Historical Private Affairs

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

Napoleon's army besieges Győr. Mr. Léner, the grain merchant, is deeply hoping for the French emperor's victory, hoping an alliance with him could assure Hungary's independence from the Habsburg rule.

Avary, himself a hustler, is jealous of his beautiful wife. He eavesdrops to catch Vilma, his wife, having supper with a neighbour on the terrace of their manor-house. He is about to shoot at the woman, but it is him who gets shot to death.

The celebrated actor considers his wife a nitwits actress of a mediocre talent. But an influential playwright, a friend of theirs, has written a play with the main role designed for her, Kati, particularly. Its title is "The Most Intelligent Woman in the World". On the day of the first night performance Kati recalls their past, the times she had together with her husband.

A new teacher arrives at the secondary grammar school. The girls are all crazy for the handsome, blonde young man, except for the most excellent pupil, Balázs Ági. Yet Pali starts paying his attentions to no one else but her.

On the novel by Mór Jókai. The first half of the XVIII century. Several decades of life of a noble family Karpati.

Based on the stories of Hungarian writer Gyula Krúdy, this film is a lush and sensuous depiction of the life, loves and memories of serial seducer Szindbád. As the protagonist looks back on his life, past and present, imagination and reality flow inseparably into one another.

Csutak is just a pain in the neck, the little boy is even excluded from play by his mates. Vacation is spent lonely until one day he sneaks the woman haulier's old, shabby horse, a creature that would be better off in a slaughterhouse, out with himself. Possessing the animal is the key to the children's gang. They all try to find a place for the horse.

This romantic and grandiose historical film depicts the era of the constant incursions and heroic battles fought by the defenders of the castle of Eger, led by captain István Dobó, against the heavy odds of superior numbers through the lives and love of Bornemissza Gergely and Cecey Éva. Gergely is inaugurated as a fighter already at the age of 7, when he escapes the captivity of the half-eyed Turk, Jumurdzsak, with Vica and the war-booty. In thirty years' time he becomes the first assistant of captain Dobó and the brain of the castle in the defence of Eger.

The engineer Ambrus has been suspended in his job because he publicly called the attention of the customers to a construction mistake of some goods designed to be exported. His immediate boss learns the news on a business trip to Paris. He meets his old friend Lendvay, an emigrant from Hungary, and his French wife in a cellar bar. After their talk Benkő starts seeing things in a different perspective. When he returns home, he decides to take a stand for Ambrus against Ferenczi, the general director, despite his wife's and the old director's advice.

A past world is revived in the little cottage in the outskirts, next to the housing blocks under construction. Tamburás, the old hobo collects swerved youth: Diák, who desires freedom, the bus driver who is deprived of his license for having run over someone, and the rest. They have got an easy and unbound life there, with constant music, small thefts, occasional labour, tricks.

The elite of political and business life of the country town gather to celebrate the namesday of Haudek László in the luxury villa. Everything begins just as usual, but now an incident disturbs the stag party.

Nelli, the icy, introverted farm girl, needs to find a husband following her father's death. She accepts the attentions of the noisy Takaró Sanyi, although she is more attracted to his silent and modest younger brother.

Two arts students, András and Viktor who are writing their thesis on detective stories, make up a story and keep nagging the famous film-director, who just came back from Hollywood, until he undertakes the job. At night they work on the film, in which two youths kill a director returning from the US. In the morning the director is found dead - a knife in his back.

Count János Buttler rushes home to his parents and his beloved for the school holidays. On the way, they stop at Baron Dőry's house, where János is deviously trapped. In the presence of false witnesses, he is forcibly married to Baron Dőry's pregnant daughter. The swearing priest is the father of the unborn child. Although Buttler, his family and friends do their utmost to have the marriage annulled, the Church and the court, fearing for his authority, will not allow it. John Buttler and his lover therefore choose another way to divorce.

A woman learns that one of her doctor husband's patients used to be the cellmate of her first husband, who died in prison years before.

The poetic love story depicting everyday life from a micro-psychological aspect takes place in the 1910s. Sándor, editor of the local paper, serves as a foot soldier on Sundays, but spends weekdays playing billiard and courting women. One Sunday afternoon - in soldier's uniform - he meets Vilma, the beautiful maid, whose honesty and chastity turns the adventure to love.

Ulveczky, unbridled bull of the village, is incapable of living in the small community like others. He runs his farm and lives life as a tyrant. His licentious temperament leads him to take whatever he wants, women included, who are swept off their feet. His victims include a beautiful young girl who nearly dies when he tires of and ejects her. With great difficulty, she restarts her life, hoping that she has finally freed herself of the brute who, however, doesn't let go quite so easily.

Against the backdrop of the Adolph Eichmann trials, an elderly paraplegic pharmacist is summoned to the police station, where he believes that his hidden wartime guilt has caught up with him, unaware that it is all in fact an elaborate practical joke.

A young peasant boy stands up to tyranny, aided by his trusting friend- a goose.

The "sleepless years" in this propaganda piece by director Felix Marlassy occur on Csepel Island, an island south of Budapest that is home to an armaments factory. The factory workers are shown being exploited by imperialists, capitalists gone berserk, and fascists, more or less in that exact chronological sequence. The heavy-handed approach does much to undercut the belief that when socialism finally takes over, the lives of the workers are brought up to a human level. In this instance, audiences might prefer a more nuanced and subtle statement, no matter what the message.

Everyone loves little Junior, but nobody has time for him. So Junior decides to find Time with the help of his friends - dwarves.

The rich love wealth and believe that if they don't keep accumulating it, the world will collapse. It is this human weakness that Volpone, the old con man, builds on, inventing an unexpected trick to play a sickly old man about to die, who, with the help of his servant and skilful apprentice, tricks the hypocritical but wealthy Venetian citizens into doing anything in the hope of a rich inheritance. How things don't turn out as planned...

Peter Gothar films give a sharp, uncensored view of the society. This film is no different. The plot is rather simple: a family goes to vacation with the usual stress. Then on the vacation the wife gets a strange kind of sickness and they go back to Budapest for a cure. While the wife is in the hospital, the husband visits his family. This is quite banal. However the scenario was written by Peter Esterhazy, one of the most influential contemporary writers in Hungary. His style uses a lot of surrealism but in a way that profoundly illuminates the reality. In this film, the reality is an atomized society where the so-called communist ideals are nowhere so everyday people are fully disoriented.

Merry soldiers arrive in the sleepy Transdanubian town. The cynical woman-hunter, Ferdinándy, learns to know doctor Barlay's beautiful wife at a carnival. She lives a happy married life, and the attentions of the lieutenant are all in vain.

In May 1919 in a small rural town beside Salgótarján the local high society wants to get the power back with the leadership of dr. Máriáss, exploiting the outside attack launched against the Republic of Councils.

The protagonists of a comic Romeo and Juliet story full of gags are two widowed pensioners. Nádor and Mrs. Komáromi meet in the cemetery while mourning their dead spouses and they fall in love.

In 1963 in Tihany, somebody addresses the writer Gábor Náday. He is reminded of a night drive in 1944 that saved his life. Painful memories start coming to Náday.