Cinema Of Germany
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The
film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post ...
in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema made major technical and artistic contributions to early film, broadcasting and television technology.
Babelsberg Babelsberg () is the largest quarter ('' Stadtteil'') of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Pala ...
became a household synonym for the early 20th century film industry in Europe, similar to Hollywood later. Germany witnessed major changes to its identity during the 20th and 21st century. Those changes determined the periodisation of national cinema into a succession of distinct eras and movements.


History


1895–1918 German Empire

The history of cinema in Germany can be traced back to the years shortly after the medium's birth. On 1 November 1895,
Max Skladanowsky Max Skladanowsky (30 April 1863 – 30 November 1939) was a German inventor and early filmmaker. Along with his brother Emil, he invented the Bioscop, an early movie projector the Skladanowsky brothers used to display a moving picture show to a p ...
and his brother Emil demonstrated their self-invented
film projector A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying motion picture film by projecting it onto a screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras. Modern ...
, the
Bioscop The Bioscop is a movie projector developed in 1895 by German inventors and filmmakers Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil Skladanowsky (1866–1945). History The Bioscop used two loops of 54-mm films without a side perforation. This caused poo ...
, at the Wintergarten
music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
in Berlin. A 15-minute series of eight short films were shown – the first screening of films to a paying audience. This performance pre-dated the first paying public display of the
Lumière brothers Lumière is French for 'light'. Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to: * Lumières, the philosophical movement in the Age of Enlightenment People *Auguste and Louis Lumière, French pioneers in film-making Film and TV * Institut Lumière, ...
'
Cinematographe Cinematograph or kinematograph is an early term for several types of motion picture film mechanisms. The name was used for movie cameras as well as film projectors, or for complete systems that also provided means to print films (such as the Cin ...
in Paris on 28 December of the same year, a performance that Max Skladanowsky attended and at which he was able to ascertain that the Cinematographe was technically superior to his Bioscop. Other German film pioneers included the Berliners
Oskar Messter Oskar Messter (21 November 1866 – 6 December 1943) was a German inventor and film tycoon in the early years of cinema. His firm Messter Film was one of the dominant German producers before the rise of UFA, into which it was ultimately merg ...
and Max Gliewe, two of several individuals who independently in 1896 first used a
Geneva drive The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation movement into intermittent rotary motion. The ''rotating drive'' wheel is usually equipped with a pin that reaches into a slot located in the other wh ...
(which allows the film to be advanced intermittently one frame at a time) in a projector, and the
cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...
Guido Seeber Guido Seeber (22 June 1879 in Chemnitz – 2 July 1940 in Berlin) was a German cinematographer and pioneer of early cinema. Seeber's father, Clemens, was a photographer and therefore Seeber had experience with photography from an early age. In ...
. In its earliest days, the cinematograph was perceived as an attraction for upper class audiences, but the novelty of moving pictures did not last long. Soon, trivial short films were being shown as fairground attractions aimed at the working class and lower-middle class. The booths in which these films were shown were known in Germany somewhat disparagingly as ''Kintopps''. Film-makers with an artistic bent attempted to counter this view of cinema with longer films based on literary models, and the first German "artistic" films began to be produced from around 1910, an example being the
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
''The Student of Prague'' (1913) which was co-directed by
Paul Wegener Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema. Acting career At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and conce ...
and
Stellan Rye Stellan Rye (4 July 1880 – 14 November 1914) was a Danish-born film director, active in the early 20th century. Rye was born in Randers. In 1913 he created (together with Hanns Heinz Ewers and Paul Wegener) the silent film '' Der Student von P ...
, photographed by Guido Seeber and starring actors from
Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he i ...
's company. Early film theorists in Germany began to write about the significance of ''Schaulust'', or "visual pleasure", for the audience, including the
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
movement writer
Walter Serner Walter Serner (15 January 1889 – August 1942) was a German-language writer and essayist. His manifesto ''Letzte Lockerung'' was an important text of Dadaism. Life Walter Serner was born Walter Eduard Seligmann in Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary), ...
: "If one looks to where cinema receives its ultimate power, into these strangely flickering eyes that point far back into human history, suddenly it stands there in all its massiveness: visual pleasure." Visually striking sets and makeup were key to the style of the
expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
films that were produced shortly after the First World War. Cinemas themselves began to be established landmarks in the years immediately before World War I. Before this, German filmmakers would tour with their works, travelling from fairground to fairground. The earliest ongoing cinemas were set up in cafes and pubs by owners who saw a way of attracting more customers. The storefront cinema was called a ''Kientopp'', and this is where films were viewed for the most part before the First World War broke out. The first standalone, dedicated cinema in Germany was opened in
Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...
in 1906, and by 1910, there were over 1000 cinemas operating in Germany. Henny Porten and
Asta Nielsen The General Students' Committee (German: Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss) or AStA, is the acting executive board and the external representing agency of the (constituted) student body at universities in most German states. It is therefore consid ...
(the latter originally from Denmark) were the first major film stars in Germany. Prior to 1914, however, many foreign films were imported. In the era of the
silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...
there were no language boundaries and
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
and Italian films were particularly popular in Germany. The public's desire to see more films with particular actors led to the development in Germany, as elsewhere, of the phenomenon of the film star; the actress Henny Porten was one of the earliest German stars. Public desire to see popular film stories being continued encouraged the production of
film serial A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, gene ...
s, especially in the genre of
mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur Detective, sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means ...
s, which is where the director
Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...
began his illustrious career. The outbreak of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the subsequent boycott of, for example,
French films This is a list of films produced in the French cinema, ordered by year and decade of release on separate pages. Before 1910 *List of French films before 1910 1910s * List of French films of 1910 * List of French films of 1911 * List of Fren ...
left a noticeable gap in the market. By 1916, there already existed some 2000 fixed venues for movie performances and initially film screenings were supplemented or even replaced by variety turns. In 1917 a process of concentration and partial nationalisation of the German film industry began with the founding of
Universum Film AG UFA GmbH, shortened to UFA (), is a film and television production company that unites all production activities of the media conglomerate Bertelsmann in Germany. Its name derives from Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (normally abbreviated as ...
(UFA), which was partly a reaction to the very effective use that the Allied Powers had found for the new medium for the purpose of propaganda. Under the aegis of the military, so-called ''Vaterland'' films were produced, which equalled the Allies' films in the matter of propaganda and disparagement of the enemy. Audiences however did not care to swallow the patriotic medicine without the accompanying sugar of the light-entertainment films which, consequently, Ufa also promoted. The German film industry soon became the largest in Europe.


