German submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
by kingwilson | created - 11 Jun 2011 | updated - 11 Jun 2011 | PublicListed as West Germany, then East Germany, then unified Germany. I've tagged West and East to avoid confusion.
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1. The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
93 min | Comedy, Drama
A young shoemaker is arrested for stealing a small amount of money, and is released after being jailed for 15 years. He wants to have a pass to get a job and start anew, but without a job ... See full summary »
Director: Helmut Käutner | Stars: Heinz Rühmann, Martin Held, Hannelore Schroth, Willy A. Kleinau
Votes: 1,908
West Germany
2. The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
97 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A serial killer strikes again during World War II in Germany. The wrong man is arrested and a detective hunts down the real killer, but justice in Nazi Germany is not so easily administered.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Claus Holm, Mario Adorf, Hannes Messemer, Peter Carsten
Votes: 1,583
West Germany
3. Arms and the Man (1958)
96 min | Comedy, Romance
In 1865, Swiss captain Bluntschli fights as a mercenary in the war between Bulgaria and Serbia. When his group is attacked by a few Bulgarian troopers, he learns that he's got the wrong ... See full summary »
Director: Franz Peter Wirth | Stars: O.W. Fischer, Liselotte Pulver, Ellen Schwiers, Jan Hendriks
Votes: 200
West Germany
4. The Bridge (1959)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, History, War
In 1945, Germany is being overrun, and nobody is left to fight but teenagers.
Director: Bernhard Wicki | Stars: Volker Bohnet, Fritz Wepper, Michael Hinz, Frank Glaubrecht
Votes: 8,652
West Germany
5. Faust (1960)
128 min | Drama, Fantasy
The aging scientist Faust is desperately in search of knowledge and insight, but without success. To escape from this ignorance, he dares the extreme: He joins forces with The Devil. ... See full summary »
Directors: Peter Gorski, Gustaf Gründgens | Stars: Will Quadflieg, Gustaf Gründgens, Ella Büchi, Elisabeth Flickenschildt
Votes: 684
West Germany
6. The Miracle of Father Malachia (1961)
122 min | Comedy
A monk is struggling with the consequences of a miracle that he prayed for.
Director: Bernhard Wicki | Stars: Horst Bollmann, Richard Münch, Christiane Nielsen, Günter Pfitzmann
Votes: 87
West Germany
7. Es (1966)
86 min | Drama
About a young couple and their marriage crisis resulting from a concealed pregnancy and abortion.
Director: Ulrich Schamoni | Stars: Sabine Sinjen, Bruno Dietrich, Horst Manfred Adloff, Bernhard Minetti
Votes: 122
West Germany
8. Young Törless (1966)
Not Rated | 87 min | Drama
In a boarding school, a student observes in passive disgust as his two friends manipulate, humiliate and torture a fellow student, justifying their every act.
Director: Volker Schlöndorff | Stars: Mathieu Carrière, Marian Seidowsky, Bernd Tischer, Fred Dietz
Votes: 2,664
West Germany
9. Tätowierung (1967)
86 min | Crime, Drama
Capturing the zeitgeist of discontent and rebellion, the movie anticipates the protests of 1968.
Director: Johannes Schaaf | Stars: Helga Anders, Christof Wackernagel, Rosemarie Fendel, Tilo von Berlepsch
Votes: 109
West Germany
10. Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)
103 min | Drama
"Neues Kino movie" about life in the circus dome narrated in Brechtian spirit; deceptively illusionist grip is broken violently by aloofness and sweeping subjective tracking shots.
Director: Alexander Kluge | Stars: Hannelore Hoger, Sigi Graue, Alfred Edel, Bernd Höltz
Votes: 462
West Germany
11. Hunting Scenes from Bavaria (1969)
88 min | Drama, Horror
Abram returns to his small village and although his repairing skills are needed, people's suspicion about his sexual preferences make his life hard.
Director: Peter Fleischmann | Stars: Martin Sperr, Angela Winkler, Else Quecke, Michael Strixner
Votes: 755
West Germany
12. O.K. (1970)
80 min | Drama, War
A four-man US fire-team on patrol seizes a dying young Vietnamese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. One soldier refuses to take part and reports the incident.
Director: Michael Verhoeven | Stars: Gustl Bayrhammer, Hartmut Becker, Rolf Castell, Wolfgang Fischer
Votes: 206
West Germany
13. The Castle (1968)
93 min | Drama, Mystery
A man comes to a small village to begin his new job as an attendant at the nearby castle. But everybody in the village claims that he surely must be mistaken, there is no need for an attendant at the castle.
