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'
Filmmaker and former professional footballer Sonke Wortmann directs this family sports drama, using the backdrop of the 1954 World Cup game between Ge... Read more
Von Sternberg's classic study of sexual humiliation made Marlene Dietrich a star as Lola-Lola, the vulgar nightclub singer who brings the dignified un... Read more
Anna is a bereft young German woman whose fiance, Frantz, was killed in the trenches of World War I. Adrien, a French veteran of the war, makes a myst... Read more
A feel-good comedy from Germany, in which Ecki, a young baker and goalkeeper, is kicked off his homophobic football team when caught drunkenly kissing... Read more
From the director of 'Run Lola Run', focusing on the lives of five people caught in a snowbound mountain town. "Disturbing, scary and erotic... Tom Ty... Read more
A pointed account of star-crossed German lovers, covering a 30 year timespan, beginning with their separation while trying to escape from East to West... Read more
A compelling domestic drama showing the family dynamics and ambititions surrounding child prodigy Vitus. A piano master by age six, Vitus' future seem... Read more
A riveting and moving fact-based WWII Holocaust drama about a German-Jewish teenage boy who flees the Nazis and conceals his identity - only to find h... Read more
Fritz Lang's masterwork, set in a towering city of the future whose populace is divided between the idle ruling class and the dehumanized workers who... Read more
Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run") directs this stylish and surreal tale of a withdrawn psychiatric nurse (Franka Potente) whose life becomes inextricably en... Read more