German Cinema 2025

Year after year, the pattern seemed the same: at the top of the German box office charts there was almost always an American “blockbuster” as the most-watched film of the year. Incidentally, the striking term “blockbuster” has rather macabre origins — during the Second World War it referred to special aerial bombs capable of destroying entire city blocks. After the war, the word transformed into a far more harmless synonym for commercially successful, mass-appeal Hollywood productions.

So how did it happen that in the cinema year 2025 a German production won the race? The answer lies in “Bully” Herbig’s box-office hit Das Kanu des Manitu. More than five million people queued at German cinemas, eagerly anticipating a collective laugh-out-loud experience — which delivered exactly that: an unrestrained succession of slapstick routines, rapid-fire gags, and deliberately shallow yet punchy dialogue, brimming with gleeful absurdity.

In fourth place in the German box-office charts, with an impressive 2.9 million viewers, came the German children’s production The School of Magical Animals 4, directed by Bernhard Jasper and Maggie Peren. Once again, depth was not the primary concern; instead, the film offered a parade of youthful, likeable characters for whom school appears to be an endless source of fun.

Close behind in audience numbers was the revival of the American dinosaur franchise, Jurassic World – Rebirth, a film that, entirely devoid of originality, differs in no meaningful way from its predecessors. A similar pattern emerges among the top ten box-office hits: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the animated spectacle How to Train Your Dragon likewise relied on established formulas rather than innovation.

Karoline Herfurth’s Wunderschöner attracted 1.4 million viewers to the sequel of her successful film Wunderschön, following the ongoing struggles of its urban heroines — portrayed by Anneke Kim Sarnau, Karoline Herfurth, Emilia Schüle, and Nora Tschirner. At least here, the film is staged with wit and vitality.

And then: Amrum by Fatih Akın was seen by 800,000 cinemagoers — in many respects a surprising film about lost homelands. Those who believed they were familiar with Akın’s cinematic universe encountered an unexpectedly restrained and contemplative tone that permeates the entire work. In a sense, it is a biographical film: Akın stages the condensed childhood memories of Hark Bohm, his recently deceased close friend and mentor. Set on the North Sea island of Amrum toward the end of the Second World War, the story sensitively portrays the hardships faced by German refugees from the East seeking shelter from advancing Russian troops. The screenplay was written jointly by Bohm and Akın, and the opening credits of Amrum read: “A Hark Bohm Film by Fatih Akın.”

Mia Maariel Meyer directed 22 Lanes, which drew 700,000 viewers. The title refers to the highly successful debut novel by Caroline Wahl, reportedly selling 600,000 copies. The story follows Tilda, a gifted mathematics student in her early twenties who works at a supermarket to support her younger sister and alcoholic mother. Each evening she retreats to the local swimming pool, ritualistically completing 22 laps. Unfortunately, the film is not entirely free of clichés and stereotypes.

Quite different — and genuinely close to reality — is Heldin (Heroine) by Petra Volpe. A remarkable 420,000 viewers engaged with this authentic slice of everyday drama. The film recounts a single night shift from the perspective of a young nurse on a surgical ward. Rich in detail and entirely free of romanticized hospital clichés, this intensely concentrated piece of cinema captures a fragment of reality, anchored by Leonie Benesch’s sensitive and deeply moving performance.

In die Sonne schauen (Looking into the Sun) by Mascha Schilinski was seen by around 340,000 viewers — far too few for such an original and visually powerful film. Rather than offering a predictable, linear narrative, it invites audiences into a deeply sensual immersion in rural village life, far removed from any pastoral idyll. Times and spaces coexist and overlap, provoking associative perceptions, embodied by four young women over the course of a century on the same farm. The film unfolds as an impressionistic, poetic panorama of striking images, sounds, and atmospheres — moments of remarkable lightness and beauty that are rare in contemporary cinema. This is what “great” cinema looks like.

“If anyone saves socialism, it will be us!” proclaim the protagonists of The Spies of Peace 2 — “Kundschafter des Friedens” being the term used in the former GDR for foreign intelligence agents of the Ministry for State Security. The film offers another example of cheerful, high-gloss “Ostalgie” cinema, featuring numerous former East German actors brimming with playful energy. Similarly, Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstraße by Wolfgang Becker centers on Micha, played by Charly Hübner, who runs a failing video rental shop. Suddenly he becomes a media hero, allegedly having facilitated a “mass escape” of 127 GDR citizens — a newspaper hoax with far-reaching consequences. Becker’s final film — he passed away in 2024 — is marked by his deep affection for ordinary people and their everyday struggles, staged with gentle humor and subtle social satire.

Not strictly “German,” yet still a German-American co-production, is The Phoenician Masterstroke by Wes Anderson. This witty film unfolds as a sparkling satire and farce about reckless entrepreneurial ambition, presented through darkly beautiful compositions reminiscent of Old Master paintings. A sharp and brilliantly malicious gaze at a world that often seems like a madhouse.

Finally, let the numbers speak. In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, a total of 99,516,640 tickets were sold in German cinemas, with 17,766,984 of them for domestic productions. During the pandemic, revenues plummeted dramatically, followed by a gradual recovery in attendance. The German Federal Film Board (FFA) projects between 90 and 95 million tickets sold for the 2025 cinema year — the second-best result since the pandemic — although the first half of the year showed a slight decline with 40.6 million tickets sold. German productions account for approximately 19.5 percent of the market, a slight increase compared to 2024, with children’s films playing a significant role. There is, therefore, reason for cautious optimism in the German cinema market — particularly considering that the average ticket price is around 10 euros.

Jochen Schmoldt
Journalist
January 2026
Nuremberg