Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt)

Released 1998
Stars Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Armin Rohde, Joachim Król, Ludger Pistor, Suzanne von Borsody
Directed by Tom Tykwer

"Run Lola Run" is the kind of movie that could play on the big screen in a sports bar. It's an exercise in kinetic energy, a film of nonstop motion and visual invention. A New York critic called it "post-human," and indeed its heroine is like the avatar in a video game--Lara Croft made flesh.

The setup: Lola gets a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He left a bag containing 100,000 deutsche marks on the subway, and a bum made away with it. Manni is expected to deliver the money at noon to a gangster. If he fails, he will probably be killed. His desperate plan: Rob a bank. Lola's desperate plan: Find the money somehow, somewhere, in 20 minutes. Run, Lola, run!

The director, a young German named Tom Tykwer, throws every trick in the book at us, and then the book, and then himself. Lola sometimes runs so frantically that mere action cannot convey her energy, and the movie switches to animation. There's speedup, instant replay, black and white, whatever. And the story of Lola's 20-minute run is told three times, each time with small differences that affect the outcome and the fate of the characters.

Summary by Roger Ebert