How enriching it is to not only read a story, but also to experience it on the big screen! Here is a small selection of films based on important and well-known German-language novels. Would you rather turn the pages or watch the film? It's simple: take time for both.
Die Blechtrommel (1979)
There are many superlatives to be said about
Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum): published in 1959, the novel by Günter Grass, who later won the Nobel Prize, is considered a masterpiece of the century and is one of the most widely read works of post-war German literature – not only in German-speaking countries. No wonder, then, that renowned director Volker Schlöndorff was able to attract a host of big stars from German and international cinema for his film adaptation: Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, David Bennent, Katharina Thalbach, Daniel Olbrychski, Charles Aznavour ... The film, which runs for almost two and a half hours, was an instant success: In 1979, the year it was released, the story of the outsider Oskar Matzerath, who decides at the age of three to stop growing and astutely observes the petty bourgeoisie of Danzig under the Nazi regime, with his tin drum giving him strength, won the coveted Golden Palm for best film at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1980, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. This made
Die Blechtrommel the first German film to receive this award.
Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders (2006)
In 1985,
Das Parfum (Perfume) took the book market by storm – it was the first and so far only novel by author Patrick Süskind and oscillates between the genres of coming-of-age, education novel (Bildungsroman) and artist novel. The subtitle “The Story of a Murderer” indicates that the work also contains elements of a thriller. The reclusive writer sold the film rights to his internationally successful and widely translated novel to his friend, producer Bernd Eichinger. Eichinger entrusted the directing to Tom Tykwer, well known for his action thriller
Run Lola Run (1998). The lead role of the brilliant perfumer's apprentice and serial killer Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who cruelly murdered young girls in his obsessive search for the perfect scent, was played by British actor Ben Wishaw – the starting signal for his international screen career. Film critics found fault with the lavishly staged horror story, but audiences had a different opinion: just two years after its release, around 5.6 million people had seen the film. This makes Perfume one of the most successful German films in German cinemas.
Die Vermessung der Welt (2012)
German-Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann had already published several novels when he achieved worldwide success in 2003 with
Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World). Nine years later, Detlev Buck – director, producer, screenwriter and actor – brought the life stories of the brilliant mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and the energetic and versatile explorer Alexander von Humboldt to the big screen in 3D. In a mixture of fact and fiction, the film follows the noble naturalist Humboldt, played by Albrecht Schuch, into the big wide world and, with the conservative scientist Gauss, played by Florian David Fitz, surveys the manageable area between Braunschweig and Göttingen. Both the costume design and the make-up were honoured with the Austrian Film Award. Daniel Kehlmann did not miss the opportunity to participate in the film adaptation of his novel: he wrote the screenplay together with director Buck. And he lent his voice to the off-screen narrator who describes what is not shown.
Die Wand (2012)
Die Wand (The Wall) is the third and most successful novel by Austrian author Marlen Haushofer. In it, a first-person narrator recounts how, during a weekend trip with relatives, she is cut off from civilisation by a sudden invisible wall. Alone with a dog, a pregnant cow and several cats, she has to make ends meet – until suddenly a man appears and shoots the calf and the dog. Due to its unusual setting, this work, which is critical of civilisation and patriarchy, was long considered unfilmable. Austrian director Julian Pölsler nevertheless took on the challenge – and needed seven years to complete the final script. Filming took place between February 2010 and January 2011, and the film premiered at the Berlinale a year later. There, it won the Ecumenical Jury Prize. Her very special leading role earned German actress Martina Gedeck nominations for various film awards. Although not trained as an animal actor, director Pölsler's dog, Luchs von Kyffhäuserbach, was convincing in the role of the dog.
Tschick (2016)
In 2010, author Wolfgang Herrndorf published his young adult novel
Tschick, which immediately won all kinds of literary awards in Germany and other countries. The special friendship between Maik, a boy spoiled by affluence, and Andrej, a young Russian immigrant known as Tschick, which begins on a highly adventurous road trip in a stolen car from Berlin to Eastern Europe, immediately caught the attention of the film world. However, it took some time before the renowned and often award-winning director, screenwriter and producer Fatih Akin was given the go-ahead – this phase was also clouded by Wolfgang Herrndorf's cancer and suicide in 2013. It was not easy to find someone for the role of Tschick. The Mongolian embassy was approached, and one of the employees showed the casting call to his son – which is how Anand Batbileg Chuluunbatatar got his first leading role in a film. The part of Maik was taken on by Tristan Göbel, who already had a portfolio of roles under his belt. In terms of praise and awards, the film was in no way inferior to the novel, spending eight weeks at number 1 in the arthouse charts.
Transit (2018)
As a communist and a Jew, the writer Anna Seghers, born in 1900, had to fear for her life after the National Socialists came to power in Germany. After various stops along the way, she managed to flee into exile in Mexico. There she wrote her autobiographically based novel
Transit, the German edition of which was published in 1947. To this day,
Transit is considered one of the most important exile novels – and has been sought after as film material several times. Most recently, the award-winning director and screenwriter Christian Petzold took on the story. It tells of Georg, a German who flees from the Nazis to France during the Second World War, unexpectedly obtains transit visas, falls in love with Marie, the wife of a deceased writer, but remains in the port city of Marseille despite having the opportunity to leave. Petzold decided to set his version, which is based solely on Anna Seghers' novel, in the present day – partly because he felt that the situation of European exiles in the 1940s was similar to that of people who are forced to flee today. The director worked with Franz Rogowski (Georg) and Paula Beer (Marie) for the first time – and it would not be the last.
22 Bahnen (2025)
Caroline Wahl needed only three months to write her debut novel,
22 Bahnen (22 lanes). Published in 2023, the story about Tilda, a mathematics student who has to take care of her younger half-sister because her mother is an alcoholic and her father has left the family, sold like hot cakes. The book is still on the
Spiegel bestseller list and has won several awards. The author herself ensures that she and her works are constantly in the spotlight through her media presence – so it was almost inevitable that the emotional story of two small-town girls who seek and find comfort in competitive swimming despite their precarious everyday lives and dangerously ill mother would be made into a film. Director Mia Maariel Meyer first made a name for herself with documentaries and reports before presenting her feature film debut
Treppe aufwärts (Upstairs) in 2015. She was able to win over Swiss actress Luna Wedler for the film adaptation of the bestseller. Film critics agree that she embodies the older sister Tilda in an outstanding manner.
