The Cars We Drove into Capitalism

Oct 27, 2021

1h 33m

★ 7.0

Overview

A cinematic, character-driven insight to what it meant to produce and to own a car in communist times: the Socialist propaganda dreams and the hard reality of living that dream. The freedom that these slow and clumsy vehicles were giving to their owners; the cars as an instrument in the Cold War battle; legends and homemade tune-ups as an attempt to stand at least a little bit off the crowd.

Genres

Documentary

History

TV Movie

Production Companies

Agitprop

Endorfilm

Danish Documentary

Saxonia Entertainment

Hulahop

MDR

ARTE

The Cars We Drove into Capitalism Trailers

Cast

Self (archive footage)

Erich Honecker

Self (archive footage)

Todor Zhivkov

Self (archive footage)

Leonid Brezhnev

Self (archive footage)

Ronald Reagan

Self

Petar Klissarov

Self

Kristina Traktirova

Self

John Haugland

Self

Marion Mahlke

Self

Rolf Mahlke

Self

Neven Nevenov

Self

Tania Petkovska

Self

Nikita Rogushin

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

8.0

Our War

Jun 11, 2025

Between February and April 2025, filmmakers Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel filmed the Pokrovsk and Soumy fronts in eastern Ukraine, following the fighters of the Anne de Kyiv Brigade, armed by France. They filmed the daily lives of the inhabitants, bombarded by Russian forces terrorizing civilians on the eve of possible negotiations. They interview President Zelenskyy, who is reluctant to travel to Washington, and then watch the rebroadcast of the meeting with Ukrainian soldiers in a bunker. For the real heroes are the anonymous fighters and civilians who hold their heads high in the face of adversity and suffering, and who are filmed on a daily basis. The final part of Lévy’s “Ukrainian Quartet”, Our War is a diary, peppered with flashbacks in which the author recalls the high points of this war that began in 2014.

8.0

Stalin's Last Plot

Aug 26, 2011

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.

7.0

Apocalypse Clarkson

Oct 19, 1997

Clarkson compares a number of sports and touring cars to find the best-handing car in the world. Jeremy tests a reviled Lada to destruction, a Toyota off-roader is matched head to head with the largest muckspreader Europe can offer and a whole lot more besides!

4.0

Clarkson: Shoot-Out

Nov 10, 2003

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0.0

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3.0

Crazy Race

Mar 23, 2003

Marc owes a criminal a quarter of a million euros. So it's just as well that there's an illegal car rally across Germany to win exactly that amount. Inconveniently, he is now supposed to look after his eight-year-old daughter.

6.2

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Aug 28, 2017

Using testimonies by pioneers and witnesses of the times, delve into the feverish visual culture the media generated – with far-fetched examples of canine television games, seduction manuals, aerobics class while holding a baby, among others.

0.0

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0.0

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19 years after the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan, the Olympic Games of 1964 took place in Tokyo. In the midst of the cold war, the games are supposed to become a symbol for a peaceful world. Especially the divided Germany is expected to prove this: By order of the IOC, both German states must participate in Tokyo with a joint team despite deep ideological rifts. The fact that athletes from both German states still had to compete against each other in order to form a joint team for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck and in Tokyo is all but forgotten. The film tells the story of the East-West German team of 1964 for the first time and is simultaneously a current document about the relation of sports and politics in international relations.

6.0

Hostile Waters

Oct 18, 1997

Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.

6.8

The Day After

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In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

7.2

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Aug 4, 2006

In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline... Ten years later, these cars were destroyed.

7.2

Fuel

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Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.

0.0

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Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.

7.0

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Dec 25, 2000

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6.0

The Paper Brigade

Mar 15, 2018

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

6.0

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10.0

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4.5

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No overview available.