The Sideshow (1928)

Santa Sangre

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.

Joshilaay

Dara and Karan, the sons of two of the victims of dacoit Jogi Thakur, wait many years to exact their revenge. When the Thakur's colleague Raja Singh cheats him and runs away with his loot, Jogi is arrested and sentenced for life imprisonment. Years later Jogi escapes from the prison to get hold of Raja and take back his booty, but finds his face on all the posters in the village to find him dead or alive with a reward of fifty thousand rupees. When Karan gets to know Jogi has escaped he goes looking for him. Dara also join hands with Karan to even the score with the dreaded dacoit.

The Tin Drum

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

La Strada

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

The Girl on the Bridge

It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.

Arena

In one of the occupied European cities, the commandant of the garrison gathers a troupe of circus performers. Coming from different countries, they are in the humiliating position of people forced to serve their enslavers. Many of them, recruited from camps and workhouses, were quite content with their lot. Only after a chain of subsequent events, the artists raise an uprising. Unarmed people are not able to resist the arrived guards. They die, but at the cost of their lives they regain their lost human dignity.

Big Fish

Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.

A Short Story

Focusing on the predicaments of those born with genetic defect causing dwarfism, the film is the love story between Khoka and Soma.

1-2-3 Corona

Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist named Corona comes to the destroyed city with a traveling circus. She immediately caught the boys' attention. When the latter notice that the circus director is abusing the girl, the two gangs join forces and plot an act of revenge against the tyrant. But with the hustle and bustle caused by this, Corona falls from the trapeze and is seriously injured. When the circus moves on, the boys organize a doctor for the sick artist who has been left behind. Their collectively concern for the blonde beauty makes them forget their enmity. This welds the troops closer together and sets the course for a common, meaningful future.

Wings of Desire

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Dixiana

A circus performer falls in love with the son of a plantation owner in antebellum New Orleans. When the young man's stepmother objects to the wedding, the couple break apart and go their separate ways for a time. Also in the mix are two circus comics who feud over the heart of another Southern belle.

Mera Naam Joker

Raju faces many hurdles and disappointments in matters of the heart throughout his life. But as a clown in a circus, he tries to make his audience laugh at the cost of his own sorrows. Along the way, Raju loves and loses, but must always keep a smile on his face because, in the words of his circus manager, "The show must go on."

Werckmeister Harmonies

A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.

Trapeze

A pair of men try to perform the dangerous "triple" in their trapeze act. Problems arise when the duo is made into a trio following the addition of a sexy female performer.

Smalltown Boys

A young man seems to be dreaming of a reality different from the business he is about to take over and the married life that goes with it; he is drawn to the spicy life of a queer vaudeville troupe performing in his village.

Street Angel

A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.

The Last Romantic Lover

The romance between a lion tamer and a liberated girl.

The Greatest Show on Earth

To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.

The Unknown

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

He Who Gets Slapped

After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.

Lili

Members of a circus troupe "adopt" Lili Daurier when she finds herself stranded in a strange town. The magician who first comes to her rescue already has romantic entanglements and thinks of her as a little girl. Who can she turn to but the puppets, singing to them her troubles, forgetting that there are puppeteers? A crowd gathers around Lili as she sings. The circus has a new act. She now has a job. Will she get her heart's desire?

The Greatest Showman

The story of American showman P.T. Barnum, founder of the circus that became the famous traveling Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The Serpent's Egg

Berlin, 1923. Following the suicide of his brother, American circus acrobat Abel Rosenberg attempts to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

The Balloon Vendor

A young boy tries to make living out of a puppet show when his mother abandons him and his father.

Berserk!

A lady ringmaster milks the publicity from a string of murders.

Nairu Pidicha Pulivalu

Chandran, a circus performer, and Thankam are in love. The circus team borrows some money from Thankam's father, Paithal Nair. When they are unable to repay, Paithal Nair takes away their animals.

I'll Give a Million

After saving a tramp from suicide, a millionaire takes his clothing and disappears. Word is out that he will give a million dollars to anyone who is kind to a tramp.

You Never Know Women

On her way to the theater, Vera, star of a Russian vaudeville troupe, is rescued from a falling girder by Eugene Foster, a wealthy broker who persists in his efforts to win the girl. Foster engages the troupe to perform at his home, and Vera, stunned by a fall, awakens to find Foster pleading his love, while Norodin, her partner who loves her, sees them embrace. Norodin, who performs an underwater stunt, asks Vera not to be present for his act and causes her to believe him dead; heartbroken, Vera tells Foster of her mistake; and enraged, he attempts to seize her. The magician appears, pins Foster to the wall with knives, and advises him to leave before the last blade is thrown.