1918–1933 Weimar Republic

The German film industry, which was protected during the war by the ban on foreign films import, became exposed at the end of the war to the international film industry while having to face an embargo, this time on its own films. Many countries banned the import of German films and audiences themselves were resisting anything that was "German". But the ban imposed on German films involved commercial considerations as well – as an American president of one of the film companies was quoted, "an influx of such films in the United States would throw thousands of our own... out of work, because it would be absolutely impossible for the American producers to compete with the German producers". At home, the German film industry confronted an unstable economic situation and the devaluation of the currency made it difficult for the smaller production companies to function. Film industry financing was a fragile business and expensive productions occasionally led to bankruptcy. In 1925 UFA itself was forced to go into a disadvantageous partnership called
Parufamet Parufamet was the name of a distribution company established by the American film studios Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an ...
with the American studios
Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
and
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
, before being taken over by the
nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
industrialist and newspaper owner
Alfred Hugenberg Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (19 June 1865 – 12 March 1951) was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, Hugenbe ...
in 1927. Nevertheless, the German film industry enjoyed an unprecedented development – during the 14 years which comprise the Weimar period, an average of 250 film were being produced each year, a total of 3,500 full-feature films. Apart from UFA, about 230 film companies were active in Berlin alone. This industry was attracting producers and directors from all over Europe. The fact that the films were silent and language was not a factor, enabled even foreign actors, like the Danish film star
Asta Nielsen The General Students' Committee (German: Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss) or AStA, is the acting executive board and the external representing agency of the (constituted) student body at universities in most German states. It is therefore consid ...
or the American
Louise Brooks Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helpe ...
, to be hired even for leading roles. This period can also be noted for new technological developments in film making and experimentation in set design and lighting, led by UFA.
Babelsberg Studio Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...
, which was incorporated into UFA, expanded massively and gave the German film industry a highly developed infrastructure. Babelsberg remained the centre of German filmmaking for many years, became the largest film studio in Europe and produced most of the films in this "golden era" of German cinema. In essence it was "the German equivalent to Hollywood". Due to the unstable economic condition and in an attempt to deal with modest production budgets, filmmakers were trying to reach the largest audience possible and in that, to maximize their revenues. This led to films being made in a vast array of genres and styles. One of the main film genres associated with the Weimar Republic cinema is
German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
which was inspired by the
expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
movement in art. Expressionist movies relied heavily on
symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...
and artistic
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
ry rather than stark
realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...
to tell their stories. Given the grim mood in post-
WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, it was not surprising that these films focused heavily on crime and horror. The film usually credited with sparking the popularity of
expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
is
Robert Wiene Robert Wiene (; 27 April 1873 – 17 July 1938) was a film director of the silent era of German cinema. He is particularly known for directing the German silent film ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' and a succession of other German Expressionism, ...
's '' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), produced by
Erich Pommer Erich Pommer (20 July 1889 – 8 May 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European film industries in the 1920s and early 1930s. As producer, Erich Pommer was involved ...
. The film tells the story of a demented hypnotist who is using a sleepwalker to perform a series of murders. The film featured a dark and twisted visual style – the set was unrealistic with geometric images painted on the floor and shapes in light and shadow cast on walls, the acting was exaggerated and the costumes bizarre. These stylistic elements became trademarks of this cinematic movement. Other notable works of Expressionism are
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at th ...
's ''
Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...
'' (1922), a classic period-piece horror film that remains the first feature-length film adaptation of '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'',
Carl Boese Carl Eduard Hermann Boese (; 26 August 1887 – 6 July 1958) was a German film director, screenwriter, and film producer, producer. He directed 158 films between 1917 and 1957. Selected filmography * ''Farmer Borchardt'' (1917) * ''Donna Lucia ...
and
Paul Wegener Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema. Acting career At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and conce ...
's '' The Golem: How He Came Into the World'' (1920), a Gothic retelling of the Jewish folktale, and ''
Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...
'' (1927), a legendary
science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...
epic directed by
Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...
. The Expressionist movement began to wane during the mid-1920s, but perhaps the fact that its main creators moved to
Hollywood, California Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, ...
, allowed this style to remain influential in world cinema for years to come, particularly in American
horror films Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoc ...
and
film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...
and in the works of European directors such as
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...
and
Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...
. Despite its significance, expressionist cinema was not the dominant genre of this era. Many other genres such as period dramas, melodramas, romantic comedies, and films of social and political nature, were much more prevalent and definitely more popular. The "master" of period-dramas was undoubtedly
Ernst Lubitsch Ernst Lubitsch (; January 29, 1892November 30, 1947) was a German-born American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as ...
. His most notable films of this genre were ''
Madame DuBarry Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry (19 August 1743 – 8 December 1793) was the last ''maîtresse-en-titre'' of King Louis XV of France. She was executed, by guillotine, during the French Revolution due to accounts of treason—particularly being ...
'' (1919) which portrayed the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
through the eyes of the King of France's mistress, and the film ''
Anna Boleyn ''Anna Boleyn,'' also known as ''Deception'', is a 1920 German historical film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It stars Henny Porten as Anne Boleyn and Emil Jannings as King Henry VIII. The film was produced by Paul Davidson's Union Film, a ...
'' (1920) on the tragic end of
King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...
's second wife. In these films, Lubitsch presented prominent historic personalities who are caught up by their weaknesses and petty urges and thus, ironically, become responsible for huge historical events. Despite modest budgets, his films included extravagant scenes which were meant to appeal to a wide audience and insure a wide international distribution. As the genre of expressionism began to diminish, the genre of the
New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, who ...
(die neue Sachlichkeit) began to take its place. It was influenced by new issues which occupied the public in those years, as the rampant inflation caused deterioration in the economic status of the middle class. These films, often called "street films" or "asphalt films", tried to reflect reality in all its complexity and ugliness. They focused on objects surrounding the characters and cynically symbolized the despair felt by the German people, whose lives were shattered after the war. The most prominent film maker who is associated with this genre is
Georg Wilhelm Pabst Georg Wilhelm Pabst (25 August 1885 – 29 May 1967) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic. ...
in his films such as: ''
Joyless Street ''Joyless Street'' (german: Die freudlose Gasse), also titled ''The Street of Sorrow'' or ''The Joyless Street'', is a 1925 German silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst starring Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen. It is based on a novel by Hugo ...
'' (1925), ''
Pandora's Box Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem ''Works and Days''. Hesiod reported that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing phys ...
'' (1929), and '' The Loves of Jeanne Ney'' (1927). Pabst is also credited with innovations in film editing, such as reversing the angle of the camera or cutting between two camera angles, which enhanced film continuity and later became standards of the industry. Pabst is also identified with another genre which branched from the New Objectivity – that of social and political films. These filmmakers dared to confront sensitive and controversial social issues which engaged the public in those days; such as
anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
, prostitution and homosexuality. To a large extent, Weimar cinema was playing a vibrant and important role by leading public debate on those issues. Pabst, in his film ''
Diary of a Lost Girl ''Diary of a Lost Girl'' (german: Tagebuch einer Verlorenen) is a 1929 German silent film directed by G. W. Pabst and starring American silent star Louise Brooks. It is shot in black and white, and various versions of the film range from 79 m ...
'' (1929), tells the story of a young woman who has a child out of wedlock, is thrown out into the street by her family and has to resort to prostitution to survive. As early as 1919,
Richard Oswald Richard Oswald (5 November 1880 – 11 September 1963) was an Austrian film director, producer, screenwriter, and father of German-American film director Gerd Oswald. Early career Richard Oswald, born in Vienna as Richard W. Ornstein, began h ...
's film ''
Different from the Others ''Different from the Others'' (german: Anders als die Andern) is a silent German melodramatic film produced during the Weimar Republic. It was first released in 1919 and stars Conrad Veidt and Reinhold Schünzel. The story was co-written by Richa ...
'' portrayed a man torn between his homosexual tendencies and the moral and social conventions. It is considered to be the first German film to deal with homosexuality and some researchers even believe it to be the first in the world to examine this issue explicitly. That same year, the film ''
Ritual Murder Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of veneration of the dead, dead ancestors or as ...
'' (1919) by Jewish film producer
Max Nivelli Max Nivelli (January 1, 1878 - February 27, 1926) was a film producer in Berlin during the Weimar Republic era. He was among the first to examine the issues of anti-Semitism and prejudice in his films. Nivelli died at an early age (48) and worked ...
came to the screen. This film was the first to make the German public aware of the consequences of anti-Semitism and
xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
. It portrayed a "
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
" which is carried out against the Jewish inhabitants of a village in
Tsarist Russia Tsarist Russia may refer to: * Grand Duchy of Moscow (1480–1547) *Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721) *Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of ...
. In the background, a love story also evolves between a young Russian student and the daughter of the leader of the Jewish community, something that was considered a
taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
at the time. Later on, in an attempt to reflect the rapidly growing anti-Semitic atmosphere, Oswald confronted the same issue with his film ''Dreyfus'' (1930), which portrayed the 1894 political scandal of the "
Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...
", which until today remains one of the most striking examples of miscarriage of justice and blatant anti-Semitism. The polarised politics of the
Weimar period The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
were also reflected in some of its films. A series of patriotic films about
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
n history, starring
Otto Gebühr Otto Gebühr (29 May 1877 – 13 March 1954) was a German theatre and film actor, who appeared in 102 films released between 1917 and 1954. He is noted for his performance as the Prussian king Frederick the Great in numerous films. Early lif ...
as
Frederick the Great Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...
were produced throughout the 1920s and were popular with the nationalist right-wing, who strongly criticised the "asphalt" films' decadence. Another dark chapter of the Weimar period was reflected in Joseph Delmont's film ''
Humanity Unleashed ''Humanity Unleashed'' (german: Die entfesselte Menschheit) is a 1920 German silent drama film directed by Joseph Delmont and starring Eugen Klöpfer, Paul Hartmann and Carl de Vogt. The film portrays a violent leftist attempt to seize power ...
'' (1920). The film was an adaptation of a novel by the same name, written by
Max Glass Max Glass (12 June 1881 – 18 July 1965) was an Austrian screenwriter, film director, and producer. Glass was born in Jaroslau, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a Jewish family, but later converted to Catholicism. ...
and published in 1919. The novel described a dark world consumed by disease and war. The filmmakers decided to take the story to a more contemporary context by reflecting the growing fear among the German public of political
radicalization Radicalization (or radicalisation) is the process by which an individual or a group comes to adopt increasingly views in opposition to a political, social, or religious status quo. The ideas of society at large shape the outcomes of radicalizat ...
. They produced what was to become the first fictional account of the events of January 1919 in Berlin, the so-called "
Spartacist Uprising The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising (), was a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolutio ...
". This film is also considered one of the anti-
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
films of that era. Another important film genre of the Weimar years was the Kammerspiel or "chamber drama", which was borrowed from the theater and developed by stage director, who would later become a film producer and director himself,
Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he i ...
. This style was in many ways a reaction against the spectacle of expressionism and thus tended to revolve around ordinary people from the lower-middle-class. Films of this genre were often called "instinct" films because they emphasized the impulses and intimate psychology of the characters. The sets were kept to a minimum and there was abundant use of camera movements to add complexity to the rather intimate and simple spaces. Associated with this particular style is also screenwriter
Carl Mayer Carl Mayer (20 November 1894 – 1 July 1944) was an Austrians, Austrian screenwriter who wrote or co-wrote the screenplays to ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), ''The Head of Janus'' (1920), ''The Haunted Castle (1921 film), The Haunted C ...
and films such as Murnau's '' Last Laugh (1924).'' Nature films, a genre referred to as '' Bergfilm,'' also became popular. Most known in this category are the films by director
Arnold Fanck Arnold Fanck (6 March 1889 – 28 September 1974) was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as '' The Holy Mountain'' (1926), '' The White He ...
, in which individuals were shown battling against nature in the mountains. Animators and directors of
experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
s such as;
Lotte Reiniger Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Her best known films are ''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', from 1926, the first feature-length animated fil ...
,
Oskar Fischinger Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger (June 22, 1900 – January 31, 1967) was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music vid ...
and
Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...
, were also very active in Germany in the 1920s. Ruttman's experimental documentary '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (1927) epitomised the energy of 1920s Berlin. The arrival of sound at the very end of the 1920s, produced a final artistic flourish of German film before the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1933. As early as 1918, three inventors came up with the
Tri-Ergon The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was developed from around 1919 by three German inventors, Josef Engl (1893–1942), Joseph Massolle (1889–1957), and Hans Vogt (1890–1979). The system used a photoelectric recording method and a non-standard ...
sound-on-film Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...
system and tried to introduce it to the industry between 1922 and 1926.
UFA Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the ...
showed an interest, but possibly due to financial difficulties, never made a sound film. But in the late 1920s, sound production and distribution were starting to be adopted by the German film industry and by 1932 Germany had 3,800 cinemas equipped to play sound films. The first filmmakers who experimented with the new technology often shot the film in several versions, using several soundtracks in different languages. The film ''
The Blue Angel ''The Blue Angel'' (german: Der blaue Engel) is a 1930 German musical comedy-drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and starring Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Lie ...
'' (1930), directed by the Austrian
Josef von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg (; born Jonas Sternberg; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969) was an Austrian-American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major ...
and produced by
Erich Pommer Erich Pommer (20 July 1889 – 8 May 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European film industries in the 1920s and early 1930s. As producer, Erich Pommer was involved ...
, was also shot in two versions – German and English, with a different supporting cast in each version. It is considered to be Germany's first "
talkie A sound film is a motion picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, percep ...
" and will always be remembered as the film that made an international superstar of its lead actress
Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
. Other notable early sound films, all from 1931, include Jutzi's adaptation to Alfred Döblin's novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'', Pabst's
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
adaptation ''
The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music ...
'' and Lang's '' M,'' as well as Hochbaum's ''
Raid in St. Pauli ''Raid in St. Pauli'' (German: ''Razzia in St. Pauli'') is a 1932 German drama film directed by Werner Hochbaum and starring Gina Falckenberg, Friedrich Gnaß and Wolfgang Zilzer. The film's sets were designed by the art director Willy Schiller. ...
'' (1932). Brecht was also one of the creators of the explicitly
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
film ''
Kuhle Wampe ''Kuhle Wampe'' (full title: ''Kuhle Wampe, oder: Wem gehört die Welt?'', translated in English as ''Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?'', and released in the USA as ''Whither Germany?'' by Kinematrade Inc.) is a 1932 German feature film abou ...
'' (1932), which was banned soon after its release. In addition to developments in the industry itself, the Weimar period saw the birth of
film criticism Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Journalism, journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-m ...
as a serious discipline whose practitioners included
Rudolf Arnheim Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...
in ''
Die Weltbühne ''Die Weltbühne'' (‘The World Stage’) was a German weekly magazine for politics, art and the economy. It was founded in Berlin in 1905 as (‘The Theater’) by Siegfried Jacobsohn and was originally a theater magazine only. In 1913 it beg ...
'' and in ''Film als Kunst'' (1932),
Béla Balázs Béla Balázs (; 4 August 1884 in Szeged – 17 May 1949 in Budapest), born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film criticism, film critic, aesthetics, aesthetician, writer and poet of History of the Jews in Hungary, Jewish heritage. He was a ...
in ''Der Sichtbare Mensch'' (1924),
Siegfried Kracauer Siegfried Kracauer (; ; February 8, 1889 – November 26, 1966) was a German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist. He has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is notable for a ...
in the Frankfurter Zeitung, and Lotte H. Eisner in the ''Filmkurier''.


