German Movies & Films Resources

Germany has always been one of the pioneers in the stream of motion pictures right from the onset of the industry. In fact even in the earliest days of filmmaking Germany was Hollywood's biggest worldwide competitor.

In the classic silent era particularly during the period of the 1920s the German Movies always enjoyed worldwide recognition and respect.In the very beginnings of the 20th Century, the nature of the German Movies saw a transformation from being merely a pleasant but unique pastime into a very important and lucrative media of mass communication.

It was the governmental authorities and private-sector industrialists who identified the power of the movies in influencing people’s political and social beliefs. In fact this medium was also used a way of influencing the economic lifestyle of the Germans. This usage of the medium of the movies for conveying public information was only greatly accelerated after the outbreak of World War I.

Post WWI, weekly war “shorts” were introduced in the movie theatres across Germany. This was done just to showcase to the movie audiences glimpses and brief episodes of the German battlefield progress.

The introduction of sound in movies by the year 1928 also had a propounded effect on the German Movie Industry, the same as it did in Hollywood. Later during the Economic Depression and its post-effect were being suffered by a large part of the population there was a popular demand for practical role models. It was in this difficult time that characters with “good-buddy” personalities and women of “nice next-door neighbor” qualities were born.

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