At a tennis club in rural Germany, preparations for the summer party are led by Heribert. When a separate grill is suggested for Erol, the club's only Muslim member, tensions flare. What begins as a simple discussion quickly turns into a debate about societal and personal conflicts, threatening to tear the club apart.
Behind one of the best-selling jazz records of all time, Keith Jarrett’s 1975 Köln Concert, how it almost didn’t happen, and how one formidable German teenager, Vera Brandes, breaks every boundary to set the conditions for the creation of a masterpiece. Vera, still in high school when she started producing and promoting music concerts in Cologne, puts everything on the line to put on this show. But Vera believes in the power of music, and she’s never seen anyone play like Keith Jarrett before.
Amal, Omar, and their son Ahmad are a happy Arab family living in Germany. At the playground, they encounter a man named Franz. The situation gets out of hand when Franz insults and attacks Amal because of her headscarf. The case goes to court, but an incident during the hearing changes everything for the family.
Geriatric nurse Carolin finds a lottery ticket with six correct numbers. Her family would think it would be great to use the money for their own needs, but Carolin cannot reconcile that with her conscience. So she sets out to find the rightful owner of the lottery ticket. As if that wasn't exhausting enough, lawyer Felix is breathing down her neck, who wants the best possible care for his mother Elinor...
In 1916, the officer of the German secret service Elsbeth Schragmüller trains the end-of-career exotic dancer Mata Hari as secret agent. Schragmüller has finally an ear directly in the influential circles of Paris, while Mata Hari can uphold her mundane life despite lack of engagements. Both have great hope for this intelligence mission.
Julian is a 12-year-old boy whose family is just scraping by in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany in the early 1960s . When his mother and younger sister go away for a while, he is left mostly alone in the apartment while his father works in the coal mine. He has to confront the confusing world of adults and older boys and the older girl next door on his own. Finally events build up and threaten to tear the family apart.
In the late 70s, young Petra Grust begins teaching at the progressive Odenwald School. She is flattered by the trust placed in her by its widely respected headmaster Simon Pistorius. But gradually certain incidents at the boarding school begin to unsettle her. Petra then realizes that Pistorius is abusing Frank, a 13-year-old. When Frank is told that he has to spend school holidays with Pistorius, he tries to commit suicide. Petra tells Frank's father (the chairman of the school's governing body) but he believes Pistorius instead of his own son. Petra fails to convince people of the man's true nature. 30 years later, Frank goes to Petra, who has long since left the school and has stopped teaching altogether. He has never been able to speak about what happened but now, after the suicide of another pupil, he is no longer willing to remain silent. He wants Petra to bear witness at the school's forthcoming anniversary celebrations.
This is a family story that covers thirty years in the life of the Freytag family (narrated by the grandson, Robert). When his grandfather returns from Russia in 1949, he becomes part of the German "economic miracle" by producing garden gnomes. Klaus, Robert's father, wants to become a writer. He marries Gisela who almost immediately gets pregnant with Robert - but the marriage doesn't work. Both parents abandon the child, and Robert goes on living with both pairs of grand parents. While his father belongs to the 1968 generation that rebels against their fathers he falls in love with the neighbor's's daughter Laura.
Frank Lehmann, 20, still lives with his parents in the dreary high-rise housing project "Neue Vahr" in Bremen. It's the year 1980 and Frank gets drafted to the army even though his friends assure him that "he's not really the guy for it". When he gets back home, after his first week at the army, his Dad has turned his room into a TV repair shop, so Frank has to move out. Luckily his old friend Martin is starting a commune with two other Punks in Bremens leftist borough "Viertel". Frank, without further ado rents the unlivable walk-through room. From now on Frank is a traveler between the Worlds. Each week he goes from the Army, with all the unconditional rules and regulations to the commune where his friends are preaching the world revolution. Frank is trying to avoid to stick out, but fails miserably, in both worlds.
Aged hairdresser Hans Anton Schatz still lives at home with his mother and works in the small-town salon around the corner. He adores the florist Melanie, but she is engaged to a wild Ruhr proletarian. Shortly before the wedding, she is overcome with panic and persuades Hans Anton to take a bus trip to Berlin. Hans Anton blossoms in the big city and falls in love with an extroverted TV presenter, whom he pursues all the way to her show.
The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.