1933–1945 Nazi Germany

The uncertain economic and political situation in Weimar Germany had already led to a number of film-makers and performers leaving the country, primarily for the United States; Ernst Lubitsch moved to Hollywood as early as 1923, the Hungarian-born
Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz ( ; born Manó Kaminer; since 1905 Mihály Kertész; hu, Kertész Mihály; December 24, 1886 April 10, 1962) was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed cla ...
in 1926. Some 1,500 directors, producers, actors and other film professionals
emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
in the years after the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
s came to power. Among them were such key figures as the producer
Erich Pommer Erich Pommer (20 July 1889 – 8 May 1966) was a German-born film producer and executive. Pommer was perhaps the most powerful person in the German and European film industries in the 1920s and early 1930s. As producer, Erich Pommer was involved ...
, the studio head of Ufa, stars Marlene Dietrich and
Peter Lorre Peter Lorre (; born László Löwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movin ...
, and director
Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...
. Lang's exodus to America is legendary; it is said that ''
Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...
'' so greatly impressed
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
that he asked Lang to become the head of his propaganda film unit. Lang fled to America instead, where he had a long and prosperous career. Many up-and-coming German directors also fled to the U.S., having a major influence on American film as a result. A number of the Universal Horror films of the 1930s were directed by German emigrees, including
Karl Freund Karl W. Freund, A.S.C. (January 16, 1890 – May 3, 1969) was an Austrian cinematography, cinematographer and film director best known for photographing ''Metropolis (1927 film), Metropolis'' (1927), ''Dracula (1931 English-language film), Dracul ...
,
Joe May Joe May (born Joseph Otto Mandl; 7 November 1880 – 29 April 1954) was an Austrian film director and film producer and one of the pioneers of German cinema. Biography After studying in Berlin and a variety of odd jobs, he began his career a ...
and
Robert Siodmak Robert Siodmak (; 8 August 1900 – 10 March 1973) was a German film director who also worked in the United States. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of films noirs he made in the 1940s, such as ''The Killers'' (19 ...
. Directors
Edgar Ulmer Edgar Georg Ulmer (; September 17, 1904 – September 30, 1972) was a Jewish- Moravian, Austrian-American film director who mainly worked on Hollywood B movies and other low-budget productions, eventually earning the epithet 'The King of PRC', ...
and
Douglas Sirk Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left fo ...
and the Austrian-born screenwriter (and later director)
Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
also emigrated from Nazi Germany to Hollywood success. Not all those in the film industry threatened by the Nazi regime were able to escape; the actor and director
Kurt Gerron Kurt Gerron (11 May 1897 – 28 October 1944) was a German History of the Jews in Germany, Jewish actor and film director. He and his wife, Olga were murdered in the Holocaust. Life Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he ...
, for example, perished in a
concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
. Within weeks of the ''
Machtergreifung Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
'', Alfred Hugenberg had effectively turned over Ufa to the ends of the Nazis, excluding Jews from employment in the company in March 1933, several months before the foundation in June of the ''
Reichsfilmkammer The Reichsfilmkammer (RFK; en, Reich Chamber of Film) was a statutory corporation controlled by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda that regulated the film industry in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Membership in the associa ...
'' (Reich Chamber of Film), the body of the Nazi state charged with control of the film industry, which marked the official exclusion of Jews and foreigners from employment in the German film industry. As part of the process of ''
Gleichschaltung The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
'' all film production in Germany was subordinate to the ''Reichsfilmkammer'', which was directly responsible to Goebbel's Propaganda ministry, and all those employed in the industry had to be members of the ''Reichsfachschaft Film''. "Non-Aryan" film professionals and those whose politics or personal life were unacceptable to the Nazis were excluded from the ''Reichsfachschaft'' and thus denied employment in the industry. Some 3,000 individuals were affected by this employment ban. In addition, as journalists were also organised as a division of the Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels was able to abolish film criticism in 1936 and replace it with ''Filmbeobachtung'' (film observation); journalists could only report on the content of a film, not offer judgement on its artistic or other worth. With the German film industry now effectively an arm of the
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...
state, no films could be made that were not ostensibly in accord with the views of the ruling regime. However, despite the existence of anti-semitic propaganda works such as '' The Eternal Jew'' (1940)—which was a box-office flop—and the more sophisticated but equally anti-semitic ''
Jud Süß (, "Süss the Jew") is a 1940 Nazi German historical drama and propaganda film produced by Terra Film at the behest of Joseph Goebbels. It is considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. The film was directed by Veit Harlan, who ...
'' (1940), which achieved commercial success at home and elsewhere in Europe, the majority of German films from the National Socialist period were intended principally as works of entertainment. The import of foreign films was legally restricted after 1936 and the German industry, which was effectively
nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
in 1937, had to make up for the missing foreign films (above all American productions). Entertainment also became increasingly important in the later years of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
when the cinema provided a distraction from Allied bombing and a string of German defeats. In both 1943 and 1944 cinema admissions in Germany exceeded a billion,Kinobesuche in Deutschland 1925 bis 2004
Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft e. V
and the biggest box office hits of the war years were ''
Die große Liebe ''The Great Love'' (German: ''Die große Liebe'') is a 1942 German drama film directed by Rolf Hansen and starring Zarah Leander, Viktor Staal and Grethe Weiser. It premiered in Berlin in 1942 and went on to become the most commercially succ ...
'' (1942) and ''
Wunschkonzert ''Wunschkonzert'' (''Request Concert'') is a 1940 German drama propaganda film by Eduard von Borsody. After '' Die große Liebe'', it was the most popular film of wartime Germany, reaching the second highest gross. Background The popular music s ...
'' (1941), which both combine elements of the
musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
, wartime romance and patriotic propaganda, ''
Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten ''Women Are Better Diplomats'' (german: Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten) is a 1941 German musical comedy film directed by Georg Jacoby and starring Marika Rökk, Willy Fritsch and Aribert Wäscher. It was based on a novel by Hans Flemming. ...
'' (1941), a comic musical which was one of the earliest German films in colour, and '' Vienna Blood'' (1942), the adaptation of a
Johann Strauß Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed ove ...
comic operetta. ''
Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...
'' (1943) was another big-budget epic that arguably inspired other films about the ill-fated ocean liner. The importance of the cinema as a tool of the state, both for its propaganda value and its ability to keep the populace entertained, can be seen in the filming history of
Veit Harlan Veit Harlan (22 September 1899 – 13 April 1964) was a German film director and actor. Harlan reached the highpoint of his career as a director in the Nazi era; most notably his antisemitic film ''Jud Süß'' (1940) makes him controversial ...
's '' Kolberg'' (1945), the most expensive film of the Nazi era, for the shooting of which tens of thousands of soldiers were diverted from their military positions to appear as extras. Despite the emigration of many film-makers and the political restrictions, the period was not without technical and aesthetic innovations, the introduction of
Agfacolor An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from café in Oslo, Norway. An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from Paris, France. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Hungary. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Zakopane in Poland. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 fr ...
film production being a notable example. Technical and aesthetic achievement could also be turned to the specific ends of the Nazi state, most spectacularly in the work of
Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, photographer and actress known for her role in producing Nazi propaganda. A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl also became in ...
. Riefenstahl's ''
Triumph of the Will ''Triumph of the Will'' (german: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 German Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his na ...
'' (1935), documenting the 1934
Nuremberg Rally The Nuremberg Rallies (officially ', meaning ''Reich Party Congress'') refer to a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party in Germany. The first rally held took place in 1923. This rally was not particularly large or impactful; ...
, and ''
Olympia The name Olympia may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games * ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
'' (1938), documenting the
1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
, pioneered techniques of camera movement and editing that have influenced many later films. Both films, particularly ''Triumph of the Will'', remain highly controversial, as their aesthetic merit is inseparable from their propagandising of Nazi ideals.


