Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) won Best Director at Cannes 1987 and became the most internationally recognised work of New German Cinema, alongside Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz and Herzog's Aguirre. The screenplay was developed in collaboration with the poet Peter Handke and the writer Richard Reitinger, and the script's rhythms (angels' interior monologues, urban-legend cadences) give the film its register.

Two angels (Bruno Ganz as the contemplative Damiel; Otto Sander as his older partner Cassiel) drift silently through a still-divided Berlin, listening to the inner thoughts of its inhabitants, a survivor of the Holocaust waiting in a library, an old librarian, a dying man on a motorcycle, the children whose unblunted attention can sometimes glimpse the angels themselves. Solveig Dommartin plays the trapeze artist Marion in her screen debut; Peter Falk appears as himself, an American actor in Berlin shooting a wartime film. Falk's casting was Wenders' direct decision after watching Columbo reruns during pre-production.

Henri Alekan's photography moves between angelic monochrome and earthly colour with a precision that has become a permanent reference. Nick Cave performs at the Esplanade in the film's most-quoted sequence. Wings of Desire was made just two years before the Wall fell; its image of a divided city has acquired the elegiac weight of a historical document.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: One of the most generous films ever made about a city, and the most beautiful work of late-1980s European cinema. Ganz's library scene alone is one of the great moments in the medium.