next century and a half that resulted in rapid industrial growth as well as profound environmental degradation, and highlights the partially successful restoration efforts undertaken from the 1970s to the present.

The Rhine is a classic example of a "multipurpose" river -- used simultaneously for transportation, for industry and agriculture, for urban drinking and sanitation needs, for hydroelectric production, and for recreation. It thus invites comparison with similarly over-burdened rivers such as the Mississippi, Hudson, Colorado, and Columbia. The Rhine's environmental problems are, however, even greater than those of other rivers because it is so densely populated (50 million people live along its borders), so highly industrialized (10% of global chemical production), and so short (775 miles in length).

Two centuries of nonstop hydraulic tinkering have resulted in a Rhine with a sleek and slender profile. In their quest for a perfect canal-like river, engineers have modified it more than any other large river in the world. As a consequence, between 1815 and 1975, the river lost most of its natural floodplain, riverside vegetation, migratory fish, and biodiversity. Recent efforts to restore that biodiversity, though heartening, can have only limited success because so many of the structural changes to the river are irreversible.

The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000 makes clear just how central the river has been to all aspects of European political, economic, and environmental life for the past two hundred years

All Along the Rhine: Recipes, Wines and Lore from Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Holland

By Kay Shaw Nelson

Each chapter of this brilliant collection of over 130 recipes covers the culinary history and winemaking tradition of a different Rhine country. The literary excerpts, legends, and lore throughout the book accompany the reader-chef on a culinary cruise down one of the world's most famous rivers. Complete with b/w illustrations. "Cradle of European art, culture, history, and folklore for thousands of years, the Rhine River has an appeal for everyone along its verdant shores...In this representative collection of traditional and contemporary Rhine recipes may be found a wealth of culinary treasures, carefully evolved over the centuries by creative cooks. Because the cookery is derived from a jigsaw puzzle of peoples, customs and foods, there are some exotic and exciting contrasts. Indeed, the kitchens of these countries have produced some of the world's most cherished delicacies, as well as flavorful, down-to-earth hearty dishes that have enduring appeal.

Baroque and Rococo (World of Art)

Baroque and Rococo art and architecture have become popular once more, after a century and a half of neglect, misunderstanding and scorn. This radical shift in taste has led to a rapid growth of detailed knowledge about the artists who created these exhilarating styles. The famous masters have been reassessed and whole areas of achievement--Italian Baroque painting, German Rococo architecture--have been brought to a new, enthusiastic public. Germain Bazin's engaging survey of this rich subject ranges over all Europe and traces the origins and effects of these two periods of art--from the Counter-Reformation to Neoclassicism, Exoticism and even Art Nouveau. 218 illus., 43 in color.

"He writes with a Gallic verve and grace which are very successfully conveyed through Mr. Jonathan Griffin's translation...His observations upon painters and painting are particularly acute." --The Connoisseu

The Cologne Cathedral

The focus of this book is the building and the architecture of the Cologne Cathedral. The text pages cover the building of the cathedral from the early days of Christianity up to the restoration after World War II.
In the margins there are references to the plates in the second part of the book. 94 illustrations in full colour of the Cologne Cathedral's highlights are shown.

The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral

The great Gothic cathedrals of Europe are among the most astonishing achievements of Western culture. Evoking feelings of awe and humility, they make us want to understand what inspired the people who had the audacity to build them. This engrossing book surveys an era that has fired the historical imagination for centuries. In it Robert A. Scott explores why medieval people built Gothic cathedrals, how they built them, what conception of the divine lay behind their creation, and how religious and secular leaders used cathedrals for social and political purposes. As a traveler’s companion or a rich source of knowledge for the armchair enthusiast, The Gothic Enterprise helps us understand how ordinary people managed such tremendous feats of physical and creative energy at a time when technology was rudimentary, famine and disease were rampant, the climate was often harsh, and communal life was unstable and incessantly violent.