1945–1989 East Germany

East German cinema initially profited from the fact that much of the country's film infrastructure, notably the former UFA studios, lay in the
Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...
which enabled film production to get off the ground more quickly than in the Western sectors. The authorities in the Soviet Zone were keen to re-establish the film industry in their sector and an order was issued to re-open cinemas in Berlin in May 1945 within three weeks of German capitulation. The film production company
DEFA DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...
was founded on 17 May 1946, and took control of the film production facilities in the Soviet Zone which had been confiscated by order of the
Soviet Military Administration in Germany The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (russian: Советская военная администрация в Германии, СВАГ; ''Sovyetskaya Voyennaya Administratsiya v Germanii'', SVAG; german: Sowjetische Militäradministrat ...
in October 1945. A
joint-stock company A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's capital stock, stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their share (finance), shares (certificates ...
on paper, the majority interest in DEFA was actually held by the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED) which became the ruling party of the
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
(GDR) after 1949, formally placing DEFA as the state-owned monopoly for film production in East Germany. A sister "company", Progress Film, had also been established as a similar monopoly for domestic film distribution, its principal "competition" being Sovexportfilm, which handled distribution of Soviet films. In total, DEFA produced some 900 feature films during its existence as well as around 800 animated films and over 3000 documentaries and short films. In its early years, production was limited due to strict controls imposed by the authorities which restricted the subject-matter of films to topics that directly contributed to the Communist project of the state. Excluding newsreels and educational films, only 50 films were produced between 1948 and 1953. However, in later years numerous films were produced on a variety of themes. DEFA had particular strengths in
children's film A children's film, or family film, is a film genre that contains children or relates to them in the context of home and family. Children's films are made specifically for children and not necessarily for a general audience, while family films are ...
s, notably
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
adaptations such as '' Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel (Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella)'' (1973), but it also attempted other genre works: science-fiction, for example ''
Der schweigende Stern ''Milcząca Gwiazda'' (german: Der schweigende Stern), literal English translation ''The Silent Star'', is a 1960 East German/Polish color science fiction film based on the 1951 science fiction novel ''The Astronauts'' by Polish science fiction wri ...
(The Silent Star)'' (1960), an adaptation of a
Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical ...
novel, or " red westerns" such as '' The Sons of the Great Mother Bear'' (1966) in which, in contrast to the typical American western, the heroes tended to be Native Americans. Many of these genre films were co-productions with other
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
countries. Notable non-genre films produced by DEFA include Wolfgang Staudte's adaptation of
Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; 27 March 1871 – 11 March 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German author known for his Social criticism, socio-political novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the ...
's ''
Der Untertan ''Der Untertan'' (; literally "the underling", translated into English under the titles ''Man of Straw'', ''The Patrioteer'', and ''The Loyal Subject'') is one of the best known novels of German author Heinrich Mann. The title character, Diederic ...
'' (1951);
Konrad Wolf Konrad Wolf (20 October 1925 – 7 March 1982) was an East Germany, East German film director. He was the son of writer, doctor and diplomat Friedrich Wolf (writer), Friedrich Wolf, and the younger brother of Stasi spymaster Markus Wolf. "K ...
's ''
Der geteilte Himmel ''Der geteilte Himmel'', known in English as either ''Divided Heaven'' or ''They Divided the Sky'', is a 1963 novel by the East German writer Christa Wolf. The author describes society and problems in the German Democratic Republic German(s) may ...
(Divided Heaven)'' (1964), an adaptation of
Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist.
Barbara Gard ...
's novel;
Frank Beyer Frank Paul Beyer (; 26 May 1932 – 1 October 2006) was a German film director. In East Germany he was one of the most important film directors, working for the state film monopoly DEFA and directed films that dealt mostly with the Nazi era ...
's adaptation of
Jurek Becker Jurek Becker (, probably 30 September 1937 – 14 March 1997) was a Polish-born German writer, screenwriter and East German dissident. His most famous novel is ''Jacob the Liar'', which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during Wo ...
's '' Jacob the Liar'' (1975), the only East German film to be nominated for an
Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
; ''
The Legend of Paul and Paula ''Die Legende von Paul und Paula'' (; English: ''The Legend of Paul and Paula'') is a 1973 tragicomic East German film directed by Heiner Carow. A novel by Ulrich Plenzdorf named ''Die Legende vom Glück ohne Ende'' was based on this film. The ...
'' (1973), directed by
Heiner Carow Heiner Carow (19 September 1929 – 1 February 1997) was a German film director and screenwriter. His 1986 film '' So Many Dreams'' was entered into the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. The following year, he was a member of the jury at ...
from
Ulrich Plenzdorf Ulrich Plenzdorf (; 26 October 1934 – 9 August 2007) was a German author and dramatist. Life Born in Berlin, Plenzdorf studied Philosophy in Leipzig, but graduated with a degree in film. He found work at DEFA. He became famous in both East a ...
's novel; and '' Solo Sunny'' (1980), again the work of Konrad Wolf. However, film-making in the GDR was always constrained and oriented by the political situation in the country at any given time.
Ernst Thälmann Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933. A committed Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist, Thälmann played a major r ...
, the communist leader in the Weimar period, was the subject of several
hagiographical A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
films in the 1950s (''
Ernst Thälmann Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933. A committed Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist, Thälmann played a major r ...
'', 1954), and although East German filmmaking moved away from this overtly
Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
approach in the 1960s, filmmakers were still subject to the changing political positions, and indeed the whims, of the SED leadership. For example, DEFA's full slate of contemporary films from 1966 were denied distribution, among them Frank Beyer's '' Traces of Stones'' (1966) which was pulled from distribution after three days, not because it was antipathetic to communist principles, but because it showed that such principles, which it fostered, were not put into practice at all times in East Germany. The huge box-office hit ''The Legend of Paul and Paula'' was initially threatened with a distribution ban because of its satirical elements and supposedly only allowed a release on the say-so of Party General Secretary
Erich Honecker Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
. In the late 1970s, numerous film-makers left the GDR for the West as a result of restrictions on their work, among them director
Egon Günther Egon Günther (30 March 1927 – 31 August 2017)
in:
and actors
Angelica Domröse Angelica Domröse (; born April 4, 1941, in Berlin) is a German actress, who became famous in the role of Paula in Heiner Carow's film '' The Legend of Paul and Paula''. Her Mediterranean appearance is the result of her biological father being a ...
,
Eva-Maria Hagen Eva-Maria Hagen (; ; 19 October 1934 – 16 August 2022) was a German actress and singer. She was known as the "Brigitte Bardot of the GDR" but was banned from performance for political reasons. Life Hagen was born Eva-Maria Buchholz in Köl ...
,
Katharina Thalbach Katharina Thalbach (; actually ''Katharina Joachim genannt Thalbach''; born 19 January 1954) is a German actress and stage director. She played theatre at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, and was actress in the film ''The T ...
,
Hilmar Thate Hilmar Thate (17 April 1931 – 14 September 2016) was a German actor. He appeared in 40 films and television shows between 1955 and 2016. Filmography References External links * 1931 births 2016 deaths German male film actors G ...
,
Manfred Krug Manfred Krug (; 8 February 1937 – 21 October 2016) was a German actor, singer and author. Life and work Born in Duisburg, Krug moved to East Germany at the age of 13, and worked at a steel plant before beginning his acting career on the stage a ...
and
Armin Mueller-Stahl Armin Mueller-Stahl (born 17 December 1930) is a retired German film actor, painter and author, who also appeared in numerous English-language films since the 1980s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role i ...
. Many had been signatories of a 1976 petition opposing the
expatriation An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
of socially critical singer-songwriter
Wolf Biermann Karl Wolf Biermann (; born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976. Early life Biermann was b ...
and had had their ability to work restricted as a result. In the final years of the GDR, the availability of television and the programming and films on television broadcasts reaching into the GDR via the uncontrollable airwaves, reduced the influence of DEFA productions, although its continuing role in producing shows for East German television channel remained. Following the Wende, DEFA had ceased production altogether, and its studios and equipment was sold off by the
Treuhand The ("Trust agency"), colloquially referred to as , was an agency established by the government of the German Democratic Republic to reprivatise/privatise East German enterprises, Volkseigene Betriebe (VEBs), prior to German reunification. Cre ...
in 1992, but its
intellectual property rights Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
were handed to the charitable ''DEFA-Stiftung'' (DEFA Foundation) which exploits these rights in conjunction with a series of private companies, especially the quickly privatized Progress Film GmbH, which has issued several East German films with English subtitles since the mid-1990s.


