Film & Fernsehen

Film & Fernsehen

General TV-Guides
Online Magazines Devoted to Movies Deutsche Filmwebseiten
Short Films To Look For Film “language” links

General

  • Kölner Kinoprogramm Current list of what’s showing in Cologne.  Click on one of the featured movies for more info, or on “Alle Filme heute von A-Z” to see everything that’s currently showing somewhere in Cologne.
  • Marlene Dietrich bei wikipedia.de

TV-Guides

  • Hörzu Biggest German guide to TV programming
  • tvheute.at Austrian guide to TV programming

Online Magazines Devoted to Movies

Deutsche Filmwebseiten

  • Deutsche-Filme.de Info about recently released German movies, as well as an archive of German movies from the last several years.
  • Victoria (2015) Prize-winning movie shot in a single take about Victoria, a A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin. Victoria’s late-night/early morning flirtation with a local guy turns potentially deadly as their night out with his friends takes some unexpected turns. Much of the dialogue is in English. The link takes you to the movie’s IMDB page. Here are wikipedia’s web links for this film.
  • Honig im Kopf Most popular German movie of 2014. Comedy drama (!) about Alzheimer. Before Tilda’s parents can put her beloved grandfather in a home due to his progressing Alzheimer disease, she escapes with him on a wild trip to Italy. The link takes you to the movie’s IMDB page.
  • Im Labyrinth des Schweigens [Released internationally as Labyrinth of Lies] (2014) Fictionalized dramatisation ofthe pre-history of the Auschwitz trials in the late 1950s, when Germany’s Nazi past was being actively repressed.
  • Fack ju Göhte (2013) Most popular German movie of 2013. Comedy set in a school. Ex-con poses as a teacher in order to be able to dig up the loot which his friend buried under the school’s gym. Link takes you to the movie’s IMDB page. The sequel was the most popular German movie of 2015.
  • Friendship (2009) Comedy about two friends from former East Germany who want to go to San Francisco after the Fall of the Wall – but they don’t speak English, and only have enough money to fly to New York City.
  • Das weiße Band (2009) Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery.
  • Auf der anderen Seite (2007) Drama by Fatih Akin, set in Germany and Turkey.
  • Keinohrhasen (2007) Romantic comedy starring Til Schwaiger. Most popular German movie of 2007. Rainbow press reporter Ludo is sentenced to community service at a local daycare center. His boss there is Anna, who has unfinished business with him… Link takes you to the movie’s IMDB page.
  • Das Leben der Anderen (2006) Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. About state surveillance methods in former East Germany. Link takes you to a taz.de review of various movies from that year; Das Leben der Anderen is number 5.
  • Die Fälscher (2007) Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. True story of Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch, the “king of counterfeiters.” He is arrested in 1936 and sent to a concentration camp. There, the Nazis force him and a group of other prisoners to produce fake foreign currency on a large scale, in return for better treatment – setting up a moral dilemma, as Salomon and his group realize that their actions could prolong the war and risk the lives of fellow prisoners.
  • Nirgendwo in Afrika This film by Caroline Link won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003. A German Jewish refugee family moves to Kenya to escape the Nazis in the 1930s, and adjusts to life on a farm there, until the war catches up to them. Based on a true story, told by the family’s young daughter. The link takes you to the moviemaze.de review.
  • Good bye Lenin! Very successful, witty and entertaining 2003 movie with a great premise: a young man is arrested for protesting against the East German government shortly before the fall of the wall. His mother sees the police arrest him, suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma. When she awakes, the wall is gone, but her frail health makes it dangerous for her to get this kind of shocking news–so the son tries to
    hide it for her by making everything in their flat seem as if the GDR still existed…. Most popular German movie of 2003.
  • Der bewegte Mann (1994) Most popular German movie of 1994. Romantic comedy-drama. Axel’s girlfriend throws him out of her apartment after catching him in the act of cheating on her. Having nowhere to go, he ends up living for a while with Norbert, a gay man he met some days before. Will he change teams? Link takes you to the movie’s IMDB page.

Short Films To Look For

Here are a few interesting German-language short films you may be able to find online (links are given below where possible, but may stop working):

  • Spielzeugland (Jochen Alexander Freydank, 2007) Won the 2009 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. When her son asks what will happen to his friend, whose family is facing deportation during the Holocaust, the mother tells him they will be going to “Toyland”…
  • Ausreißer (Ulrike Grote, 2004) Nominated for an Oscar in 2006. A little boy shows up at a man’s door in the morning, calling him “Papa” and asking him to take him to school.
  • Rhinos (Shimmy Marcus, 2012) A shy young man and a young German tourist find a way to overcome a language barrier.
  • Manolo (Robert Bohrer, 2010) Summary from filmportal.de: His mother wants him out of the house, his cousin wants him out of his way and Linda, this summer’s princess, wants something too, if only he knew what. On a sunny after noon at the pool, 12-year-old Manolo has to face his fears: Will he stand up to his big cousin Mike, the notorious splash-diving hotshot?
  • Kleingeld (Marc-Andreas Bochert, 1999) Nominated for an Oscar in 2000. A beggar starts washing the car of a businessman who regularly gives him small change. Complications ensue.

Film “language” links