While most books about Gothic cathedrals focus on a particular building or on the cathedrals of a specific region, The Gothic Enterprise considers the idea of the cathedral as a humanly created space. Scott discusses why an impoverished people would commit so many social and personal resources to building something so physically stupendous and what this says about their ideas of the sacred, especially the vital role they ascribed to the divine as a protector against the dangers of everyday life.

Scott’s narrative offers a wealth of fascinating details concerning daily life during medieval times. The author describes the difficulties master-builders faced in scheduling construction that wouldn’t be completed during their own lifetimes, how they managed without adequate numeric systems or paper on which to make detailed drawings, and how climate, natural disasters, wars, variations in the hours of daylight throughout the year, and the celebration of holy days affected the pace and timing of work. Scott also explains such things as the role of relics, the quarrying and transporting of stone, and the incessant conflict cathedral-building projects caused within their communities. Finally, by drawing comparisons between Gothic cathedrals and other monumental building projects, such as Stonehenge, Scott expands our understanding of the human impulses that shape our landscape.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

By Tracy Chevalier

With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries—and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant—and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model.

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

With sound historical scholarship and penetrating insight, Roland
Bainton examines Luther's widespread influence. He re-creates the
spiritual setting of the sixteenth century, showing Luther's place
within it and influence upon it. Richly illustrated with more than
100 woodcuts and engravings from Luther's own time, Here I Stand
dramatically brings to life Martin Luther, the great Reformer.

A specialist in Reformation history, Roland H. Bainton was for
forty-two years Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at
Yale, and he continued his writing well into his twenty years of
retirement. Bainton wore his scholarship lightly and had a lively,
readable style. His most popular book was Here I Stand: A Life of
Martin Luther (1950), which sold more than a million copies.

Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World

On All Hallow’s Eve in 1517, a young monk named Martin Luther posted a document he hoped would spark an academic debate, but that instead ignited a conflagration that would forever destroy the world he knew. Five hundred years after Luther’s now famous Ninety-five Theses appeared, Eric Metaxas, acclaimed biographer of the bestselling Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, paints a startling portrait of the wild figure whose adamantine faith cracked the edifice of Western Christendom and dragged medieval Europe into the future. Written in riveting prose and impeccably researched, Martin Luther tells the searing tale of a humble man who, by bringing ugly truths to the highest seats of power, caused the explosion whose sound is still ringing in our ears. Luther’s monumental faith and courage gave birth to the ideals of liberty, equality, and individualism that today lie at the heart of all modern life.

Mozart: A Life

Mozart’s music has enthralled listeners for centuries. In this brilliant biography, acclaimed historian Paul Johnson draws upon his expert knowledge of the era and Mozart’s own private letters to conjure Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life and times in rich detail. Johnson charts Mozart’s life from age three through to his later years—when he penned The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Along the way, Johnson challenges some of the popular myths that cloud Mozart’s image: his allegedly tempestuous personal relationships and supposedly bitter rivalry with Salieri, as well as the notion that he was desperately impoverished when he died. The result—a bold, invigorating portrait of one of the most popular and influential composers of all time—is a welcome addition to Johnson’s extraordinary body of work and makes a perfect gift for classical music lovers and fans of biographies. 

The Diary of a Young Girl

By Anne Frank

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.

In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover

The Habsburgs: Dynasty, Culture and Politics

The death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 not only sparked the beginning of World War I—it also initiated the beginning of the end of the six-hundred-year-old Habsburg dynasty, which fell apart when the war ended, changing Europe forever. But how did the Habsburgs come to play such a decisive role in the fate of the continent? Paula Sutter Fichtner seeks to answer this question in this comprehensive account of the longest-lived European empire.
 
