Film noir, which enjoyed particular success in the 1930s and 1940s, is probably the most profound genre of classic Hollywood cinema. Eckhart Schmidt tries to show the background and developments and speaks, among others, with directors such as Richard Fleischer and Robert Wise as well as with "femme fatale" actresses. Filmmakers of the following generations explain how the style and themes of noir continue to shape cinema today.

In 1960, a pilot testing an experimental rocket powered aircraft accidentally flies into the future and finds himself in a sealed city whose people suspect he is a spy from outside their walls, but who want to keep him to procreate with the ruler's daughter because the majority of the inhabitants are sterile.

A young American painter and his French wife move with their small daughter to the US when the husband's father dies. His mother takes an instant dislike to the wife, and when she finds out that her daughter-in-law is a nudist who once posed naked for an artist, she declares her son's wife to be an unfit mother and sets out to break up the marriage--which may not be difficult to do, as the son is a weak-willed "mama's boy" who's terrified to stand up against his domineering mother.

Documentary on the life and work of B-movie filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer, spanning from his early life to his last film.

A comprehensive story of Hollywood's horror and science fiction films of the 1950s, told by the people who made them.

A group of men calling themselves 'The Pirates of Capri", headed by Captain Sirroco, who is really Count Amalfi, are trying to restore freedom to the people of Naples. The Queen is advised of the pirate's assault of a member of her court and she seeks to escape to Palermo. But, she is advised it would be good politics for her to attend a ball Amalfi is giving for his fiancée, Mercedes, who is unaware of the dual role Amalfi is playing.

Nat Silver has been engaged 7 times already. This time, his 8th, he's really going to get married. But a visitor shows up, Shirley's old boyfriend. With a gun ! He'll kill himself unless he can have Shirley back, and Nat graciously gives in. According to Nat's mother, his Uncle Shya was unlucky at love but lucky as a matchmaker, and Nat is just like Shya. Nat tells his family he's going to Italy. But he remains in New York and sets himself up with a new name and new business, Nat Gold, Advisor in Human Relations...

All-out war between the United States and an Asian country is averted when the two sides agree to settle their differences by each choosing a single soldier as champion and having the two men fight to the death on an isolated island.