1945–1989 West Germany


1945–1960 Reconstruction

The occupation and reconstruction of Germany by the Four Powers in the period immediately after the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
brought a major and long-lasting change to the economic conditions under which the industry in Germany had previously operated. The holdings of Ufa were confiscated by the Allies and, as part of the process of
decartelisation Decartelization is the transition of a national economy from monopoly control by groups of large businesses, known as cartels, to a free market economy. This change rarely arises naturally, and is generally the result of regulation by a governing bo ...
, licences to produce films were shared between a range of much smaller companies. In addition, the
Occupation Statute The Occupation Statute of Germany (german: Besatzungsstatut) of April 10, 1949 specified the roles and responsibilities of the newly created government of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the Allied High Commission. It was drawn ...
of 1949, which granted partial independence to the newly created
Federal Republic of Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between ...
, specifically forbade the imposition of import quotas to protect German film production from foreign competition, the result of lobbying by the American industry as represented by the
MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
. Amidst the devastation of the '' Stunde Null'' year of 1945 cinema attendance was unsurprisingly down to a fraction of its wartime heights, but already by the end of the decade it had reached levels that exceeded the pre-war period. For the first time in many years, German audiences had free access to cinema from around the world and in this period the films of
Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
remained popular, as were
melodrama A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
s from the United States. Nonetheless, the share of the film market for German films in this period and into the 1950s remained relatively large, taking up some 40 percent of the total market. American films took up around 30 percent of the market despite having around twice as many films in distribution as the German industry in the same time frame. Many of the German films of the immediate post-war period can be characterised as belonging to the genre of the ''
Trümmerfilm Trümmerfilm ( eng, Rubble film) was an aesthetic choice for those films made directly after World War II dealing with the impact of the battles in the countries at the center of the war. The style was mostly used by filmmakers in the rebuilding ...
'' (literally "rubble film"). These films show strong affinities with the work of Italian neorealists, not least
Roberto Rossellini Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (8 May 1906 – 3 June 1977) was an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such ...
's neorealist trilogy which included ''
Germany Year Zero ''Germany, Year Zero'' ( it, Germania anno zero) is a 1948 film directed by Roberto Rossellini, and is the final film in Rossellini's unofficial war film trilogy, following '' Rome, Open City'' and '' Paisà''. ''Germany Year Zero'' takes place ...
'' (1948), and are concerned primarily with day-to-day life in the devastated Germany and an initial reaction to the events of the Nazi period (the full horror of which was first experienced by many in documentary footage from liberated concentration camps). Such films include Wolfgang Staudte's ''
Die Mörder sind unter uns ''Die Mörder sind unter uns'', a German film known in English as ''Murderers Among Us'' in the United States or ''The Murderers Are Among Us'' in the United Kingdom was one of the first post-World War II German films and the first '' Trümmerfil ...
(The Murderers are among us)'' (1946), the first film made in post-war Germany (produced in the soviet sector), and
Wolfgang Liebeneiner Wolfgang Georg Louis Liebeneiner (6 October 1905 – 28 November 1987) was a German actor, film director and theatre director. Beginnings He was born in Lubawka, Liebau in Prussian Silesia. In 1928, he was taught by Otto Falckenberg, the directo ...
's '' Liebe 47 (Love 47)'' (1949), an adaptation of
Wolfgang Borchert Wolfgang Borchert (; 20 May 1921 – 20 November 1947) was a German author and playwright whose work was strongly influenced by his experience of dictatorship and his service in the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War. His work is among t ...
's play '' Draußen vor der Tür''. Despite the advent of a regular television service in the Federal Republic in 1952, cinema attendances continued to grow through much of the 1950s, reaching a peak of 817.5 million visits in 1956. The majority of the films of this period set out to do no more than entertain the audience and had few pretensions to artistry or active engagement with social issues. The defining genre of the period was arguably the ''
Heimatfilm ' (, German for "homeland-films"; German singular: ') were films of a genre popular in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. ''Heimat'' can be translated as "home" (in the geographic sense), "hometown" or "homela ...
'' ("homeland film"), in which morally simplistic tales of love and family were played out in a rural setting, often in the mountains of
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, Austria or Switzerland. In their day ''Heimatfilms'' were of little interest to more scholarly film critics, but in recent years they have been the subject of study in relation to what they say about the culture of West Germany in the years of the ''
Wirtschaftswunder The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social marke ...
''. Other film genres typical of this period were adaptations of
operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
s, hospital
melodrama A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
s, comedies and musicals. Many films were
remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...
s of earlier Ufa productions. Rearmament and the founding of the ''
Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...
'' in 1955 brought with it a wave of war films which tended to depict the ordinary German soldiers of World War II as brave and apolitical. The Israeli historian
Omer Bartov Omer Bartov (Hebrew: עֹמֶר בַּרְטוֹב; pronounced .html" ;"title="oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>">oˈmer ˈbartov/nowiki>; born 1954) is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Profe ...
wrote that German films of the 1950s showed the average German soldier as a heroic victim: noble, tough, brave, honourable, and patriotic while fighting hard in a senseless war for a regime that he did not care for. The '' 08/15'' film trilogy of 1954–55 concerns a sensitive young German soldier who would rather play the piano than fight, and who fights on the Eastern Front without understanding why; however, no mention is made of the genocidal aspects of Germany's war in East.Bartov, Omer "Celluloid Soldiers: Cinematic Images of the Wehrmacht" pages 130–143 from ''Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy '' edited by Ljubica & Mark Erickson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004 page 136. The last of the ''08/15'' films ends with Germany occupied by a gang of American soldiers portrayed as bubble-gum chewing, slack-jawed morons and uncultured louts, totally inferior in every respect to the heroic German soldiers shown in the ''08/15'' films. The only exception is the Jewish American officer, who is shown as both hyper-intelligent and very unscrupulous, which Bartov noted seems to imply that the real tragedy of World War II was the Nazis did not get a chance to exterminate all of the Jews, who have now returned with Germany's defeat to once more exploit the German people. In ''
The Doctor of Stalingrad ''The Doctor of Stalingrad'' (german: Der Arzt von Stalingrad also known as ''Battle Inferno'') is a 1958 German drama film directed by Géza von Radványi and starring O.E. Hasse, Eva Bartok and Hannes Messemer. It is an adaptation of the 195 ...
'' (1958) dealing with German POWs in the Soviet Union, Germans are portrayed as more civilized, humane and intelligent than the Soviets, who are shown for the most part as Mongol savages who brutalized the German POWs.Bartov, Omer "Celluloid Soldiers: Cinematic Images of the Wehrmacht" pages 130–143 from ''Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy '' edited by Ljubica & Mark Erickson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004 page 137. One of the German POWs successfully seduces the beautiful and tough Red Army Captain Alexandra Kasalniskaya (
Eva Bartok Éva Márta Szőke Ivanovics (18 June 19271 August 1998), known professionally as Eva Bartok, was a Hungarian-British actress. She began acting in films in 1950 and her last credited appearance was in 1966. She acted in more than 40 American, ...
) who prefers him to the sadistic camp commandant, which as Bartov comments also is meant to show that even in defeat, German men were more sexually virile and potent than their Russian counterparts. In '' Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben?'' (''Dogs, do you want to live forever?'') of 1959, which deals with the
Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
, the focus is on celebrating the heroism of the German soldier in that battle, who are shown as valiantly holding out against overwhelming odds with no mention at all of what those soldiers were fighting for, namely National Socialist ideology or the Holocaust. This period also saw a number of films that depicted the military resistance to Hitler. In ''
Des Teufels General ''The Devil's General'' (german: Des Teufels General) is a 1955 black and white West German film based on the play of the same title by Carl Zuckmayer. The film features Curd Jürgens as General Harras, Marianne Koch, Viktor de Kowa, Karl John ...
'' (''The Devil's General'') of 1954, a Luftwaffe general named Harras loosely modeled after
Ernst Udet Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II. Udet joined the Imperial German Air Service at the age of 19, and eventually ...
, appears at first to be cynical fool, but turns out to an anti-Nazi who is secretly sabotaging the German war effort by designing faulty planes. Bartov commented that in this film, the German officer corps is shown as a group of fundamentally noble and civilized men who happened to be serving an evil regime made up of a small gang of gangsterish misfits totally unrepresentative of German society, which served to exculpate both the officer corps and by extension Germany society. Bartov wrote that no German film of the 1950s showed the deep commitment felt by many German soldiers to National Socialism, the utter ruthless way the German Army fought the war and the mindless nihilist brutality of the later Wehrmacht. Bartov wrote that German film-makers liked to show the heroic last stand of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, but none has so far showed the 6th Army's massive co-operation with the ''
Einsatzgruppen (, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
'' in murdering Soviet Jews in 1941. Even though there are countless
film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
s of
Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...
novels worldwide, the
crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
s produced by the German company
Rialto Film Rialto Film is a German motion-picture production company headquartered in Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make ...
between 1959 and 1972 are the best-known of those, to the extent that they form their own
subgenre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a Category of being, category of literature, ...
known as
Krimis Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) was a British novelist and playwright and screenwriter whose works have been adapted for the screen on many occasions. British adaptations His works were adapted for the silent screen as early as 1916, and continued ...
(abbreviation for the German term "Kriminalfilm" (or "Kriminalroman"). Other Edgar Wallace adaptations in a similar style were made by the Germans
Artur Brauner Artur "Atze" Brauner (born Abraham Brauner; 1 August 1918 – 7 July 2019) was a German film producer and entrepreneur of Polish origin. He produced more than 300 films from 1946. Life and career He was born the oldest son of a Jewish family ...
and
Kurt Ulrich Kurt Ulrich (28 June 1905 – 11 September 1967) was a German film producer. He produced more than 140 films between 1933 and 1964. He was born in Berlin, Germany. Selected filmography * '' Everything for a Woman'' (1935) * '' Every Day I ...
, and the British producer
Harry Alan Towers Harry Alan Towers (19 October 1920 – 31 July 2009) was a British radio and independent film producer and screenwriter. He wrote numerous screenplays for the films he produced, often under the pseudonym Peter Welbeck. He produced over 80 ...
. The international significance of the
West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
film industry of the 1950s could no longer measure up to that of France, Italy, or Japan. German films were only rarely distributed internationally as they were perceived as provincial. International co-productions of the kind which were becoming common in France and Italy tended to be rejected by German producers (Schneider 1990:43). However a few German films and film-makers did achieve international recognition at this time, among them
Bernhard Wicki Bernhard Wicki (28 October 1919 – 5 January 2000) was an Austrian actor and film director. Life and career Wicki studied in the city of Breslau such topics as art history, history and German literature. In 1938, he transferred to the d ...
's
Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
-nominated ''
Die Brücke The Brücke (Bridge), also Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later memb ...
(The Bridge)'' (1959), and the actresses
Hildegard Knef Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (; 28 December 19251 February 2002) was a German actress, voice actress, singer, and writer. She was billed in some English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff. Early years Hildegard Knef was born ...
and
Romy Schneider Romy Schneider (; born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach; 23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was a German-French actress. She began her career in the German genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957, she played the central chara ...
.


