The Best German Films of the Past Decade, Ranked
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Loading... - Khepri Yousef
- 17 Apr 2023
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Last year was big for German cinema, but we’re going to delve a little further in, with this list of the 10 best of the last decade
Germany has a rich and storied film history, over the years producing such directing heavyweights as Fritz Lang, Wim Wenders, Rainer Maria Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog, and actors like Marlene Dietrich, Peter Lorre, Klaus Kinski, and Bruno Ganz. Highly influential films have been coming out of Germany since the 19th century, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu to Run, Lola, Run and Goodbye, Lenin!
This year particularly has been a big one for German cinema internationally, with All Quiet on the Western Front garnering universal acclaim for its timeliness and relevance, a heart-wrenching retelling of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic anti-war novel. We’re going to delve a little farther in, with this list of the ten best German films of the past decade.
Victoria (2015)
Sebastian Schipper’s 2015 crime thriller would be enjoyable enough on its own, but Schipper upped the stakes with a daring move that few feature filmmakers have attempted: the entire 138-minute film consists of only one take. Spanish actress Laia Costa plays Victoria, a recent transplant to Berlin who doesn’t really speak the language, and leads a lonely existence working in a café. Out dancing one night, she makes her first friends, four thuggish young men that she gets drunk and high with, and they make plans to meet up again the next night.
That’s when she finds out that one of the men is in debt to a gangster, and they are all unwittingly roped into committing a bank heist, and the film kicks into high gear. The audacious premise was hard to sell investors on, and Schipper had to promise he would also complete a traditionally shot and edited version. Thankfully for audiences, Plan A turned out just fine. Read More…
