Two angels wander through a divided Berlin unseen by humans, paying tender witness to the thoughts, anxieties and dreams of the people they come across (among them, Columbo star Peter Falk, playing himself) — and trying to instill hope in those who despair. One angel (Bruno Ganz) falls in love with a trapeze artist. He wants to live a normal life “to be excited by a meal, the curve of a neck . . .” and feel the ground beneath his feet.
Recently restored in 4K, Wim Wenders’ iconic film shifts elegantly between black and white (for the world as the angels perceive it) and colour (mundane reality as we know it) — the same strategy that Michael Powell applied to his celestial romance, A Matter of Life and Death some 40 years earlier. Veteran cinematographer Henri Alekan worked on such classics as Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete and William Wyler’s Roman Holiday.
Few films are so rich, so intriguing, or so ambitious.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
The film evokes a mood of reverie, elegy and meditation.
Roger Ebert
One of Wenders’s most stunning achievements.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Media Partner
Wim Wenders
Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk
West Germany/France
1987
In German and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Screenwriter
Wim Wenders, Peter Handle
Cinematography
Henri Alekan
Editor
Peter Przygodda
Original Music
Jürgen Knieper
Art Director
Heidi Lüdi
Also in This Series
Amelie
One of the most popular French films of the past 25 years, Amelie is a delightfully whimsical confection from the ever-inventive Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Audrey Tautou stars as a young Parisienne who resolves to make the world a happier place...
The Conversation
Gene Hackman is Harry Caul, 'the best bugger on the West Coast', a surveillance expert whose jealously guarded anonymity is threatened when he happens across what seems to be a murder plot.
The Fall (4K Restoration)
Shot over four years across 24 countries, cowritten by a six year old girl, and entirely self-financed by commercials director Tarsem, The Fall is such a mind- (and eye) boggling movie it's hard to believe it actually exists. Yet here it is!