1960–1970 cinema in crisis

In the late 1950s, the growth in cinema attendance of the preceding decade first stagnated and then went into freefall throughout the 1960s. By 1969 West German cinema attendance at 172.2 million visits per year was less than a quarter of its 1956 post-war peak. As a consequence of this, numerous German production and distribution companies went out of business in the 1950s and 1960s and cinemas across the Federal Republic closed their doors; the number of screens in West Germany almost halved between the beginning and the end of the decade. Initially, the crisis was perceived as a problem of overproduction. Consequently, the German film industry cut back on production. 123 German movies were produced in 1955, only 65 in 1965. However, many German film companies followed the 1960s trends of
international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companies ...
s with Italy and Spain in such genres as
spaghetti westerns The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
and
Eurospy Eurospy film, or Spaghetti spy film (when referring to Italian-produced films in the genre), is a genre of spy films produced in Europe, especially in Italy, France, and Spain, that either sincerely imitated or else parodied the British James Bo ...
films with films shot in those nations or in Yugoslavia that featured German actors in the casts. The roots of the problem lay deeper in changing economic and social circumstances. Average incomes in the Federal Republic rose sharply and this opened up alternative leisure activities to compete with cinema-going. At this time too, television was developing into a mass medium that could compete with the cinema. In 1953 there were only 1,000,000 sets in West Germany; by 1962 there were 7 million (Connor 1990:49) (Hoffman 1990:69). The majority of films produced in the Federal Republic in the 1960s were genre works:
westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...
, especially the series of movies adapted from
Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main pro ...
's popular genre novels which starred
Pierre Brice Pierre-Louis Le Bris (6 February 1929 – 6 June 2015), known as Pierre Brice, was a French actor, best known as portraying fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German films based on Karl May novels. Life and films Brice was born in Brest, Brit ...
as the
Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
Winnetou Winnetou is a fictional Native American hero of several novels written in German by Karl May (1842–1912), one of the best-selling German writers of all time with about 200 million copies worldwide, including the ''Winnetou'' trilogy. The cha ...
and
Lex Barker Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr. (May 8, 1919 – May 11, 1973), known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably a ...
as his white blood brother
Old Shatterhand Old Shatterhand is a fictional character in Western novels by German writer Karl May (1842–1912). He is the German friend and blood brother of Winnetou, the fictional chief of the Mescalero tribe of the Apache. He is the main character i ...
; thrillers and crime films, notably a series of Edgar Wallace movies from
Rialto Film Rialto Film is a German motion-picture production company headquartered in Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make ...
in which
Klaus Kinski Klaus Kinski (, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski 18 October 1926 – 23 November 1991) was a German actor, equally renowned for his intense performance style and notorious for his volatile personality. He appeared in over 130 film roles in a c ...
,
Heinz Drache Heinz Drache (; 9 February 1923 – 3 April 2002) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 40 films between 1953 and 2002. He was born in Essen, Germany and died in Berlin, Germany of lung cancer. Selected filmography * '' Once I ...
,
Karin Dor Karin Dor (, born Kätherose Derr; 22 February 1938 – 6 November 2017) was a German actress. She was famous to international audiences for her role as Bond girl Helga Brandt in the James Bond film '' You Only Live Twice'' (1967) and her appear ...
and
Joachim Fuchsberger Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger (pronounced ; 11 March 1927 – 11 September 2014) was a German actor and television host, best known to a wide German-speaking audience as one of the recurring actors in various Edgar Wallace movies (often a Detecti ...
were among the regular players. The traditional Krimi films expanded into series based on German pulp fiction heroes such as ''
Jerry Cotton Jerry Cotton is the fictional character in a series of pulp magazine-type crime novels. The novels have been written by many different writers in German-speaking countries and in Finland over the course of several decades. Overview The novel ...
'' played by
George Nader George Garfield Nader, Jr. (October 19, 1921 – February 4, 2002) was an American actor and writer. He appeared in a variety of films from 1950 to 1974, including ''Sins of Jezebel'' (1953), ''Congo Crossing'' (1956), and ''The Female Animal'' ...
and ''
Kommissar X Kommissar X or Commissioner X is a German crime fiction series of books from the Pabel Moewig publishing house. "Kommissar X" is a private detective named Joe Louis Walker who was a counterpart of the German crime fiction FBI Special Agent Jerry ...
'' played by Tony Kendall and
Brad Harris Bradford Harris (July 16, 1933 – November 7, 2017) was an American actor, stuntman, and executive producer. He appeared in a variety of roles in over 50 films, mostly in European productions. He was an inductee in the Stuntman's Hall of Fame ...
. West Germany also made several horror films including ones starring
Christopher Lee Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor and singer. In a long career spanning more than 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultimat ...
. The two genres were combined in the return of ''
Doctor Mabuse Dr. Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in his 1921 novel ('Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler'), and his 1932 follow-up novel ''Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse'' (1932). The character was made famous by three films about the character ...
'' in a series of several films of the early 1960s. At the end of the 1960s softcore sex films, both the relatively serious ''Aufklärungsfilme'' (
sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual acti ...
films) of
Oswalt Kolle Oswalt Kolle (2 October 1928, in Kiel – 24 September 2010, in AmsterdamOswalt K ...
and such
exploitation films An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...
as ''
Schulmädchen-Report ''Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten'' (Schoolgirl Report Part 1: What Parents Don't Think Is Possible) ( UK release title: ''Confessions of a Sixth Form Girl'') is a 1970 West German sex report film directed by Ernst Hof ...
(Schoolgirl Report)'' (1970) and its successors were produced into the 1970s. Such movies were commercially successful and often enjoyed international distribution, but won little acclaim from critics.


1960–1980 New German Cinema

In the 1960s more than three-quarters of the regular cinema audience were lost as consequence of the rising popularity of TV sets at home. As a reaction to the artistic and economic stagnation of German cinema, a group of young film-makers issued the
Oberhausen Manifesto The Oberhausen Manifesto was a declaration by a group of 26 young German filmmakers at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia on 28 February 1962. The manifesto was a call to arms to establish a "new German featur ...
on 28 February 1962. This call to arms, which included
Alexander Kluge Alexander Kluge (born 14 February 1932) is a German author, philosopher, academic and film director. Early life, education and early career Kluge was born in Halberstadt, Province of Saxony (now Saxony-Anhalt), Germany. After growing up durin ...
,
Edgar Reitz Edgar Reitz (born 1 November 1932) is a German filmmaker and Professor of Film at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung (State University of Design) in Karlsruhe. He is best-known for his internationally acclaimed '' Heimat film series'' (1 ...
,
Peter Schamoni Peter Schamoni (27 March 1934 – 14 June 2011) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 35 films between 1957 and 2011. His 1966 film '' No Shooting Time for Foxes'' was entered into the 16th Berlin Internation ...
and
Franz-Josef Spieker Franz-Josef Spieker (24 November 1933, Paderborn – 18 March 1978, near Bali) was a German film maker. Spieker studied theater and literary sciences at the DIFF (German Institute for Film and Television) in Munich. He worked as a photojournalis ...
among its signatories, provocatively declared ''"Der alte Film ist tot. Wir glauben an den neuen"'' ("The old cinema is dead. We believe in the new cinema"). Other up-and-coming filmmakers allied themselves to this Oberhausen group, among them
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Fassbinder's main ...
,
Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s, ...
,
Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...
,
Jean-Marie Straub Jean-Marie is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 1950), a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult expert, and graduate in criminal law * Jean-Marie C ...
,
Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Docum ...
,
Werner Schroeter Werner Schroeter (7 April 1945 – 12 April 2010) was a German film director, screenwriter, and opera director known for his stylistic excess. Schroeter was cited by Rainer Werner Fassbinder as an influence both on his own work and on German cine ...
and
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg Hans-Jürgen Syberberg (born 8 December 1935) is a German film director, whose best known film is his lengthy feature ''Hitler: A Film from Germany''. Early life Born in Nossendorf, Province of Pomerania (1815–1945), Pomerania, the son of a ...
in their rejection of the existing German film industry and their determination to build a new cinema founded on artistic and social measures rather than commercial success. Most of these directors organized themselves in, or partially co-operated with, the film production and distribution company ''
Filmverlag der Autoren ''Filmverlag der Autoren'' is a German film distributor that was founded in 1971 to help finance and distribute independent films by German ''Autorenfilm'' directors, that is directors who are renowned for predominantly adapting their own screenpl ...
'' established in 1971, which throughout the 1970s brought forth a number of critically acclaimed films.
Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...
, who formed the German lesbian and gay movement with his film ''
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives It or IT may refer to: * It (pronoun), in English * Information technology Arts and media Film and television * ''It'' (1927 film), a film starring Clara Bow * '' It! The Terror from Beyond Space'', a 1958 science fiction film * ''It!'' (1967 ...
'' (1971), also plays an important role. Despite the foundation of the ''Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film'' (Young German Film Committee) in 1965, set up under the auspices of the
Federal Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
to support new German films financially, the directors of this
New German Cinema New German Cinema (german: Neuer Deutscher Film) is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neore ...
were consequently often dependent on money from television. Young filmmakers had the opportunity to test their mettle in such programmes as the stand-alone drama and documentary series ''Das kleine Fernsehspiel'' (The Little TV Play) or the television films of the crime series ''
Tatort ''Tatort'' ("Crime scene") is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by ...
''. However, the broadcasters sought TV premieres for the films which they had supported financially, with theatrical showings only occurring later. As a consequence, such films tended to be unsuccessful at the box office. This situation changed after 1974 when the ''Film-Fernseh-Abkommen'' (Film and Television Accord) was agreed between the Federal Republic's main broadcasters, ARD and
ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
, and the German Federal Film Board (a government body created in 1968 to support film-making in Germany). This accord, which has been repeatedly extended up to the present day, provides for the television companies to make available an annual sum to support the production of films which are suitable for both theatrical distribution and television presentation. (The amount of money provided by the public broadcasters has varied between 4.5 and 12.94 million euros per year. Under the terms of the accord, films produced using these funds can only be screened on television 24 months after their theatrical release. They may appear on video or DVD no sooner than six months after cinema release. Nevertheless, the New German Cinema found it difficult to attract a large domestic or international audience. The socially critical films of the New German Cinema strove to delineate themselves from what had gone before and the works of
auteur An auteur (; , 'author') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded but personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, which thus manifests the director's unique ...
film-makers such as Kluge and Fassbinder are examples of this, although Fassbinder in his use of stars from German cinema history also sought a reconciliation between the new cinema and the old. In addition, a distinction is sometimes drawn between the avantgarde "Young German Cinema" of the 1960s and the more accessible "New German Cinema" of the 1970s. For their influences the new generation of film-makers looked to
Italian neorealism Italian neorealism ( it, Neorealismo), also known as the Golden Age, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class. They are filmed on location, frequently with non-professional actors. They pri ...
, the French ''
Nouvelle Vague French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
'' and the
British New Wave The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of '' Nouvelle Vague'', the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others. Styli ...
but combined this eclectically with references to the well-established genres of Hollywood cinema. The New German Cinema dealt with contemporary German social problems in a direct way; the Nazi past, the plight of the ''
Gastarbeiter (; both singular and plural; ) are foreign worker, foreign or migrant workers, particularly those who had moved to West Germany between 1955 and 1973, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker program (). As a result, guestworkers are ge ...
'' ("guest workers"), and modern social developments, were all subjects prominent in New German Cinema films. Films such as Kluge's '' Abschied von Gestern'' (1966), Herzog's ''
Aguirre, the Wrath of God ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' (; german: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes; ) is a 1972 West German epic historical drama film produced, written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, w ...
'' (1972), Fassbinder's ''
Fear Eats the Soul ''Ali: Fear Eats the Soul'' (german: Angst essen Seele auf) is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won the International Federation of Film Crit ...
'' (1974) and ''
The Marriage of Maria Braun ''The Marriage of Maria Braun'' (german: Die Ehe der Maria Braun) is a 1978 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remains unfulfilled due to Wor ...
'' (1979), and Wenders' ''
Paris, Texas Paris is a city and county seat of Lamar County, Texas, United States. Located in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods, the population of the city was 24,171 in 2020. History Present-day Lamar County was part of Red River Co ...
'' (1984) found critical approval. Often the work of these auteurs was first recognised abroad rather than in Germany itself. The work of post-war Germany's leading novelists
Heinrich Böll Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...
and
Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da ...
provided source material for the adaptations ''
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum ''The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead'' (original German title: , ) is a 1974 novel by Heinrich Böll. The story deals with the sensationalism of tabloid news and the political climate of panic ov ...
'' (1975) (by Schlöndorff and
Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement.
) and ''
The Tin Drum ''The Tin Drum'' (german: Die Blechtrommel, ) is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass. The novel is the first book of Grass's ' (''Danzig Trilogy''). It was adapted into a 1979 film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best ...
'' (1979) (by Schlöndorff alone) respectively, the latter becoming the first German film to win the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
. The New German Cinema also allowed for female directors to come to the fore and for the development of a feminist cinema which encompassed the works of directors such as
Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement.
,
Helma Sanders-Brahms Helma Sanders-Brahms (20 November 1940 – 27 May 2014) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer. Biography Helma Sanders was born on 20 November 1940 in Emden, Germany. She attended a school for acting in Hannover from 1960 to 1 ...
,
Jutta Brückner Jutta Brückner (born 25 June 1941) is a German film director, screenwriter and film producer. She directed nine films between 1975 and 2005. Furthermore, she has written essays in film theory, film reviews and radio plays. She lives in Berlin a ...
,
Helke Sander Helke Sander (born January 31, 1937, in Berlin) is a German feminist film director, author, actress, activist, and educator. She is known primarily for her documentary work and contributions to the women's movement in the seventies and eighties ...
and
Cristina Perincioli Cristina Perincioli (born November 11, 1946, in Bern, Switzerland) is a Swiss film director, writer, multimedia producer and webauthor. She moved to Berlin in 1968. Since 2003 she has lived Stücken in Brandenburg. Life and career Cristina Peri ...
. German production companies have been quite commonly involved in expensive French and Italian productions from
Spaghetti Westerns The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
to French comic book adaptations.


