He was so far ahead as a leader that not only German film, but world cinema has yet to catch up.
If you are a lover of great film and have a dvd collection, BA will be released by Criterion on November 13th. Amazon is discounting it heavily as a pre-order or you can wait for deepdiscount to run one of its semi-annual sales to get it.
Be aware that there is some controversy about the restoration process -- it is much brighter and not nearly as murky as the version that we have been living with for over 25 years.
The cinematographer did the restoration himself, but there is still controversy. All I can say is that when I saw the film over 4 nights at MoMA it seemed absolutely Fassbinderian in its effect.
The Criterion release will also include a 1931 version that runs 91 minutes and was scripted by Doblin himself.
Finally, most of Fassbinder's movies were realeased by Wellspring which is now part of the Weinstein Company, a.k.a. the Evil Empire among film critics for Harvey Scissorhands frequent recutting of foreign films (in an attempt to improve them for American audiences), as well as a tendency to buy the rights to a film and then do nothing with it.
So if you want dvd copies of particular films, get them while you can.
Brian