Wings of Desire (1987)
Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.4/5
User Ratings: 32,183
My Rating
Movie Info
Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) are angels who watch over the city of Berlin. They don't have harps or wings (well, they usually don't have wings) and they prefer overcoats to gossamer gowns. But they can travel unseen through the city, listening to people's thoughts, watching their actions and studying their lives. While they can make their presence felt in small ways, only children and other angels can see them. They spend their days serenely observing, unable to interact with
May 17, 1987 Wide
Jul 1, 2003
Criterion Collection
Watch It Now
Cast
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Bruno Ganz
Damiel -
Solveig Dommartin
Marion -
Peter Falk
Himself -
Otto Sander
Cassiel -
Curt Bois
Homer -
Hans Martin Stier
The Dying Man -
Nick Cave
Himself -
Peter Werner
Manager -
Lajos Kovács
Marion's coach -
Didier Flamand
Angel at the library -
-
Beatrice Manowski
Young Prostitute -
-
Dirk Vogeley
On the highway -
Paul Busch
Circus -
Mick Harvey
Crime & the city soluti... -
Olivier Picot
Air-raid shelter -
Blixa Bargeld
Member of Nick Cave and...
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All Critics (46) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (1) | DVD (15)
A fantasy that... goes right in spite of its solemn style.
Top CriticA sublimely beautiful, deeply romantic film for our times.
Wings of Desire is one of Wenders's most stunning achievements.
Few films are so rich, so intriguing, or so ambitious.
One of the few truly great movies to come out of the '80s.
Startlingly original at first, Wings of Desire is in the end damagingly overloaded.
Wings of Desire has an ingenuousness, a sweetness of spirit, that triumphs over the conventional rigidities of its calculation.
This story of angels is really an examination of what it means to be human -- in the most profound sense but via the smallest, most trivial details.
A beautiful, literate and romantic piece of cinema.
How brilliant is Wings of Desire? Understand that Peter Falk is playing himself - that is to say, he's playing actor Peter Falk, who happened to be an angel himself until he elected to become human decades earlier.
Demands to be seen by cinema lovers.
The cinematography by Henri Alekan is simply astonishing in its spare yet lyrical quality.
How much Eurobabble are you willing to endure in exchange for a look at one of the cinema's most ravishing and compassionate screen visions?
a film of sheer visual poetry and deep emotional resonance
Even for non-fanatics, this packaging of perhaps the most beloved European film of a generation is heaven-sent.
It's hard to think of another movie of its era that makes the viewer so fully feel like a denizen of its setting; the roving, dollying, craning camera makes angels of us all.
A gorgeous and heartbreaking look at angels in Berlin.
Audience Reviews for Wings of Desire
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Homer: My heroes are no longer the warriors and kings.. but the things of peace, one equal to the other. The drying onions equal to the tree trunk crossing the marsh. But no one has so far succeeded in singing an epic of peace. What is wrong with peace that its inspiration doesn't endure.. and that its story is hardly told?
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- Damiel: When the child was a child, it was the time for these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end?
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- Damiel: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end?
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- Marion: Last night... I dreamt of a stranger... of my man. Only with him could I be alone... open up to him... wholly open, wholly for him. Welcome him wholly into me... surround him with the labyrinth... of shared happiness. I know... it's you.
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- Marion: You need me. You will need me. There's no greater story than ours... that of man and woman. It will be a story of giants... invisible... transposable... a story of new ancestors. Look. My eyes... they are the picture of necessity... of the future of everyone in the place.
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- Marion: We are now the times. Not only the whole town... the whole world is taking part in our decision. We two are now more than us two. We incarnate something. We're representing the people now... And the whole place is full of those... who are dreaming the same dream. We are deciding everyone's game. I am ready. Now... it's your turn. You hold the game in your hand. Now... or never.
Discussion Forum
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Latest News on Wings of Desire
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Foreign Titles
- Der Himmel über Berlin (DE)
- Wings of Desire (UK)
Hollywood bastardized this film as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, but even then, that doesn't take away from the fact that this is one of the most beautiful, poetic, and profoundly moving films ever made. It is, basically, Wim Wenders's masterpiece.
It is a heavy film, with lots of spiritual and philosophical subtext, but despite being an art film, this deals with things that everyone can relate to, mostly, just trying to escape from an isolated life and make meaningful connections with others. The film is heavily stylized, using both criso momochromatic black and white and bright colors to represent the angelic and human worlds, respectively. The fact that it was also shot in Berlin while the Wall was still up also reinforces the divide between the humans and angels, and it is interesting to see the city from this perspective.
My only real complaint is that the film is kinda slow, and maybe a bit ponderous here and there, but overall, this is just a marvelous film, and I'm glad I finally saw it because I really feel like it truly is one of the best films ever made.