The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly survived Auschwitz but had to undergo reconstructive surgery as her face was disfigured. Without recognizing Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelganger.

A mute man with a violent past is forced to take on the teeming underworld of a near-future Berlin as he searches for his missing girlfriend.

While subjected to the horrors of WWII Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Under the stairs in her home, a Jewish refugee is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.

Weinachten 1971: Die siebenjährige Kimîa bekommt eine Super 8-Kamera geschenkt. Durch die neue Kamera beobachtet sie ihre Mutter Hanna, die von ihrem Ehemann mit dem überraschenden Plan konfrontiert wird bald in seine Heimat, den Iran, zu ziehen. Großmutter Hilde will den Umzug ihrer Tochter und Enkelin mit allen Mitteln verhindern. Hanna kämpft zwischen den Fronten um ihre Rolle als junge Mutter.