Good Bye, Lenin!

2003 2h 1m DE

🙌

7.5

BANGER

🔥

91%

CERTIFIED FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.7

IMDB

★7.5TMDB · 2,716🍅91%Rotten Tomatoes●68Metacritic★7.7IMDB · 158,173

ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Daniel Brühl
Alex
Katrin Sass
Mother
Chulpan Khamatova
Lara
Maria Simon
Ariane
Florian Lukas
Denis
Alexander Beyer
Rainer
Burghart Klaußner
Alex's Father
Michael Gwisdek
Klapprath

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Wolfgang Becker
Writers: Wolfgang Becker, Bernd Lichtenberg, Chris Silber
Languages: German
Countries: Germany

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $4.8M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $79M — a 16.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 23 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Wolfgang Becker, shot by Martin Kukula. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Yann Tiersen. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Peter R. Adam shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Daniel Brühl and Katrin Sass and Chulpan Khamatova carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0301357 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Wolfgang Becker directs. Martin Kukula behind the camera. Yann Tiersen scores. Peter R. Adam cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in Germany. Dialogue in German.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $4.8M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $79M — a 16.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
3Released 23 years ago.
4Directed by Wolfgang Becker, shot by Martin Kukula. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Yann Tiersen. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Peter R. Adam shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Daniel Brühl and Katrin Sass and Chulpan Khamatova carry the top of the cast.
8IMDB entry: tt0301357 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 9 themes, including "husband wife relationship", "coma", "bureaucracy", "police state".
10Released under 11 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Martin Kukula
Original score: Yann Tiersen
Editing: Peter R. Adam
Production design: Lothar Holler
Costume design: Aenne Plaumann
Makeup / hair: Heike Merker
Sound: Dirk Jacob
Runtime: 121 min · 2h 1m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $4,800,000
Box office: $79,384,880
Return: 1654% of budget
Original language: DE
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)
Rotten Tomatoes: 91% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 68/100
IMDB rating: 7.7/10 · 158,173 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award36 wins & 22 nominations total

European Film Award for Best Actor
European Film Award for Best Film
César Award for Best Film from the European Union
Jameson People's Choice Award for Best Actor
European Film Award for Best Screenwriter
European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director
European Film Award for Best Director
Jameson People's Choice Award for Best Actress

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Wolfgang Becker

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-03-12
★ 7/10
Daniel Brühl is on good form here in this entirely far-fetched but enjoyable drama. He and his sister “Ariane” (Maria Simon) live in East Germany with their proud citizen mother (Katrin Sass) who has just been awarded a special medal for her socialist public-mindedness. The thing is, it is 1989 and the whole Honecker regime is beginning to totter. People are on the streets and one of them just happens to be “Alex”. When he gets himself apprehended by the police on the street, she tries to intervene but only manages to end up in a coma. He is promptly released and for a while he and his sister and her boyfriend have to live their lives whilst she breathes through hospital tubes. Then, some months later, she wakes up. The doctors have advised that she should be kept rested and peaceful, and so her kinder decide that maybe now is not the best time to tell her that the Berlin Wall is now a pile of rubble and the Trabant she has longed for could now be a VW! How on Earth can they keep such momentous developments from the woman, especially when it’s all that is on the television Well that’s where he recruits the help of her nurse/his girlfriend “Lara” (Chulpan Khamatova) and his creative pal “Denis” (the frequently scene-stealing Florian Lukas) and next thing she is eating the same old stuff, the flat is restored to it’s 1980s look and somehow they are managing to rig the news broadcasts so all they report are the glories of the DDR. How long can they keep it up, though? Sooner or later she is going to want to go outside, or even look out of the window. Although the whole thing does border on the preposterous a bit, it does ask just how far we would go to shield a loved one from stress and trauma, and as the antics get more and more daft Brühl steps up to the plate entertainingly. It also doesn’t shy away from addressing the issues facing a population that had hitherto relied up the state for so much, and that now had to fend for itself in a much more obvious dog-eat-dog fashion. This is especially exemplified when their currency is to be merged with the Deutsch Mark and they can’t find her savings! By creating such ridiculous scenarios, this quite comically shows up the absurdity of dogmatic politics and, to a certain extent, of family too and Bernd Lichtenburg’s sharp script gives just about everyone some powerfully natural dialogue to make us laugh and think. In the end, though, it’s all about Brühl and he delivers. This is worth a couple of hours.

Production companies