Berlinale: Paternal Leave (2025)
★★★★☆
Paternal Leave is charming and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s the debut feature written and directed by Alissa Jung.
Germany
Elaha (2024)
★★★★☆
Elaha, directed by Milena Aboyan, is a powerful contemporary story about the conflict between tradition and modernity in the life of a young girl from an immigrant family in Germany.
The Collini Case (2019)
★★★☆☆
The Collini Case by Marco Kreuzpaintner is a slickly made German legal drama that hinges on postwar European history.
Undine (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Undine by Christian Petzold is a strange, otherworldly, watery romance with unsettling depths.
BFI Flare: Boy Meets Boy (2021) – on demand
★★★☆☆
After meeting high in a Berlin nightclub, Johannes and Harry casually drift around the city coming down and getting to know each other in Daniel Sanchez Lopez’s Boy Meets Boy
System Crasher (2019) – ON DEMAND and Q&A
★★★★☆
Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher is explosive and riotous with tour de force performances.
Transit (2018)
★★★★★
Transit is a disorienting Casablanca for our times by the renowned German director of Barbara and Phoenix, Christian Petzold.
Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs the internal dynamics of a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them, with chilling results.
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BFI LFF: I Am Not a Witch (2017)
★★★★☆
Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch is a surreal deadpan satire.
BFI LFF: Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them with chilling results.
Alone in Berlin (2016)
★★☆☆☆
Adapting Hans Fallada’s German resistance novel for the silver screen, Vincent Perez’ Alone In Berlin recreates the plot but none of the drama.
Sodom (2017)
★★★★☆
Sodom is an impressive, assured, thought-provoking debut for writer/director Mark Wilshin.
The Olive Tree (2016)
★★★☆☆
The Olive Tree is a heartwarming film scripted by Ken Loach’s collaborator Paul Laverty, directed by Icíar Bollaín, demonstrating the power of personal conviction and positive action.
Elle (2016)
★★★★☆
Isabelle Huppert is elegantly transgressive in Paul Verhoeven’s disturbing Elle.