1980–1989 popular productions

Having achieved some of its goals, among them the establishment of state funding for the film industry and renewed international recognition for German films, the New German Cinema had begun to show signs of fatigue by the 1980s, even though many of its proponents continued to enjoy individual success. Among the commercial successes for German films of the 1980s were the ''Otto'' film series beginning in 1985 starring comedian
Otto Waalkes Otto Gerhard Waalkes (born 22 July 1948) is a German comedian, actor, and musician. He became famous in the 1970s and 1980s in Germany with his shows, books and films. His best known trademark are the 'Ottifanten' ('Ottiphants'), elephant-like c ...
,
Wolfgang Petersen Wolfgang Petersen (14 March 1941 – 12 August 2022) was a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film ''Das Boot'' (1981). His other films include ''The Ne ...
's adaptation of ''
The NeverEnding Story ''The Neverending Story'' (german: Die unendliche Geschichte) is a fantasy novel by German writer Michael Ende, published in 1979. The first English translation, by Ralph Manheim, was published in 1983. The novel was later adapted into several f ...
'' (1984), and the internationally successful ''
Das Boot ''Das Boot'' (, English: "The Boat") is a 1981 West German war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann. It has been exhibited both as ...
'' (1981), which still holds the record for most
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nominations for a German film (six). Other notable film-makers who came to prominence in the 1980s include producer Bernd Eichinger and directors
Doris Dörrie Doris Dörrie (; born 26 May 1955) is a German film director, producer and author. Biography Born in Hanover, Dörrie completed her secondary education there in 1973. The same year, she began a two-year attendance in film studies in the drama de ...
,
Uli Edel Ulrich "Uli" Edel (; born 11 April 1947) is a German film and television director, best known for his work on films such as Last Exit to Brooklyn (film), ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' and ''Body of Evidence (1993 film), Body of Evidence.'' His ''Ra ...
, and
Loriot Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow (12 November 1923 – 22 August 2011), known as Vicco von Bülow or Loriot (), was a German comedian, humorist, cartoonist, film director, actor and writer. He was best known for his cartoons, the s ...
. Away from the mainstream, the
splatter film A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of wikt:gore, gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the h ...
director
Jörg Buttgereit Jörg Buttgereit (born 20 December 1963) is a German writer/director known for his controversial films. He was born in Berlin, Germany, and has lived there his entire life. He is best known for his horror films ''Nekromantik'' (1987), ''Der To ...
came to prominence in the 1980s. The development of arthouse cinemas (''Programmkinos'') from the 1970s onwards provided a venue for the works of less mainstream film-makers like
Herbert Achternbusch Herbert Achternbusch ( Schild; 23 November 1938 – 10 January 2022) was a German film director, writer and painter. He began as a writer of avant-garde prose, such as the novel ''Die Alexanderschlacht'', before turning to low-budget films. He h ...
,
Hark Bohm Hark Bohm (; born 18 May 1939) is a German actor, screenwriter, film director, playwright and former professor for cinema studies. He was born in Hamburg-Othmarschen and grew up on the island Amrum. His younger brother was the actor Marquard Bo ...
,
Dominik Graf Dominik Graf (born 6 September 1952) is a German film director. He studied film direction at University of Television and Film Munich, from where he graduated in 1975. While he has directed several theatrically released feature films since the 198 ...
,
Oliver Herbrich Oliver Herbrich (born 1961 in Munich) is a German filmmaker working as author, film director and producer. He is associated with the New German Cinema movement in the 1980s. From 2016, his films are digitally remastered and re-released in the ''Fi ...
,
Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...
or
Christoph Schlingensief Christoph Maria Schlingensief (24 October 1960 – 21 August 2010) was a German theatre director, performance artist, and filmmaker. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later staged productions for theatres and festivals ...
. From the mid-1980s the spread of
videocassette recorder A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette Videotape is magnetic tape ...
s and the arrival of private TV channels such as
RTL Television RTL (from '), formerly RTL plus and RTL Television, is a German-language free-to-air television channel owned by the RTL Group, headquartered in Cologne. Founded as an offshoot of the German-language radio programme '' ,'' RTL is consider ...
provided new competition for theatrical film distribution. Cinema attendance, having rallied slightly in the late 1970s after an all-time low of 115.1 million visits in 1976, dropped sharply again from the mid-1980s to end at just 101.6 million visits in 1989. However, the availability of a back catalogue of films on video also allowed for a different relationship between the viewer and an individual film, while private TV channels brought new money into the film industry and provided a launch pad from which new talent could later move into film.


1990–Modern Germany

Today's biggest German production studios include
Babelsberg Studio Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...
,
Bavaria Film Bavaria Film is a German film production and distribution company. It is one of Europe's largest film production companies, with some 30 subsidiaries. History The studios were founded in 1919, when Munich-raised film producer Peter Ostermayr ...
,
Constantin Film The Constantin Film AG is a German mini-major film production and distribution company based in Munich. The company, which belongs to Swiss media conglomerate Highlight Communications AG, is a large independent German maker and distributor of pr ...
and
UFA Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the ...
. Film releases such as ''
Run Lola Run ''Run Lola Run'' (german: Lola rennt}, lit. "Lola Runs") is a 1998 German experimental thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer. The story follows a woman named Lola (Franka Potente) who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty min ...
'' by
Tom Tykwer Tom Tykwer (; born 23 May 1965) is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing the thriller films ''Run Lola Run'' (1998), ''Heaven (2002 film), Heaven'' (2002), ''Perfume: The St ...
, ''
Good Bye Lenin! ''Good Bye Lenin!'' is a 2003 German tragicomedy film, directed by Wolfgang Becker. The cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon. The story follows a family in East Germany (GDR); the mother (Sass) is dedica ...
'' by Wolfgang Becker, '' Head-On'' by
Fatih Akin Fatih Akin (Turkish: Fatih Akın, born 25 August 1973) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent. He has won numerous awards for his films, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his film '' Head- ...
, ''
Perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...
'' by
Tom Tykwer Tom Tykwer (; born 23 May 1965) is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing the thriller films ''Run Lola Run'' (1998), ''Heaven (2002 film), Heaven'' (2002), ''Perfume: The St ...
and ''
The Lives of Others ''The Lives of Others'' (german: link=no, Das Leben der Anderen, ) is a 2006 German drama film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck marking his feature film directorial debut. The plot is about the monitoring of East Berl ...
'' by
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck (; born 2 May 1973) is an Academy Award-winning German and Austrian film director. He is best known for writing and directing the 2006 dramatic thriller ''Das Leben der Anderen (The L ...
, have arguably managed to recapture a provocative and innovative nature. Movies like ''
The Baader Meinhof Complex ''The Baader Meinhof Complex'' (german: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, ) is a 2008 German drama film directed by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based ...
'' produced by Bernd Eichinger achieved some popular success. Notable directors working in German currently include
Sönke Wortmann Sönke Wortmann (; 25 August 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer. Biography Wortmann's father was a miner. After Wortmann's A-Levels he wanted to become a professional football player and started playing ...
,
Caroline Link Caroline Link (born 2 June 1964) is a German film director and screenwriter. Life and work Caroline Link is the daughter of Jürgen and Ilse Link. From 1986 to 1990 she studied at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF), and then wo ...
(winner of an Academy Award),
Romuald Karmakar Romuald Karmakar (born February 15, 1965) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany as the son of a Bengali father and a French mother. From 1977 to 1982 he lived in Athens. He has won several national ...
,
Dani Levy Dani Levy (born 17 November 1957) is a Swiss filmmaker, theatrical director, screenwriter and actor. Biography Levy was born to a Jewish family in Switzerland in 1957.
,
Hans-Christian Schmid Hans-Christian Schmid (born 1965) is a German film director and screenwriter. Life and work Hans-Christian Schmid has collaborated with on several of the movies that he directed. Gutmann wrote screenplays for '' 23 — Nichts ist so wie es s ...
,
Andreas Dresen Andreas Dresen (born 16 August 1963) is a German film director. His directing credits include '' Cloud 9'', '' Summer in Berlin'', ''Grill Point'' and ''Night Shapes''. His film '' Stopped on Track'' premiered at the Un Certain Regard section at ...
,
Dennis Gansel Dennis Gansel (born 4 October 1973) is a German film director, writer and actor . Life and career Gansel was born in 1973 in Hannover, West Germany, where he graduated from high school in 1993. Gansel worked in the festivals for film and televi ...
and
Uli Edel Ulrich "Uli" Edel (; born 11 April 1947) is a German film and television director, best known for his work on films such as Last Exit to Brooklyn (film), ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' and ''Body of Evidence (1993 film), Body of Evidence.'' His ''Ra ...
as well as comedy directors
Michael Herbig Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
and
Til Schweiger Tilman Valentin Schweiger (; born 19 December 1963) is a German actor, voice actor and filmmaker. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin. Early life Schweiger was born in Freiburg, West Germany, to two teachers. He grew ...
. Internationally, German filmmakers such as
Roland Emmerich Roland Emmerich (; born 10 November 1955) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is widely known for his science fiction and disaster films and has been called a "master of disaster" within the industry. His films, most of wh ...
or
Wolfgang Petersen Wolfgang Petersen (14 March 1941 – 12 August 2022) was a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film ''Das Boot'' (1981). His other films include ''The Ne ...
built successful careers as directors and producers.
Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Academy Awards, Oscars and four Grammy Awards, Grammys, and has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmys and a Tony Awar ...
, a film composer, has become one of the world's most acclaimed producers of movie scores.
Michael Ballhaus Michael Ballhaus, A.S.C. (5 August 1935 – 12 April 2017) was a German cinematographer who collaborated with directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols and James L. Brooks. He was a member of both the Academy of ...
became a renowned cinematographer. Germany has a long tradition of cooperation with the European-based film industry, which started as early as during the 1960s. Since 1990 the number of international projects financed and co-produced by German filmmakers has expanded. The new millennium since 2000 has seen a general resurgence of the German film industry, with a higher output and improved returns at the German box office. The collapse of the GDR had a large effect on the German cinema industry. The viewer count increased with the new population's access to western movies. The movies produced in the United States were the most popular, due to the fact that the market was dominated by them and the production was more advanced than Germany's. Some other genres that were popular consisted of Romantic Comedies, and Social Commentaries. Wolfgang Petersen and Roland Emmerich both established international success. Internationally though, German productions are widely unknown and unsuccessful. Even domestically, the German movies hold only a market share of about 20–25%. The movie culture is recognized to be underfunded, problem laden and rather inward looking. Since its golden age in the 1920s, the German film industry has never regained the technical excellence, the star system appeal, or the popular narratives suitable for a German, European or global audience.