Tracing the origins of the house of Habsburg to the tenth century, Fichtner identifies the principal characters in the story and explores how they were able to hold together such a culturally diverse and multiethnic state for so many centuries. She takes account of the intertwining of culture, politics, and society, revealing the strategies that enabled the dynasty’s extraordinarily long life: its dazzling mix of cultural propaganda, public performances, and cunning political maneuvering. She points out the irony that one of the crowd-pleasing performances that had enabled the Habsburg success—visiting beds of the injured—led to Ferdinand’s death and the empire’s downfall. Breathing fresh life into the history of the Habsburg reign, this accessible and authoritative history charts one of the pivotal foundation stories of modern Europe.

Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph

No ruler in modern times reigned in full sovereignty for as long as Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia. Titular master of central Europe from 1848 until 1916, he was center stage in Europe throughout the dramatic era in which Italy and Germany emerged as united nation states. His personal decisions were vital both to the outcome of the Crimean War and to the onset of World War I, sixty years later. Far more than a biography of a great ruler, Twilight of the Habsburgs is a social, cultural, political, and military history of Europe from the end of the Napoleonic era to the assassination at Sarajevo. "Just the right balance between the story of Francis Joseph's life and the history of his times." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Excellent and absorbing . . . A compelling read." -- Evening Standard (London).

Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist

By Jan Greenberg

   Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist was named a Robert F. Sibert Honor book by the ALA. This is the enthralling biography of the nineteenth-century Dutch painter known for pioneering new techniques and styles in masterpieces such as Starry Night and Vase with Sunflowers. The book cites detailed primary sources and includes a glossary of artists and terms, a biographical time line, notes, a bibliography, and locations of museums that display Van Gogh’s work. It also features a sixteen-page insert with family photographs and full-color reproductions of many of Van Gogh’s paintings. Vincent Van Gogh was named an ALA Notable Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades 6–8, Historical/Social Studies) in Appendix B. 

All Quiet on the Western Front

On the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I: a hardcover edition of the classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time.

When a twenty-year-old man named Paul and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another. Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma, but dramatizes as well the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention--to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war--remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

The inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's epic film and that The Guardian named one of the "Top 100 Books of All Time," Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered one of the most important works of the Weimar Republic and twentieth century literature.

Franz Biberkopf, pimp and petty thief, has just finished serving a term in prison for murdering his girlfriend. He's on his own in Weimar Berlin with its lousy economy and frontier morality, but Franz is determined to turn over new leaf, get ahead, make an honest man of himself, and so on and so forth. He hawks papers, chases girls, needs and bleeds money, and gets mixed up in spite of himself in various criminal and political schemes. This is only the beginning of our modern everyman's multiplying misfortunes.

Berlin, Alexanderplatz is one of great twentieth-century novels. Taking off from the work of Dos Passos and Joyce, Doblin depicts modern life in all its shocking violence, corruption, splendor, and horror. Michael Hofmann, celebrated for his translations of Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka, has prepared a new version, the first in over 75 years, in which Doblin's sublime and scurrilous masterpiece comes alive in English as never before.

Faust: A Tragedy

A classic of world literature, Goethe’s Faust is a philosophical and poetic drama full of satire, irony, humor, and tragedy. Martin Greenberg renders not only the text’s varied meters and rhymes but also its diverse tones and styles—dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. His translation of Faust has been widely praised as the most faithful, readable, and elegantly written translation of Goethe’s masterpiece available in English.

"Greenberg has accomplished a magnificent literary feat. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit. Greenberg's translation lives; it is done in a modern idiom but with respect for the original text; I found it a joy to read.”—Irving Howe

"Martin Greenberg's translation, here presented in newly revised form, has rightly been celebrated for its colloquial idiom....The translation brings Goethe's seminal text to life for twenty-first century readers." - from the Introduction by W. Daniel Wilson

The Trial

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka's death, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.

In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel as full of energy and power as when it was first written.

