Gods of the Plague

Gods of the Plague
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Produced by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder Michael Fengler Peer Raben
Written by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Music by	Peer Raben
Cinematography	Dietrich Lohmann
Edited by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder Thea Eymèsz
Production company	Antiteater-X-Film GmbH
Distributed by	Basis-Film-Verleih GmbH
Release date	4 April 1970 (Vienna International Film Festival)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	West Germany
Language	German
Budget	DM 180,000

Gods of the Plague (German: Götter der Pest) is a 1970 West German black-and-white drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

After his release from prison, ex-convict Franz Walsch finds his way back into the Munich criminal underworld and also finds that his attentions become focused upon two women, Joanna and Margarethe, as well as upon Günther, his friend who earlier shot his brother.

The film was shot in Munich and Dingolfing during five weeks in October and November 1969 with Fassbinder eventually coming to consider it, shortly before he died, as the fifth-best feature film he made during his entire career.

Kaja Silverman, author of the scholarly article "Fassbinder and Lacan: A Reconsideration of Gaze, Look, and Image," wrote that the film "holds subject and ideal image at the most extreme distance from each other and that, hence, attests most eloquently to the latter's recalcitrant exteriority." She further wrote that the character of Margarethe "sustains her identity through constant reference to an external representation." Commenting on the scene in which she sees herself in a poster of a face of a blonde woman, Silverman stated that it is "presumably a blown-up advertisement." It has also been noted that the film is replete with homoerotic symbolism.

The film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in 2013 through its Eclipse series as part of a box set together with Love Is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher, The American Soldier and Beware of a Holy Whore.