Mascha Schilinski’s In die Sonne schauen (Sound of Falling) unspools a haunting family story across four generations of girls, never straying from the setting of one Altmark farmhouse. (The New Yorker, 11/20/25; NPR, 1/28/26)
“In Berlin, world events are for ever on the cinema doorstep and keep on spilling inside.” İlker Çatak won the Berlinale’s Gold Bear for Yellow Letters, a drama about creeping authoritarianism—but as the festival opened, jury president Wim Wenders caused an uproar by stating that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics.” (NPR, 2/21/26; The Guardian, 2/21/26; The Guardian, 2/26/26; The New York Times, 2/27/26)
A new DVD boxset, Wrack and Ruin, gathers five DEFA “rubble films” from the late 1940s, which were once part of a project “to make antifascist commercial blockbusters, in a devastated society that would have preferred to thing about almost anything else.” (The Quietus, 11/22/25)
In memoriam: Rosa von Praunheim (1942–2025), “a key figure of the New German Cinema movement who made taboo-breaking films about queer life and scandalised the country when he outed German celebrities on live TV.” (The Guardian, 12/17/25; Deutsche Welle, 12/18/25)
It’s Pippi Longstocking’s 80th birthday! Look out for A World Gone Mad: The War Diaries of Astrid Lindgren—a new docudrama by Wilfried Hauke about Pippi’s creator, and how her beloved stories “arose from the darkest days” of World War II. (The Guardian, 12/15/25)
“He’s the middle-manager who talks as if he’s the CEO, a beacon of workplace inclusivity in his own head but a bigoted chauvinist as soon as he opens his mouth.” Sitcom antihero Stromberg is back and on the big screen, just in time for the Merz era. (The Guardian, 12/4/25)
Masterpiece or Holokitsch? The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer, never brings its viewers over the wall to Auschwitz. “It’s a horror film that keeps it horrors rigorously hidden from view.” (Los Angeles Times, 12/14/23; The New Yorker, 12/14/23; The Washington Post, 1/16/24; The New Statesman, 1/26/24)
In The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany’s entry in the 2024 Oscar race, director Ilker Çatak subverts the “magical teacher” genre, crafting an intense thriller and social parable set in a middle school. (The New York Times, 12/24/23; The Washington Post, 1/8/24)
Berlin’s iconic Kino International, “a jewel of East German modernism,” turns 60 years old on November 15. (Exberliner, 11/15/23)
“Wim Wenders’ latest documentary Anselm offers a mesmerizing, cinematic catalogue of German painter-sculptor Anselm Kiefer’s deeply tactile, maximalist oeuvre.” Plus, it was shot in 3D and 6K-resolution. (The Guardian, 5/17/23; The Hollywood Reporter, 5/18/23; The Washington Post, 1/1/24)
“Even artistic geniuses or supposed artistic geniuses are not above the law”: Reports of intimidation and verbal aggression, centering around the bad behavior of star actor and director Til Schweiger, have initiated a cultural reckoning in the German film industry. (The Guardian, 5/7/23)
Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front won four Oscars, seven Baftas, and not much love from German critics. (The Guardian, 1/27/23; Slate, 2/1/23; The New Statesman, 2/22/23)
The British comedy sketch “Dinner for One,” Germany’s inexplicably beloved New Year Eve’s viewing ritual, is about to about get a multipart television prequel, set 51 years before the original. Five men will “vie for the attention of the unmarried and emancipated Sophie,” and the series will be called—what else—“Dinner for Five.” (The Guardian, 12/30/22)