They Were Counted

By Miklós Bánffy, Patrick Thursfield, Kathy Bánffy-Jelen and Patrick Leigh Fermor

Painting an unrivalled portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, this story is told through the eyes of two young Transylvanian cousins, Count Balint Abady and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament, and the luxury of life in Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel, forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and political folly, in which good manners cloak indifference and brutality. Abady becomes aware of the plight of a group of Romanian mountain peasants and champions their cause, while Gyeroffy dissipates his resources at the gaming tables, mirroring the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself. The first book in a trilogy published before World War II, it was rediscovered after the fall of Communism in Hungary and this edition contains a new foreword.

A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889

By Frederic Morton

A National Book Award Finalist from the bestselling Frederic Morton

"Frederic Morton's A NERVOUS SPLENDOR is my favorite book about Vienna." —John Irving

On January 30, 1889, at the champagne-splashed height of the Viennese Carnival, the handsome and charming Crown Prince Rudolf shot and killed his teenage mistress and then himself in a suicide pact. The two shots that rang out at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods echo still.

Frederic Morton, author of the bestselling THE ROTHSCHILDS, deftly tells the haunting story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of only ten months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." Other young men with striking intellectual and artistic talents—and all as frustrated as the Prince—moved through his Vienna. Among them were a young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. 

Art in Vienna 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and their contemporaries

By Peter Vergo

The artistic stagnation of Vienna at the end of the 19th century was rudely shaken by the artists of the Vienna Secession. Their work shocked a conservative public, but their successive exhibitions, their magazine Ver Sacrum, and their application to the applied arts and architecture soon brought them an enthusiastic following and wealthy patronage. Art in Vienna, 1898–1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and their Contemporaries, now published in its 4th edition, brilliantly traces the course of this development. Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele were the leading figures in the fine arts; Wagner, Olbrich, Loos and Hoffmann in architecture and the applied arts. In other fields, Mahler, Freud and Schnitzler were influencing the avant‐garde.

The book includes eye‐witness accounts of exhibitions, the opening of the Secession building and other events, and the result is a fascinating documentary study of the members of an artistic movement which is much admired today. Some 150 color images and 75 black and white archival illustrations make this a sumptuous and historically engrossing study of a period when Vienna was the centre of the European art world.

Nuremberg

Stuart Schulberg

This documentary examines the war crime trials at Nuremberg through photographs, recorded audio and interviews. Filmed in Nuremberg, Germany.

Ludwig

Luchino Visconti

This Academy Award–nominated film starring Helmut Berger and Romy Schneider examines the reign of Bavarian King Ludwig from 1864 until his death in 1886. Filmed in Bavaria and Italy.

The Martian

Ridley Scott

After an intense storm during a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is thought to be dead and left behind by his crew. But when NASA learns that he is still alive, scientists do what they can to bring him home, while his crewmates plan a near-impossible rescue mission. Filmed in multiple locations throughout Budapest.

Water

Julia Perkul and Anastasiya Popova

Witness breathtaking discoveries by researchers worldwide, from Russia, Kazakhstan, Switzerland and more, as they try to understand water’s phenomenal explicit and implicit properties.

Judgement at Nuremberg

Stanley Kramer

A moving re-enactment of the Nazi war crime trials at Nuremberg, starring Oscar winner for Best Actor Maximilian Schell and featuring Judy Garland and Spencer Tracy. Filmed in Nuremberg and Berlin, Germany.

Ludwig II

Helmut Käutner

As King Ludwig II retreats into a fantasy world surrounding his passion for the arts, his cabinet seeks to have him declared mentally unfit for office. Palme d’Or nominee for Best Director and three Best Actor awards. Originally titled Glanz und Ende eines Königs. Filmed in Bavaria.

Das Boot

Wolfgang Peterson

This film depicts the drama of World War II as seen through the periscope of a German U-boat. Nominated for six Academy Awards. Filmed in Heligoland and Bodensee (Lake Constance), Bavaria.

Amelia

Mira Nair

The story of Amelia Earhart’s final flight, starring Hollywood Film Award winner for Best Actress Hillary Swank as the courageous aviator. Filmed in Cologne, Germany.

