Movies Similar to Berlin - Zwischen Stacheldraht und Mauer

The Wall(1990)

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Tunnel to Freedom(2021)

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

Liberty Train – Bürger’s Long Journey(2014)

“Liberty Train – Bürger’s Long Journey” sheds light on the events of the PEACEFUL REVOLUTION of 1989 from different perspectives. It centres on the eyewitnesses who, together with thousands of other people who had fled East Germany, were in the garden of the West German Embassy in Prague on the evening of the 30 September 1989.

Grenze(2004)

In February 1986 they received the call of a fatherland that no longer exists: four young GDR citizens on the verge of adulthood see themselves forced, like so many others in East and West Germany, to do their one and a half years of military service. What is special: Their service area is the border system, an anti-imperialist protective wall according to their superiors, death strips and prison bars for a population incapacitated in naked reality. Now, seventeen years later, there is a reunion with the comrades and the old post. This feature film, which was the first in reunified Germany to deal with the inner workings of the GDR border troops, tells of life on the fence, the associated contradictions and some hot phases in the Cold War.

Stasi, un État contre son peuple(2021)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of documents were hastily shredded by the dreaded GDR political police. 16,000 bags filled with six million pieces of paper were found. Thanks to the meticulous work of technology, the destinies of men and women who had been spied on and recorded without their knowledge could be reconstructed.

Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring(1989)

Short documentary about artist Keith Haring, detailing his involvement in the New York City graffiti subculture, his opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.

Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall(2009)

In August 1961, a few railway cars and barbed wire divided East Germany from West. It was a barrier that would be extended and become increasingly more sophisticated, a technological counter to each escape attempt. Computer imagery reconstructs how the Berlin Wall grew from a meager obstacle to a 97 mile barrier of concrete slabs, watchtowers and guards.

After the Wall: A World United(2011)

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, bringing the reunification of Germany and an end to the Cold War. This documentary revisits the events surrounding the wall's historic collapse. Interviews with George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl offer insight into political maneuvering while firsthand accounts from Germans provide personal perspectives of this historic event that changed the world forever.

Rockin' the Wall(2014)

Rock and roll's part in bringing down the Berlin Wall and smashing the Iron Curtain is told from the perspective of rockers who played at the time, on both sides of the Wall, and from survivors of the communist regimes who recall the lifeline that rock music provided them.

Wasteland(2016)

A long-term observation of the forgotten former “Gestapo grounds” in Berlin 1986-2013.

Generation '89 - Growing up in the year of change(2015)

The documentary tells the story of the reunification from the perspective of six teenagers from East Germany.

This Ain't California(2012)

A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.

Der Reichstag(2017)

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

Wall of Chaos(2021)

Hasselhoff vs. The Berlin Wall(2014)

David Hasselhoff, better known for his roles in “Knight Rider” and “Baywatch” released a song titled, “Looking for Freedom” the year before the Berlin Wall came down. He performed it on top of the Berlin Wall to a million people during the biggest New Year's Eve party Germany had ever seen. Twenty five years later, David revisits the now-reunited capital, investigating what is left of the Wall, and explores what it meant in the context of the Cold War dividing Communism in the East from democracy in the West. Along his journey he meets extraordinary people who dreamt of freedom and risked their lives trying to overcome the dreaded Berlin Wall.

November Days(1991)

Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.

Countdown To 1990 : La Réunification de l'Allemagne(2020)

Rabbit à la Berlin(2009)

The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.

The Wall: A World Divided(2010)

Documentary that explore the origins and demise of the notorious Berlin Wall, the structure's affect on ordinary German lives and the peaceful end to the Cold War. Full of detailed information, this historical PBS documentary explains the stark differences between East and West Germany and their process of reunification.

CIA vs KGB: Battleground Berlin(2016)

For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.