István Szabó • Hungary • 1981 • The Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film.

Germany, the early 1930s. The Reich exerts increasing power, and Hendrik Höfgen faces a choice: to leave, or to stay? The passionate but struggling stage actor abandons his political views, reaping the rewards of this Faustian pact by finally achieving the stardom he has long craved. But at what cost?

Based on the eponymous novel by Klaus Mann, Mephisto presents a startling vision of politics, pageantry, and propaganda in Nazi Germany. Hungarian master István Szabó’s film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981, the first time in the country’s history. Now screening in a new 4K restoration by the Hungarian Film Fund.