Effi Briest

In the nineteenth century, seventeen year old Effi Briest is married to the older Baron von Instetten and moves into a house, that she believes has a ghost, in a small isolated Baltic town.

Similarities between "Effi Briest" and 20th-century Germany were easily found, helping to explain the popularity of the book and its subsequent film adaptions there. During the 1970s, West Germany was being racked by civil unrest as people sought to effect change, among these movements was the women's civil rights movement, which became a major influence for the film, as it compared the repressive nature in society between 19th century Prussia and 1970s West Germany.

Fassbinder is one of the giants of new German cinema (by "new" I mean post-WWII), and here he demonstrates his prowess. Epic in length, using black and white to its fullest extent... this is one of those films that made him great, even if it may not be the most-remembered of Fassbinder films.