A Tiger Walks

A tiger escapes from a circus truck as it passes by a small town, and hides itself in the surrounding woods. This throws the town into a panic and everyone wants the animal killed immediately, except for the daughter of the sheriff. She wants to capture the tiger and put it in a zoo, thereby saving the tiger's life. Her determination starts a nationwide campaign among children to raise the money to buy the tiger from the circus, but first, she, her father and an Indian tiger trainer must find the tiger before the National Guard do, who have orders to kill it on sight.

Jungle Woman

Paula, the ape woman, has survived the ending of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN and is running around a creepy old sanitarium run by the kindly Dr. Fletcher, reverting to her true gorilla form every once in a while to kill somebody.

The One and Only Ivan

A gorilla named Ivan who’s living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.

It's a Small World

Harry Musk is one in a million. That means that he's the one out of a million children who is perfectly proportioned but will never grow larger than a typical six-year-old. Adult, pint-sized Harry longs to be part of the big world.

The Wagons Roll at Night

An escaped circus lion provides the impetus for the meeting of carnival owner Nick Coster and Matt Varney, a small-town man who suddenly becomes a lion tamer when he manages to subdue the big cat. While acclimating to carnival life, Matt begins a romance with Nick's sister, Mary, causing tension between Matt and Nick. The latter must also juggle his stormy relationship with glamorous circus star Flo Lorraine.

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

An original story featuring performances by Cirque du Soleil. A young woman is entranced by an Aerialist. When they fall into the dreamlike world of Cirque du Soleil and are separated, they travel through the different tent worlds trying to find each other.

The Big Cage

A circus on the verge of bankruptcy decides to save itself by staging a animal act with lions and tigers for the first time.

Rain or Shine

Young Mary Rainey takes the reins of her deceased father's failing circus. With the help of the Inimitable Smiley Johnson, she hopes to bring fortune back to her ragtag band of ragged shoeleather performers.

Man on a Tightrope

The owner of an impoverished circus in Communist-ruled Czechoslovokia plots to flee across the border to freedom, taking his entire troupe of performers and wild animals with him.

You and Me

Two middle-aged doctors and longtime friends reunite after a long separation and find themselves in a love triangle. Pyotr, Sasha, and Katya feel that life has passed them by. They seek spiritual salvation in a cruel modern world.

The Favorite

A clown leaves the circus where he performed for many years. Accompanied by his nephew and white puddle Arto, he starts performing street shows to earn for living.

Roselyne and the Lions

Thierry drops out of school to apprentice as a lion tamer at the zoo where he meets Roselyne, who shares his passion. They fall in love and when he loses his job, the young lovers journey across France finding odd jobs at several circuses. In Germany, they fall under the tutelage of ageing big cat trainer, Klint, and while they are closer to realising their dreams, they find that their success drivers them part.

Morning Star

A small circus arrives in a coastal area of the North Sea: the place looks rather eerie and the audience is quite scarce. But despite all of this, the life of the performers is animated by feelings born under the circus tent, and which are often lived out in the secret of their trailers. The ballerina Angèle has an affair with Elliot, the company's clown who is tormented by his conscience; but she is also courted by Heroy, the circus director; he is a cruel and potentially dangerous man who is willing to win her over by resorting to the powers of the magician Zephyr.

Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos

A young circus director ends up going into television after her father, a trapeze performer, dies in a circus accident.

The Big Circus

A circus owner tries to keep his financially troubled circus on the road, despite the efforts of a murderous saboteur who has decided that the show must not go on.

Bear Story

An old bear goes out every day to a busy street corner. Through a tin marionette theater of his own making, the bear will tell us his life story.

Outside Ozona

A widowed trucker fends off isolation in the company of a dog named Girl, two bickering sisters try to reconcile their differences and a down-and-out circus clown and his stripper girlfriend must fight the temptation of crime on the road. Their common companion is an angry disc jockey at odds with a desperate boss. All these people will find their lives intertwined by the hand of fate. And before the night gives way to day, some will breathe their last breath... Outside Ozona.

Fire Light

Biography of a Brazilian dancer who lived on an island and practiced nudism when it was forbidden by law.

The Gallery of Monsters

The whimsical Riquet's has kidnapped and married a well-born young girl, Ralda. They travel around Spain performing their act in a circus but Ralda's beauty arouses the director's lust. Furious at being rejected, he opens a lion's cage during Ralda's act, leaving her seriously injured. With Ralda's family on their trail, the young people set off to find a better life elsewhere.

The Big Show

A European circus family is torn apart by greed and jealousy.