Director: Rudolf Noelte | Stars: Maximilian Schell, Cordula Trantow, Trudik Daniel, Friedrich Maurer
Votes: 281
West Germany
14. Trotta (1971)
95 min | Drama
After his imprisonment during the Great War, a young soldier returns to Vienna only to realize that everything has changed.
Director: Johannes Schaaf | Stars: András Bálint, Rosemarie Fendel, Doris Kunstmann, Elma Bulla
Votes: 193
West Germany
15. The Pedestrian (1973)
PG | 98 min | Drama
When a German businessman causes a car accident with deadly consequences, the papers start digging into his past to find scandals. What they find causes him to reevaluate his own past during WW2 when he was in Greece.
Director: Maximilian Schell | Stars: Gustav Rudolf Sellner, Peter Hall, Maximilian Schell, Gila von Weitershausen
Votes: 287
West Germany
16. One or the Other (1974)
105 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
What started as a simple blackmail, quickly devolves into a downward spiral of psychological and physical violence.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Klaus Schwarzkopf, Elke Sommer, Jürgen Prochnow, Ulla Jacobsson
Votes: 284
West Germany
17. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Not Rated | 110 min | Biography, Drama, History
A young man named Kaspar Hauser suddenly appears in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to talk or walk, and bearing a strange note.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Bruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira, Willy Semmelrogge
Votes: 18,903
West Germany
18. The Clown (1976)
111 min | Drama
Hans Schnier has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Second World War, including his mother's fanatic Nazism.
Director: Vojtech Jasný | Stars: Helmut Griem, Hanna Schygulla, Eva Maria Meineke, Hans Christian Blech
Votes: 158
West Germany
19. The American Friend (1977)
Not Rated | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Tom Ripley, who deals in forged art, suggests a picture framer he knows would make a good hit man.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain
Votes: 18,597
West Germany
20. The Glass Cell (1978)
93 min | Crime, Drama
A man is wrongfully imprisoned for five years. Once out, he hears about his wife's supposed adventures outside of their marriage and becomes increasingly jealous.
Director: Hans W. Geissendörfer | Stars: Brigitte Fossey, Helmut Griem, Dieter Laser, Walter Kohut
Votes: 282
West Germany
21. The Tin Drum (1979)
R | 142 min | Drama, War
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Director: Volker Schlöndorff | Stars: David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Katharina Thalbach
Votes: 25,755
West Germany
22. Fabian (1980)
R | 110 min | Drama
Novel-based story of Jacob Fabian, a somewhat liberal Berlin advertising copywriter who witnesses the collapse of the prewar German society during the 1930s.
Director: Wolf Gremm | Stars: Hans Peter Hallwachs, Hermann Lause, Silvia Janisch, Mijanou Van Baarzel
Votes: 154
West Germany
23. Lili Marleen (1981)
R | 120 min | Drama, Music, Romance
In 1938, a German singer falls in love with a Jewish composer in Zurich, who helps Jews flee Nazi Germany. She wants to help but is forced back to Germany. Her song "Lili Marleen" becomes a hit with soldiers and the Nazi top brass.
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, Mel Ferrer, Karl-Heinz von Hassel
Votes: 4,295
West Germany
24. Fitzcarraldo (1982)
PG | 158 min | Adventure, Drama
The story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy, Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Votes: 38,596
West Germany
25. A Woman in Flames (1983)
Not Rated | 106 min | Drama
Eva, an upper-class housewife, frustratingly leaves her arrogant husband and decides to enter the call girl business. She lets Yvonne, a prostitute, teach her the basics and both set out ... See full summary »
Director: Robert van Ackeren | Stars: Gudrun Landgrebe, Mathieu Carrière, Hanns Zischler, Gabriele Lafari
Votes: 639
West Germany
26. Morgen in Alabama (1984)
126 min | Thriller
After assaulting a minister, a young defendant claims to have acted entirely by himself. His lawyer doesn't believe him and starts investigations of his own.
Director: Norbert Kückelmann | Stars: Maximilian Schell, Lena Stolze, Robert Aldini, Wolfgang Kieling
Votes: 70
West Germany
27. Angry Harvest (1985)
R | 105 min | Drama, Romance, War
In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers ... See full summary »
Director: Agnieszka Holland | Stars: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Wojciech Pszoniak, Gerd Baltus
Votes: 867
West Germany
28. Men... (1985)
99 min | Comedy, Romance
A man's wife leaves him to take up with an artist, so the man responds by becoming the artist's roommate.
