Best German movies of all time
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Loading... - Chantal Dubois
- 16 Feb 2023
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In the world of mainstream cinema, the German film industry is not thought to be one of the production behemoths. Look a little closer, however, and you’ll see that over the past century, Germany has birthed some of the most influential and highly-decorated flicks.
Exploring historical and contemporary cinema is an excellent way to learn about the past and present of your adopted homeland. Here’s a guide to German movies and the cream-of-the-crop best German films.
German movies through the ages
German film holds a mirror to the country’s modern history. The history of German film begins in the age of the empire, when brothers Max and Emil Skladanowsky debuted Germany’s first film projector, the Bioscope, at the still-standing Wintergarten theatre in Berlin. Though the Skladanowsky brothers’ triumph is historically eclipsed by the French Lumière brothers’ cinematograph projectors, the Berlin screening took place in November 1895, a few weeks before the first French public screening.
Shortly after the turn of the century, the German expressionist movement began in architecture, painting, sculpture and cinema - characterised by extreme camera tilting, the Dutch angle and chiaroscuro lighting, which uses extreme dark-light contrasts. Expressionism of the 1910s would birth many of Germany’s most famous films, including Nosferatu, Metropolis and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
Cinema in the Nazi era
While the outbreak of the First World War disrupted the development of cinema, in the interwar period the Nazis adopted the medium as one of their most powerful propaganda tools. Anyone who has seen the chilling footage of Hitler’s mass rallies in Nuremberg has likely seen the work of Leni Riefenstahl. One of the best-known directors of the Weimar period, Riefenstahl was asked by Hitler to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith), which documents the 1933 rally, the crowd’s hysteria and Hitler's meeting with other prominent fascist leaders.
German film in the GDR
With the end of WWII and the country divided, East Germans also turned to film to strengthen their political agenda. This time with Westerns, or rather their own eastern retellings, Osterns (Easterns). Osterns were inspired by the traditional US Western genre, but with a twist. Set in the then-USSR, many Osterns showed “noble” Red Army soldiers acting as communist evangelists in what is now Central Asia. When it came to films produced outside the GDR being shown in East Germany, stringent rules also applied, with anything considered too celebratory of capitalism kept away from the silver screen.
Today, the filmmakers who started their careers behind the iron curtain, and are part of the country’s New German Cinema movement, still make up Germany’s most famous directing exports: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders.
And that cultural excellence continues: since 2000 German movies have won more foreign film Oscars than any other language. With All Quiet on the Western Front nominated for nine awards in the upcoming ceremony, German cinema may be further cemented among other silver screen giants. Read More…