German Film Academy

The
Deutsche Filmakademie The Deutsche Filmakademie is an independently run organization with a focus on filmmaking in Germany. It was founded in 2003 in Berlin as a way to provide native filmmakers a forum for discussion and a way to promote the reputation of German ci ...
was founded in 2003 in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and aims to provide native filmmakers a forum for discussion and a way to promote the reputation of German cinema through publications, presentations, discussions and regular promotion of the subject in the schools.


Awards

Since 2005, the winners of the
Deutscher Filmpreis The German Film Award (), also known as Lola after its prize statuette, is the national film award of Germany. It is presented at an annual ceremony honouring cinematic achievements in the German film industry. Besides being the most important ...
, also known as the ''Lolas'' are elected by the members of the Deutsche Filmakademie. With a cash prize of three million euros it is the most highly endowed German cultural award.


Festivals

The
Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
, also called ''Berlinale'', is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, Germany. Founded in
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978. With 274,000 tickets sold and 487,000 admissions it is considered the largest publicly attended film festival worldwide. Up to 400 films are shown in several sections, representing a comprehensive array of the cinematic world. Around twenty films compete for the awards called the Golden and Silver Bears. Since 2001 the director of the festival has been
Dieter Kosslick Dieter Kosslick is a German film critic, journalist and researcher. He was the fourth director of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) from 1 May 2001, when he took over from Moritz de Hadeln, until 2019. Early life Born in Pfor ...
. The festival, the EFM and other satellite events are attended by around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries. More than 4200 journalists are responsible for the media exposure in over 110 countries. At high-profile feature film premieres, movie stars and celebrities are present at the
red carpet A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events. History The earliest known reference ...
.


Film funding

The main production incentive provided by governmental authorities is the Deutscher Filmförderfonds (German Federal Film Fund) (DFFF). The DFFF is a grant given by the German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media. To receive the grant a producer has to fulfill different requirements including a cultural eligibility test. The fund offers 60 million euros a year to film producers and or co-producers and grants can amount to up to 20% of the approved German production costs. At least 25% the production costs must be spent in Germany, or only 20%, if the production costs are higher than 20 million euros. The DFFF has been established in 2007 and supported projects in all categories and genres. In 2015 the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie) launched a new film & TV funding program entitled "German Motion Picture Fund". For the first time in Germany innovative series formats and digital filmmaking will be funded at a federal level in the same manner as feature films.GERMAN MOTION PICTURE FUND
(PDF), 8 March 2016


Film schools

Several institutions, both government run and private, provide formal education in various aspects of filmmaking. *
Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin The Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB, German Film and Television Academy Berlin) is a film school in Berlin, Germany. In the German film school ranking of FOCUS (Issue 22/2006), the dffb - together with the Academy of Media Arts Co ...
(dffb)
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
*
Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg The ''Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK Hamburg)'' is the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. It dates to 1767, when it was called the ''Hamburger Gewerbeschule''; later it became known as ''Landeskunstschule Hamburg''. The main build ...
(HfbK)
Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...
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Film Academy Baden-Württemberg The Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg (German: ''Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg'') was founded in 1991 as a publicly funded film school in Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Filmakademie is one of the most internationally renowned film sc ...
,
Ludwigsburg Ludwigsburg (; Swabian: ''Ludisburg'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg district with about 88,000 inhabitants. It is ...
* International Film School Cologne,
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
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University of Television and Film Munich The University of Television and Film Munich (German: Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München, short: HFF Munich) is a publicly funded film school in Munich, Germany. The school was established in 1966 by decree of the Bavarian government. T ...
, Munich * Filmuniversität Babelsberg,
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...


Personalities

File:Boulevard der Stars 2012 Sir Kenneth Adam (cropped) (cropped).jpg,
Ken Adam Sir Kenneth Adam (born Klaus Hugo George Fritz Adam; 5 February 1921 – 10 March 2016) was a German-British movie production designer, best known for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for ''Dr. Stran ...
File:Michael Ballhaus.4676.jpg,
Michael Ballhaus Michael Ballhaus, A.S.C. (5 August 1935 – 12 April 2017) was a German cinematographer who collaborated with directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols and James L. Brooks. He was a member of both the Academy of ...
File:Marlene Dietrich in No Highway (1951) (Cropped).png,
Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
File:Roland Emmerich Deauville 2013.jpg,
Roland Emmerich Roland Emmerich (; born 10 November 1955) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is widely known for his science fiction and disaster films and has been called a "master of disaster" within the industry. His films, most of wh ...
File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F034157-0020, Bonn, Bundeskanzler Brandt empfängt Schauspieler cropped.jpg,
Curd Jürgens Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens (13 December 191518 June 1982) was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens. He was well known for playing Ernst Udet in '' Des Teufels Gene ...
File:Diane Kruger Peabody 2014 (cropped).jpg,
Diane Kruger Diane Kruger ( Heidkrüger; ; born 15 July 1976) is a German and American actress. Early in her career, Kruger gained worldwide recognition and received the Trophée Chopard from the Cannes Film Festival. Kruger became known for her roles in f ...
File:Wolfgang Petersen.jpg,
Wolfgang Petersen Wolfgang Petersen (14 March 1941 – 12 August 2022) was a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film ''Das Boot'' (1981). His other films include ''The Ne ...
File:Hans-Zimmer-profile (cropped).jpg,
Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Academy Awards, Oscars and four Grammy Awards, Grammys, and has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmys and a Tony Awar ...


See also

*
Lists of German films This is a list of the most notable films produced in cinema of Germany. For an alphabetical list of articles on German films see :German films. 1895–1945 *List of German films of 1895–1918 (German Empire) *List of German films of 1919–1932 ...
*
List of highest-grossing films in Germany This list charts the most successful films at cinemas in Germany by admissions. It also lists the most popular German productions in terms of box office sales, in euros and admissions. '' The Jungle Book'', initially released in 1968 but with subs ...
*
European Film Academy The European Film Academy is an initiative of a group of European filmmakers who came together in Berlin on the occasion of the first presentation of the European Film Awards in November 1988. The Academy—under the name of European Cinema Soci ...
*
Kammerspielfilm ''Kammerspielfilm'' is a type of German film that offers an intimate, cinematic portrait of lower middle class life. History The name derives from a theater, the '' Kammerspiele'', opened in 1906 by a major stage director Max Reinhardt to stage i ...
* German underground horror *
List of films set in Berlin Berlin is a major center in the European and German film industry. It is home to more than 1000 film and television production companies and 270 movie theaters. Three hundred national and international co-productions are filmed in the region eve ...
*
Media of Germany Mass media in Germany includes a variety of online, print, and broadcast formats, such as radio, television, newspapers, and magazines. History The modern printing press developed in Mainz in the 15th century, and its innovative technology spre ...
*
Cinema of the world This is a list of cinema of the world by continent and country. By continent * Cinema of Africa *Cinema of Asia **South Asian cinema **Southeast Asian cinema * Cinema of North America * Cinema of Latin America *Cinema of Europe * Cinema of Oceani ...
*
History of cinema The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scree ...
*
World cinema World cinema is a term in film theory that refers to films made outside of the American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial American cinema.Nagib, Lúcia. "Towards a positive de ...


References


Further reading

* Bergfelder, Tim, et al. eds. ''The German Cinema Book'' (2008) * Blaney, Martin. ''Symbiosis or Confrontation?'' (Bonn, 1992) * Brockman, Stephen. ''A Critical History of German Film'' (2011) *Feinstein, Joshua. ''Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1949–1989'' (chapel Hill, 2002) * Garncarz, Joseph, and Annemone Ligensa, eds. ''The Cinema of Germany'' (Wallflower Press, distributed by Columbia University Press; 2012) 264 pages; analyses of 24 works from silent movies to such contemporary films as "Good Bye, Lenin!" * Hake, Sabine. ''German National Cinema'' (2002; 2nd ed. 2008) * Heiduschke, Sebastian. ''East German Cinema: DEFA and Film History'' (2013) * Hoffman, Kay 1990 ''Am Ende Video – Video am Ende?'' Berlin * Kapczynski, Jennifer M. and Michael D. Richardson, eds. (2012) ''A New History of German Cinema'' (Rochester Camden House, 2012) 673 pp.
online review
* Kracauer, Siegfried. (2004) '' From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film''. Princeton: Univ. of Princeton Press. *Schneider, Irmela 1990 ''Film, Fernsehen & Co.'' Heidelberg. *Stielke, Sebastian. ''100 Facts about Babelsberg – Cradle of Film and modern Media City'' (German/English). Bebra-Verlag (publishing house), Berlin 2021, 240 pages, *Fay, Jennifer. 2008. ''Theaters of Occupation: Hollywood and the Reeducation of Postwar Germany''. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.


External links


German Film History




] – Articles and news on German filmmakers, movies, festivals {{DEFAULTSORT:Cinema Of Germany Cinema of Germany,