Film

Fox and His Friends

Fassbinder's most accessible film traces a lottery-winner's descent into a predatory relationship with a wealthy man. It's a brutal love story about class, desire, and the fantasy that money can buy belonging. Funny and devastating by turns, it's a masterclass in watching someone's self-deception in real time.

TMDb rating3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a bleak, unflinching study of class snobbery and emotional exploitation, told with the cool, deliberate framing of a director who treats every glance as a verdict.

Skip it if you need quick pacing or a character to root for; at 125 minutes its icy, deliberate style can feel airless, and nearly everyone in it is hard to like.

What it asks of you: Two hours and five minutes of patience: long, held scenes, stretches of stillness, and a steady unease that builds rather than jolts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Midnight Cowboy1969

Jon Voight's desperate, disintegrating hustler pursuing connection in New York mirrors Fox's trajectory perfectly. A raw, unsentimental portrait of exploitation that understands why people stay trapped.

But The sexual content and scenes of abuse are graphic and difficult. It's unsparing in ways that make you uncomfortable by design.

Midnight Cowboy poster

The Counterfeiters2007

A con man's carefully constructed life collapses when he falls for someone who uses and discards him. It has Fox's rhythm: charm and intelligence can't protect you from someone who doesn't care.

But It's a French film with subtitles, and the pacing is patient. If you want a conventional narrative arc, you'll find the ending anticlimactic.

The Counterfeiters poster

In a Lonely Place1950

Humphrey Bogart as a volatile man whose dark nature emerges through a relationship. It shares Fox's examination of how easily love becomes a weapon, and violence doesn't always need to be physical.

But The 1950s framework means some gender dynamics feel remote. You'll want the character to be saved and he won't cooperate.

In a Lonely Place poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Fox and His Friends

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Taste of Honey1961

Both use intimate relationships as a lens for class resentment and the economics of desire. Both feature characters who are smarter than the world permits them to be.

A young working-class woman and an older wealthy man in a transactional relationship—but the film is hers, not his, and it refuses to judge her pragmatism. It's about survival and dignity in class collapse, shot through with humour and tenderness Fassbinder doesn't allow.

But The 1960s British working-class setting can feel quaint. The film trusts you to understand the economics without explaining them.

A Taste of Honey poster
More like this (8)

Querelle1982

Also Fassbinder, also about a beautiful young man navigating a world of older, wealthier men. More stylised and operatic, but wrestling with the same questions about sex, power, and survival.

But It's genuinely strange—colour-saturated and theatrical in a way that can feel arch. Fassbinder's style is very much on display, for better or worse.

Querelle poster

Belle de Jour1967

Buñuel's portrait of a woman descending into sexual submission through fantasy and desire. Like Fox, it's interested in the gap between what people want to believe about themselves and what they're actually doing.

But The eroticism is subtle and sometimes obscure. You might find yourself puzzled by what's happening rather than moved by it.

Belle de Jour poster

The Swimmer1968

Burt Lancaster as a man unravelling in plain sight, his delusion maintained through sheer force of will. It's about class anxiety and the performance of belonging, wrapped in the strangest American film ever made.

But The tonal whiplash—funny one moment, horrifying the next—alienates some viewers. And the ending is not cathartic.

The Swimmer poster

Hustlers2019

A story of women manipulating wealthy men for survival, but told with humour and energy. It flips the dynamic while keeping Fox's core insight: everyone involved knows the deal and does it anyway.

But The style is sleek and modern to a degree that obscures the darkness. You might enjoy it as a heist film and miss what it's actually saying about desperation.

Hustlers poster

Another Year2010

Mike Leigh's brutal examination of a happy couple as a mirror to everyone around them falling apart. It has Fox's unflinching eye for how people sabotage themselves through need.

But It's glacially paced and offers no catharsis. The unhappy people don't learn; they just get older and sadder.

Another Year poster

The Leopard1963

Visconti's portrait of a man trying to hold onto his position and power through a changing world. It's about the futility of climbing when the ladder itself is collapsing beneath you.

But It's a three-hour Italian epic with a glacial pace. The sumptuous visuals can feel like ornament if you're impatient with baroque storytelling.

The Leopard poster

Mommie Dearest1981

Both watch abuse unfold in real time without rescue. Both understand that the victim's weakness—their need to believe—is what traps them. Both suggest this is not pathological but logical.

Unintentionally, this becomes a portrait of someone desperate to be loved by someone incapable of love, told through abusive spectacle and emotional violence. It's melodrama as documentary—camp as historical evidence of narcissistic cruelty.

But It's camp trash, and many see it as unserious. Taking it as drama rather than comedy requires you to sit with discomfort rather than laugh it off.

Mommie Dearest poster

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles1976

Released the same year as Fox, it's an anatomy of how people perform for others and what cracks in that performance. Both suggest that small rituals and transactions are the structure of intimate life.

Chantal Akerman's three-hour film of a woman in domestic routine is about labour, desire, and the economics of the body. It's the inverse of Fox—a woman performing competence and control—but it asks the same question: what is the cost of survival?

But It's experimental and nearly plotless. Three hours of routine will feel like torture if you need narrative momentum. Many consider it a test of endurance rather than entertainment.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles poster

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Recommended by

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World on a Wire: Looking Ahead to Today, In a Year with 13 Moons