18 Must-See Films at Berlinale 2026

By Pickle  February 10, 2026

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Competition

At the Sea

USA, Hungary 2026•Color•English•Subtitles: German

After completing rehab, Laura returns to her family home in Cape Cod. She was once the star of her late father’s renowned dance company, in whose shadow she grew up and whose legacy she still carries. Her functional alcoholism was ignored by everyone until an accident occurred in which her young son, Felix, was also in the car. Now Laura returns home changed. Her family is unprepared. Her husband, Martin, welcomes her cautiously, torn between affection and suspicion. Her teenage daughter, Josie, is hostile, and Felix remains distant. During a few days together by the sea, suppressed anger, financial worries, and the difficulty of forgiving one another are revealed. When Laura’s former colleagues urge her to resume her career, she is confronted with a deeper question: Who is she without the identity that justified her self-destruction? The film is an intimate character study, tracing Laura’s journey from denial to acceptance. She comes to realize that healing is not a linear process and that love, abstinence, and family require a willingness to be present, despite all uncertainty.

Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Book: Kata Wéber
Producers: Alexander Rodnyansky,Aaron Ryder,Andrew Swett,Stuart Manashil,Kornél Mundruczó,Alex Lebovici
Co-producers: Rachel Rubin,Michael Learner
Casting: Jessica Kelly,Rebecca Dealy
World sales: mk2 Films
intlsales@mk2.com

Competition

À voix basse

In a Whisper

France, Tunisia 2026•Color•French, Arabic•Subtitles: German, English

Lilia returns to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral and reunites with a family that knows nothing about her life in Paris, especially not about the woman she loves. Determined to confront her family’s secrets as they gather and old friends resurface for reminiscing, Lilia is reminded of why she left Tunisia in the first place and sets out to unravel the mystery of her uncle’s sudden death. Leyla Bouzid crafts an intergenerational tale of tenderness, love and secrets with hints of a detective story and playful formal elements that are peppered into this touching family drama. A strong ensemble cast features the great Hiam Abbass.

Director: Leyla Bouzid
Producer: Caroline Nataf
Casting: Eya Bouteraa (Lilia), Hiam Abbass (Wahida), Marion Barbeau (Alice), Feriel Chamari (Hayet)
World Sales: Playtime
info@playtime.group

Competition

Something very special

Home Stories

Germany 2026•Color•German•Subtitles: English

Lea has applied to a singing competition. The producer asks, “Who are you and what makes you tick?” Lea doesn’t know. And so she begins searching for a suitable persona. In her Thuringian hometown, the museum is undergoing costly renovations funded by EU grants, and the guesthouse owned by her family is struggling to survive. Lea’s family consists of her parents, Matze and Rieke—recently separated, as Rieke is pregnant by another man, and still quite inexperienced in their new family dynamics. Then there are her grandparents, who also have enough problems with each other and with their forest hotel, which, in the sparsely populated region, is costing more money than it brings in. There’s also her Aunt Kati, whose independence is a role model for Lea, but as museum director, she’s not exactly making any friends in the small provincial town. Lea’s best friend, Bonny, has her mind on something else entirely, as she’s head over heels in love with Lea’s cousin, the activist Edgar. So, who exactly is the contestant Lea? What kind of home story can be made from this family history?

Director: Eva Trobisch
Book: Eva Trobisch
Producers: Trini GötzeDavid Armati Lechner
Co-producers: Janine Jackowski,Jonas Dornbach,Maren Ade,Ingo Fliess
Casting: Susanne Ritter,Jacqueline Rietz
World sales: The Match Factory
info@matchfactory.de

Competition

Kurtuluş

Salvation

Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom 2026•Color•English•Subtitles: German

In a remote village in the Turkish mountains, the return of an exiled clan reignites an old feud. As simmering resentments flare up, Mesut, the brother of the village leader, is plagued by disturbing visions. He interprets them as divine warnings and begins to question his brother’s leadership. Religious beliefs intensify, and power struggles and tensions within the community escalate. Will it lead to tragedy or salvation?

Director: Emin Alper
Book: Emin Alper
Producer: Nadir Öperli
Co-producers: Ersan Çongar,Laurent Lavolé,Miléna Polylo,Gilles Sacuto,Stienette Bosklopper,Maarten Swart,Yorgos Tsourgiannis,İrem Akbal
Casting: Ezgi Baltaş
World sales: Lucky Number
hello@luckynumber.fr

Competition

My wife is crying

My Wife Cries

Germany, France 2026•Color•German

A typical workday on the construction site. Thomas, a 40-year-old crane operator, receives a call from his wife Carla, asking him to pick her up from the hospital. He finds her there crying and learns that she’s been in a car accident. Carla tells him about her dance partner David, with whom she had gone to look at a house in the countryside and who died in the accident. She tries to tell her husband everything honestly, but Thomas withdraws more and more into himself. They don’t understand each other. A film about the challenges life presents and the search for a common language.