Director: Doris Dörrie | Stars: Heiner Lauterbach, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Ulrike Kriener, Janna Marangosoff
Votes: 1,348
West Germany
29. Wings of Desire (1987)
PG-13 | 128 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
An angel tires of his purely ethereal life of merely overseeing the human activity of Berlin's residents, and longs for the tangible joys of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois
Votes: 77,040 | Gross: $3.33M
West Germany
30. Yasemin (1988)
85 min | Drama, Romance
20-year-old Casanova Jan falls in love with 17-year-old Turkish girl Yasemin, who lives in Germany with her family. She's well-protected by her father, who believes in the Turkish ... See full summary »
Director: Hark Bohm | Stars: Ayse Romey, Uwe Bohm, Sener Sen, Ilhan Emirli
Votes: 283
West Germany
31. Spider's Web (1989)
196 min | Drama
Ulrich Mühe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The ... See full summary »
Director: Bernhard Wicki | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Andrea Jonasson
Votes: 244
West Germany
32. Der Dritte (1972)
107 min | Drama, Romance
A disillusioned single mother decides to give love one last chance.
Director: Egon Günther | Stars: Jutta Hoffmann, Barbara Dittus, Rolf Ludwig, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Votes: 118
East Germany
33. Jacob the Liar (1974)
100 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A Jewish ghetto in central Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central ... See full summary »
Director: Frank Beyer | Stars: Vlastimil Brodský, Erwin Geschonneck, Henry Hübchen, Blanche Kommerell
Votes: 1,377
East Germany
34. Mama, ich lebe (1977)
103 min | Drama, Romance, War
Four young Germans in a Soviet POW camp decide to join the Red Army to hasten the end of the war. Their new identities elicit different reactions from Germans and Russians, and are ... See full summary »
Director: Konrad Wolf | Stars: Peter Prager, Uwe Zerbe, Eberhard Kirchberg, Detlef Gieß
Votes: 118
East Germany
35. Die Verlobte (1980)
105 min | Drama
The wrenching story of a woman sentenced in 1934 to 10 years in prison for antifascist activities. The love between her and her fiancé enables her to survive the tribulations of her time in... See full summary »
Directors: Günter Reisch, Günther Rücker | Stars: Jutta Wachowiak, Regimantas Adomaitis, Slávka Budínová, Christine Gloger
Votes: 99
East Germany
36. Der Aufenthalt (1983)
102 min | Drama
Teenage German soldier is falsely accused of being a war criminal and arrested in Poland of 1945.
Director: Frank Beyer | Stars: Sylvester Groth, Fred Düren, Matthias Günther, Klaus Piontek
Votes: 170
East Germany
37. The Nasty Girl (1990)
PG-13 | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, History
When a young woman investigates her town's Nazi past, the community turns against her.
Director: Michael Verhoeven | Stars: Lena Stolze, Hans-Reinhard Müller, Monika Baumgartner, Elisabeth Bertram
Votes: 2,759 | Gross: $2.28M
38. Schtonk (1992)
115 min | Comedy, Crime
The slightly fictionalized story of an art forger, a journalist desperate for a big story, and the biggest press scandal in German history: the Hitler Diaries.
Director: Helmut Dietl | Stars: Götz George, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Christiane Hörbiger, Dagmar Manzel
Votes: 4,030
39. Justiz (1993)
106 min | Drama
Senator Isaak Kohler shoots and kills Professor Winter in a crowded restaurant, while Winter is dining with the struggling idealistic young lawyer, Felix Spat. Kohler puts up no defense and... See full summary »
Director: Hans W. Geissendörfer | Stars: Maximilian Schell, Thomas Heinze, Anna Thalbach, Mathias Gnädinger
Votes: 228
40. Das Versprechen (1994)
R | 115 min | Drama, Romance
East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, ... See full summary »
Director: Margarethe von Trotta | Stars: Corinna Harfouch, Meret Becker, August Zirner, Anian Zollner
Votes: 858 | Gross: $0.09M
41. Brother of Sleep (1995)
R | 127 min | Drama, Music, Romance
In the beginning of the 19th century, Johannes Elias Alder is born in a small village in the Austrian mountains. While growing up he is considered strange by the other villagers and ... See full summary »
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier | Stars: André Eisermann, Dana Vávrová, Ben Becker, Jochen Nickel
Votes: 1,678
42. Der Totmacher (1995)
110 min | Crime, Drama
Fritz Haarmann, who has killed at least 27 boys, is questioned by a psychology professor in order to find out whether he is sane and can be held responsible for his crimes. During this ... See full summary »
Director: Romuald Karmakar | Stars: Götz George, Jürgen Hentsch, Pierre Franckh, Hans-Michael Rehberg
Votes: 2,348
43. Beyond Silence (1996)
PG-13 | 109 min | Drama, Music
Since the earliest days in her childhood Lara has had a difficult but important task. Both her parents are deaf-mute and Lara has to translate from sign-language to the spoken word and vice... See full summary »
Director: Caroline Link | Stars: Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb, Howie Seago, Emmanuelle Laborit
Votes: 4,586 | Gross: $0.17M
44. Run Lola Run (1998)
R | 80 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
After a botched money delivery, Lola has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks.
