From Different from the Others to Futur Drei — queer perspectives have always been part of German film history. A new generation of queer filmmakers such as Faraz Shariat and Fabian Stumm is carrying forward the legacy established by icons like Rosa von Praunheim and Ulrike Ottinger.
Radical and modern
Queer cinema in Germany is closely tied to social struggles for visibility. Similar to the United States before the Hays Code (1920-1934), there was a brief period in Germany during the Weimar Republic (1918-20) without film censorship.During this time and beyond, director Richard Oswald produced so‑called morality and educational films. Together with sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, he established a genre that addressed topics such as unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and queer lived realities. Different from the Others (1919) is considered the first film to explicitly criticize Paragraph 175 — the legal basis for the criminalization of homosexuality until 1994. Decades later, an intertitle from the film inspired Rosa von Praunheim’s It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives (1971).
Fun Facts & Awards
- Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform, 1931) was initially marketed in the United States as an exploitation film, but quickly became a sleeper hit in lesbian and feminist circles — long before terms like “queer cinema” existed.
- The Berlinale was the first major queer film platform in the world. With the introduction of the Teddy Award in 1987, it became the first A‑festival globally to establish an official prize for queer films. This gave queer German productions a sudden international launchpad — long before “LGBTQ+ cinema” became a market category.
- Ulrike Ottinger delivered one of the most expensive “low‑budget looks” ever. Although Ticket of No Return (Bildnis einer Trinkerin, 1979) was made on a shoestring budget, the film appears like a visual luxury object. Ottinger sourced costumes from Berlin underground artists, borrowed props from off‑theatres, and shot guerrilla‑style — the result: an iconic camp masterpiece that is now shown in museums such as MoMA.
With the rise of National Socialism, queer films were banned and many filmmakers emigrated. In the United States, it took until the 1960s for queer characters to reappear — usually coded, for example in film noir.
The first and only DEFA feature film about homosexuality: scene from “Coming Out” by Heiner Carow (1989) | © DEFA Stiftung, Wolfgang Fritsche
Combining camp, punk, and visual art into a queer-feminist anti-narrative: scene from Ulrike Ottinger's “Bildnis einer Trinkerin” (Germany, 1979) | © Ulrike Ottinger
The first film to explicitly criticize Paragraph 175 — the legal basis for the criminalization of homosexuality until 1994: a scene from Richard Oswald’s "Different from the Others" (1919) | © Richard Oswald-Film GmbH
Scandalous and cult film: Scene from Frank Ripploh's “Taxi to the Toilet ” (Germany, 1980) | (detail) Foto: PRO-FUN MEDIA © dpa
Profoundly shaped the queer imaginary of international cinema: Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's “The Blue Angel” (Germany, 1930) | © Universum Film AG
Less a genre film than an agitational manifesto, but the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement: Scene from Rosa von Praunheims " It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives" (1971) | © missingFILMs GmbH
Nuanced shift in queer cinematic perspective: scene from “No Hard Feelings” by Faraz Shariat (2020) | © Juenglinge Film
Cinema between Underground and Mainstream
Only from the 1970s onward did new counter‑publics emerge in West Germany. Films became tools of political empowerment and aesthetic renewal. As Wieland Speck’s online dossier Queer Cinema from Germany shows, this cinema moved between underground and mainstream and resonated far beyond the movie theatre.Rosa von Praunheim’s It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives (1971) marked this new beginning: less a genre film than an agitational manifesto, but the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement. Rainer Werner Fassbinder integrated queer characters radically into melodrama (Fox and His Friends, 1975) and into stylized genre cinema (Querelle, 1982), achieving greater success abroad than in Germany. Frank Ripploh’s Taxi zum Klo (1980) was both scandalous and cult. In the United States, William Friedkin’s thriller Cruising appeared the same year.
In parallel, Ulrike Ottinger and Werner Schroeter developed camp‑inspired, operatic counter‑visions to realism. Among the key works of this era is Ottinger’s Ticket of No Return Bildnis einer Trinkerin (1979), the first part of her Berlin trilogy, followed by Freak Orlando (1981) and Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press (1984). In this radical counter‑cinema, a nameless woman — played by underground icon Magdalena Montezuma — wanders through nocturnal West Berlin, drinking, performing, and existing beyond social expectations. Ottinger fuses camp, punk, and visual art into a queer‑feminist anti‑narrative that received international acclaim.
