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Wings of Desire (1987)

tomatometer

83

Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

audience

94

liked it
Average Rating: 4.4/5
User Ratings: 31,079

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

Jul 1, 2003

Cast

All Critics (42) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (44) | Rotten (1) | DVD (15)

Wings of Desire is one of Wenders's most stunning achievements.

July 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
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One of the few truly great movies to come out of the '80s.

August 5, 2003 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
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Startlingly original at first, Wings of Desire is in the end damagingly overloaded.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comments (4)
New York Times
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The film evokes a mood of reverie, elegy and meditation.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
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Underneath its melancholia and mind-boggling, even bothersome metaphysics, it's the simplest (well, almost) story ever told -- angel meets girl, angel gets girl.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
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a soaring vision that appeals to the senses and the spirit

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
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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.

June 25, 2011 Full Review Source: Creative Loafing | Comment
Creative Loafing

Demands to be seen by cinema lovers.

March 23, 2011 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

The cinematography by Henri Alekan is simply astonishing in its spare yet lyrical quality.

November 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune | Comment

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?

January 26, 2010 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm | Comments (2)
LarsenOnFilm

a film of sheer visual poetry and deep emotional resonance

November 8, 2009 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk

Even for non-fanatics, this packaging of perhaps the most beloved European film of a generation is heaven-sent.

November 2, 2009 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

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.

November 2, 2009 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

A gorgeous and heartbreaking look at angels in Berlin.

March 25, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Few films are so rich, so intriguing, or so ambitious.

January 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

A unique and enriching film. A film worth spending time getting to know.

October 22, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

Depending on your tastes, you'll find the film either a beautiful, moving experience, or a slow and pretentious one.

July 20, 2005 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | Comment
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Wings of Desire enthralls me, and it sends me back to my life a richer person, glad to be alive, looking about at the mundane and the everyday with new appreciation.

January 15, 2005 Full Review Source: Looking Closer | Comment
Looking Closer
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Wings of Desire

My only criticism of Wings of Desire is that it has people playing themselves. It's a pet hate of mine but I'm really not too bothered as I love Peter Falk and I'm a big Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds & Crime and the city solution fan. I also love Berlin and so I think I was always going to love this film, although, I

July 15, 2011
SirPant

Super Reviewer

A beautiful, haunting, atmospheric drama concerning two angels (Bruno Ganz and Otto Sandler) who wander amongst the streets of Berlin undetected, and how one of them (Ganz) falls in love with a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) and starts to ponder about the opportunity of becoming human in order to be with her. This

September 11, 2010
Dan Schultz

Super Reviewer

    1. 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?
    – Submitted by Melania R (5 months ago)
    1. 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.
    – Submitted by Allison Z (9 months ago)
    1. 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.
    – Submitted by Allison Z (9 months ago)
    1. 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.
    – Submitted by Allison Z (9 months ago)
    1. Marion: At last it's becoming serious. So I've grown older. Was I the only one who wasn't serious? Is it our times that are not serious? I was never lonely... neither when I was alone, nor with others. But I would have liked to be alone at last. Loneliness means I'm finally whole. Now I can say it... as tonight, I'm at last alone. I must put an end to coincidence. The new moon of decision. I don't know if there's destiny..... but there's a decision. Decide!
    – Submitted by Allison Z (9 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Der Himmel über Berlin (DE)
  • Wings of Desire (Der Himmel uber Berlin) (UK)
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