Bolse Vita

Ibolya Fekete

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, three young Russians arrive in Budapest seeking their fortunes in this revealing portrait of life after Communism.

Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story

Lamont Johnson

Based on a true story, this film tells the story of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish banker and diplomat who saved more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust while living in Budapest.

Heavenly Shift

Márk Bodzsár

Set in Budapest, this film offers insights into the everyday lives of a remarkable ambulance crew. Originally titled Isteni müszak.

Forgiveness

Mariusz Kotowski

Also screened under the title Esther’s Diary, this dramatic Holocaust film follows the adult daughters of two women who were best friends in 1940s Poland, but were later separated by Nazi horrors. One daughter learns of the past from her mother’s diary. Filmed in Austin, Texas.

The Fifth Estate

Bill Condon

Based on real events. After gaining access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in US history, Julian Assange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Daniel Domscheit-Berg (played by Daniel Brühl) are confronted with a defining question of our time: What are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society and what are the costs of exposing them? Filmed in multiple locations including Antwerp and Ghent.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Peter Webber

This film tells the story of a young peasant maid who becomes a secret model for one of Johannes Vermeer’s most famous works, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Filmed in Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands.

Steady!

Herman van der Horst

This short documentary is about the reconstruction of Rotterdam following the city’s destruction by the Nazis in the Rotterdam Blitz. Originally titled Houen zo! Filmed in Rotterdam.

Admiral

Roel Reiné

This action-adventure biography revolves around real-life figure Michiel de Ruyter, one of the greatest innovators in combat engineering of the 17th century. When, on the brink of civil war, The Netherlands is attacked by England, France and Germany, only one man, Michiel de Ruyter, can lead the country’s strongest weapon, the Dutch fleet. Originally titled Michiel de Ruyter. Filmed in various locations throughout The Netherlands.

Mephisto

István Szabó

A German stage actor finds unusual success in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany, and finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons. Filmed in multiple locations including Budapest.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tomas Alfredson

During the cold war in the early 1970s when an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes terribly wrong, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns. It is believed that one of four senior figures in the service is a Russian agent, a mole. Espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover the Soviet agent within MI6. Filmed in multiple locations including Budapest.

The Three Musketeers

Paul W. S. Anderson

The young and impulsive D’Artagnan enlists three unemployed Musketeers to save the French throne from a treasonous plot. Starring Jupiter Award nominees Mila Jovovich and Orlando Bloom. Filmed in Bamberg, Burghausen and Munich, Germany.

The Reader

Stephen Daldry

Set in post-WWII Germany, this drama follows a young man whose affair with an older woman will haunt him for the rest of his life. Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her performance. Filmed in multiple locations including Berlin.

Jakob the Liar

Peter Kassovitz

Set in a wartime Polish ghetto, this film stars Robin Williams as a shopkeeper who spreads hope among the imprisoned community by fabricating tales about approaching Allied advances, claiming he has heard such stories on his secret radio. Filmed in Hungary and Poland.

The Third Man

Carol Reed

Set in postwar Vienna, this classic film stars Orson Welles and is based on the novel by Graham Greene. Filmed in Vienna.

Before Sunrise

Richard Linklater

When an American man and a French woman meet on a train from Budapest to Vienna, they end up sharing one evening, knowing it will probably be their only night together. Filmed in Vienna.

Woman in Gold

Simon Curtis

Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the Austrian government, determined to recover artwork that she believes belongs to her family and find justice for the destruction inflicted by the Nazis. Filmed in multiple locations including Vienna.

Forever My Love

Ernst Marischka

Set in the 19th-century Austrian imperial court, this condensed version of the original “Sissi” trilogy portrays the romance between Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi) and Emperor Franz Josef. Filmed in Vienna.

The Sound of Music

Robert Wise

Relive the kindness, understanding and sense of fun that Maria shares with Georg von Trapp’s seven mischievous children. Filmed in various locations throughout Austria.