German Cinema
The devastation of World War One left Germany's budding film industry, like much of Europe, in tatters. But necessity being the mother of invention, German Expressionism was born. Relying heavily on symbolism and shadow rather than elaborate and costly sets, films like 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' are still studied by film students the world over. By the mid-1920s, the industry was getting back on its feet and great directors like Fritz Lang and FW Murnau were making their early masterpieces. However the onset of Nazism and the impending war led many of Germany's artists, including filmmakers, to flee to the U.S. Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Karl Freund and many more all continued their careers in America while the German film industry virtually disappeared. It was not unitl the '60s and '70s that new talents emerged. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Viktor Schlondorff and Wim Wenders revitalised German cinema and today international hits such as 'Run Lola Run' and 'Goodbye Lenin!' assure us it is here to stay.
Right: 'Run Lola Run'
Hannah Arendt (2012)
7.1/10
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Barbara Sukowa, Janet McTeer, Ulrich Noethen, Julia Jentsch, Axel Milberg, Micha...
The sublime Barbara Sukowa stars in this biopic of the influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist. Hannah Arendt's reporting on the... Read more
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010)
7.7/10
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Werner Herzog
A documentary depicting the life and work of the trappers of Bakhtia, a village in the heart of the Siberian Taiga, where daily life has changed littl... Read more
Head-On (2005)
8/10
Director: Fatih Akin
Starring: Birol Unel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck, Guven Kirac
Two desperate Turkish immigrants in Hamburg, Sibel and Cahit, meet at a psychiatrist's. She needs to escape her conservative family; he's a heavy drin... Read more
Heart of Glass (1976)
7.1/10
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Josef Bierbichler, Stefan Guttler, Clemens Scheitz
Werner Herzog each day put the cast into a hypnotic trance in an attempt to achieve an effect of collective hysteria in this tale of a glassblower who... Read more
Hell (2011)
5.9/10
Director: Tim Fehlbaum
Starring: Angela Winkler, Stipe Erceg, Hannah Herzsprung, Lars Eidinger, Lisa Vicari
Post-apocalyptic horror in which a group of survivors fight for survival in a barren, desolate futureworld. It's 2016 and global warming has reduced t... Read more
In The Face Of Crime (2010)
8/10
Starring: Max Riemelt, Ronald Zehrfeld, Mark Ivanir
The worlds of a young Russo-German cop who investigates within the Berlin Russian mafia milieu and a young Russian woman who is forced into prostituti... Read more
In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) (2017)
7.1/10
Director: Fatih Akin
Starring: Diane Kruger, Adam Bousdoukos, Numan Acar, Denis Moschitto
Katja's life falls apart in the blink of an eye when two neo-Nazis kill her husband and 6-year-old son in a bomb attack. Her quest for justice soon pu... Read more
Joyeux Noel (2005)
7.8/10
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: Diane Kruger, Benno Furmann, Guillaume Canet, Daniel Bruhl, Gary Lewis
This Oscar-nominated film tells the true story of troops whose lives were changed on Christmas Eve of 1914 as they put down their weapons and celebrat... Read more
Killer Condom (1997)
5.3/10
Director: Martin Walz
Starring: Udo Samel, Peter Lohmeyer, Iris Berben, Marc Richter, Leonard Lansink
Based on Ralph Konig's celebrated comic book, this over-the-top German import tells of a living, squirming, and worst of all, biting condom that grips... Read more
Kings of the Road (1976)
8/10
Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Rudiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer
A sweeping 'road' movie concerning two men who journey across Germany visiting shuttered movie houses, listening to rock 'n' roll and discovering what... Read more