Director: Tom Tykwer | Stars: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri
Votes: 207,011 | Gross: $7.27M
45. Aimee & Jaguar (1999)
Not Rated | 125 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
In 1943 Berlin, a Nazi officer's wife meets and starts a passionate affair with a Jewish woman.
Director: Max Färberböck | Stars: Maria Schrader, Juliane Köhler, Johanna Wokalek, Heike Makatsch
Votes: 6,996 | Gross: $0.93M
46. Die Unberührbare (2000)
110 min | Drama
Flanders, a famous female author, travels 1989 after the fall of the Berlin wall into the German capital. She is deeply depressed of the events because she saw the communistic states as a ... See full summary »
Director: Oskar Roehler | Stars: Hannelore Elsner, Vadim Glowna, Tonio Arango, Michael Gwisdek
Votes: 887
47. The Experiment (2001)
R | 120 min | Drama, Thriller
For two weeks, 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a prison. The "prisoners" have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the "guards" are told to retain order without using physical violence.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke Möhring
Votes: 96,099 | Gross: $0.14M
48. Nowhere in Africa (2001)
R | 141 min | Biography, Drama, History
Due to Hitler's threat, Walter Redlich, a Jewish lawyer, immigrates to Kenya with his wife Jettel and daughter Regina. Things take a turn when the family is ordered to move by the British officers.
Director: Caroline Link | Stars: Juliane Köhler, Merab Ninidze, Matthias Habich, Sidede Onyulo
Votes: 13,965 | Gross: $6.17M
49. Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
R | 121 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, a young man must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.
Director: Wolfgang Becker | Stars: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova, Florian Lukas
Votes: 152,658 | Gross: $4.06M
50. Downfall (2004)
R | 156 min | Biography, Drama, History
Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Votes: 375,256 | Gross: $5.51M
51. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
Not Rated | 120 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A dramatization of the final days of Sophie Scholl, one of the most famous members of the German World War II anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose.
Director: Marc Rothemund | Stars: Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Alexander Held, Johanna Gastdorf
Votes: 28,670 | Gross: $0.68M
52. The Lives of Others (2006)
R | 137 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Votes: 410,533 | Gross: $11.29M
53. The Edge of Heaven (2007)
Not Rated | 122 min | Drama
A Turkish man travels to Istanbul to find the daughter of his father's former girlfriend.
Director: Fatih Akin | Stars: Baki Davrak, Gürsoy Gemec, Cengiz Daner, Tuncel Kurtiz
Votes: 33,516 | Gross: $0.74M
54. The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)
R | 150 min | Action, Biography, Crime
A look at Germany's terrorist group, The Red Army Faction (RAF), which organized bombings, robberies, kidnappings, and assassinations in the late 1960s and '70s.
Director: Uli Edel | Stars: Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek, Bruno Ganz
Votes: 40,125 | Gross: $0.48M
55. The White Ribbon (2009)
R | 144 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. Who is responsible?
Director: Michael Haneke | Stars: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur
Votes: 77,660 | Gross: $2.22M
56. When We Leave (2010)
Unrated | 119 min | Drama
Umay is a young woman of Turkish descent, fighting for an independent and self-determined life in Germany against her family's resistance. Her struggle initiates a dynamic that results in a life-threatening situation.
Director: Feo Aladag | Stars: Sibel Kekilli, Nizam Schiller, Derya Alabora, Settar Tanriögen
Votes: 5,562 | Gross: $0.02M
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