Film as an Instrument of Self-Empowerment
In the East, the discourse opened — at least on screen — in 1989: Coming Out (Heiner Carow) premiered on the day the Berlin Wall fell and remains the first and only DEFA feature film about homosexuality. Told quietly and humanistically, it follows a teacher in East Berlin on his path toward self‑acceptance. North America, by contrast, was already deeply politicized by the AIDS crisis and activism; films there served as tools of empowerment under Ronald Reagan’s conservative administration.Monika Treut, another filmmaker of the New Queer Avant‑Garde, set new standards for queer‑feminist cinema with Seduction: The Cruel Woman (1985) and Virgin Machine (1988), and later for trans identity on film with Gendernauts (1999). Filmmakers who explored female and queer desire faced resistance even then: “Films like Monika Treut’s destroy cinema,” wrote Helmut Schödel in Die Zeit after the Hof premiere of Virgin Machine.
In the mid‑1990s, it was a mainstream comedy that unexpectedly broke through: Der bewegte Mann (1994) by Sönke Wortmann became a box‑office hit with 6.5 million admissions and marked a turning point for queer visibility in German popular cinema. Aimée & Jaguar (1999) followed as an international prestige success, telling a lesbian love story in Nazi‑era Berlin. That same year, Kutluğ Ataman’s Lola and Bilidikid brought post‑migrant queer realities to the screen for the first time; Yavuz Yüksel’s A Little Bit of Freedom (Kleine Freiheit, 2003) continued this trajectory.
The 2010s brought a new generation of queer filmmaking — largely from Berlin — to the screen: Anne Zohra Berrached, Axel Ranisch, Uisenma Borchu, and Fabian Stumm explored identity, family, the body, and vulnerability from queer perspectives. Short‑film artists like Jan Soldat examined peripheral and uncomfortable forms of queer desire, shaping the festival landscape in particular.
More Diverse than Ever
In 2020, Faraz Shariat’s debut Futur Drei (No Hard Feelings) introduced a nuanced shift in queer cinematic perspective. Shariat tells the story of three young people navigating Iranian heritage, German majority society, and queer self‑discovery — relaxed, political, uncompromising, and deliberately against integration clichés. The film brought queer BIPoC experiences firmly into the center of German cinema.Today, queer German genre cinema is more diverse than ever — transcultural, embodied, intimate, and stylistically open. It remains a laboratory for new narrative forms and a seismograph of social change, from indie film to mainstream.
Box-Office Hits
- Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform, 1931, Leontine Sagan) — international box‑office success in the 1930s.
- Querelle (1982, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) — box‑office hit in France and later a cult classic in Germany and worldwide.
- Der bewegte Mann, 1994, Sönke Wortmann — 6.4 million cinema admissions in Germany.
- Aimée & Jaguar (1999, Max Färberböck) — 400,000 cinema admissions in Germany.
- I Feel Like Disco (Ich fühl mich Disco, 2013, Axel Ranisch) — 130,000 cinema admissions in Germany.
- Futur Drei / No Hard Feelings (2020, Faraz Shariat) — limited theatrical release due to the pandemic, but a major festival hit.
Streaming (North America, as of 2025)
Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform) – Criterion Channel, KanopyIt Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse… (Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers…) – DVD/VOD, Goethe‑on‑Demand
Ticket of No Return (Bildnis einer Trinkerin) – DAFilms, Metrograph
Coming Out – DEFA Film Library, Kanopy
Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit), Querelle – Criterion Channel, VOD
Taxi to the Toilet – Kanopy, VOD/DVD
Lola and Bilidikid – Festival VOD, Kanopy
Gendernauts – DAFilms, DVD/VOD
Two Mothers (Zwei Mütter) – VOD
Don’t Look at Me That Way (Schau mich nicht so an) – VOD
Futur Drei / No Hard Feelings – Kanopy, US/Canada festivals, VOD
Namen und Knochen, Sad Jokes – VOD
03/2026