Director: Angela Schanelec
Book: Angela Schanelec
Producer: Kirill Krasovski
Co-producers: Saïd Ben Saïd,Kevin Cheneiweiss,Paul Hasel
Casting: Ulrike Müller
World sales: SBS International
contact@sbs-productions.fr

Competition

Rosebush Pruning

Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom 2026•Color•English•Subtitles: German

In a luxurious villa under the Catalan sun, the American siblings Jack, Ed, Anna, and Robert live in seclusion and inherited wealth. Always dressed in the latest designer clothes, they seek love and validation primarily from one another. They avoid the demands of their blind father. When Jack, the eldest brother and the family’s linchpin, announces that he wants to move in with his girlfriend Martha, the bonds between them are severed. Ed is forced to uncover the truth about their mother’s death. Generational lies come to light, and the family structure slowly begins to unravel. A biting satire on the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family.

Director: Karim Aïnouz
Book: Efthimis Filippou
Producers: Michael Weber,Viola Fügen,Simone Gattoni,Annamaria Morelli,Andreas Wentz,Vladimir Zemtsov
Co-producers: Juan Cano “Nono”,Rachel Dargavel
Casting: Nina Gold
World sales: The Match Factory
info@matchfactory.de

Competition

Soumsoum, la nuit des astres

Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars

France, Chad 2026•Color•French, Chadian Arabic•Subtitles: German, English

Seventeen-year-old Kellou has been granted supernatural powers she cannot understand. Troubled and hesitant about how to manage such an unsettling gift, she is filled with uncertainty until the day her path crosses that of Aya, a woman in her forties. It is an encounter that will intertwine their individual destinies. Aya already knows that Kellou possesses a power. She also knows that Kellou’s mother died in childbirth: Aya was there to assist with the birth and thus heard the dying woman’s final words. As her own time draws to a close, Aya – who fears the disappearance of the mystical, pantheistic world she and Kellou share, where the visible and invisible converge – entrusts the younger woman with keeping this world alive.

Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Book: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun,Laurent Gaudé
Producer: Florence Stern
Co-producer: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Casting: Maïmouna Miawama (Kellou), Ériq Ebouaney (Garba), Achouackh Abakar Souleymane (Aya)
World sales: Films Boutique
contact@filmsboutique.com

Competition

Wolfram

Australia 2025•Colour•English, Mandarin, Arrernte•Subtitles: German, English

On the colonial frontier of 1930s Australia, two swaggering outlaws roll into a mining town and unleash a wave of cruelty, leading two siblings to break free from their white masters who have forced them to work as child labourers in the mines. The children escape and set off across the desert “sweet country” of central Australia, in search of safety and a way home.

Set in the same universe as Thornton’s multi award-winning film Sweet Country from 2017, Wolfram features standout performances from Deborah Mailman and its young actors, playing siblings who must rely on each other as they search for the truth about themselves and their family, escape a nightmare and make unexpected connections on their way to freedom. An outback Western but also a historical drama about survival, reckoning, resilience and love.

Director: Warwick Thornton
Producers: Greer Simpkin, David Jowsey
Co-Producers: David Tranter, Drew Bailey
Casting: Anousha Zarkesh
World Sales: Paradise City Sales
sales@paradisecity-films.com

Competition

Wo Men Bu Shi Mo Sheng Ren

We Are All Strangers

Singapore 2026•Color•Mandarin, English•Subtitles: German, English

In the economic metropolis of Singapore, 21-year-old Junyang carefree enjoys his youth, while his father struggles to maintain their modest standard of living. A life-changing event forces Junyang and his girlfriend to face the challenges of adulthood much sooner than expected. At the same time, a spirited woman enters his father’s life and captures his heart. Quietly and subtly, the delicate balance between father and son shifts. Confronted with love, loss, and responsibility, both generations must redefine what family means—and learn to live with the imperfections of the relationships between their families of origin and their newly formed families.

Director: Anthony Chen
Book: Anthony Chen
Producer: Anthony Chen
Co-producers: Teoh Yi Peng,Huang Wenhong
Casting: Khoo Chia Meng,Maximilian Liang
World sales: Paradise City Sales
sales@paradisecity-films.com

Panorama

Arru

Norway, Sweden, Finland 2026•Color•Northern Sami

In the heart of Sápmi’s natural landscape, Maia, a Sami reindeer herder, is fighting to protect her ancestral lands from a looming mining project. As protests mount, she turns to her uncle Lemme for help. But her connection with him also confronts her with deeply buried family traumas. She must make a choice: save the land at her family’s expense, or abandon it and break the silence.

Director: Elle Sofa Sara
Book: Johan Fasting,Elle Sofa Sara
Producer: Elisa Fernanda Pirir
Co-producers: Mimmi Spång,Jani Pösö,Elle Sofe Sara,Cathrine Persson,Julia Andersen,Jim Stark,Jamal Zeinal-Zade,Dan Wechsler,Andreas Roald
Casting: Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska (Maia), Simon Issat Marainen (Dánel), Ayla Gáren Nutti (Áilin),
Mikkel Gaup (Lemme)
World sales: The Yellow Affair
contact@yellowaffair.com

Berlinale Special Gala

Die Blutgräfin

The Blood Countess

Austria, Luxembourg, Germany 2026•Colour•German, French

Decades after her mysterious disappearance, the Blood Countess re-emerges in modern-day Vienna where she reunites with her devoted underling, Hermine, to track down a dangerous book with the power to destroy all evil – including all vampires such as themselves. The duo embark on a scavenger hunt through the city’s magnificent historic sites, and conscript the countess’s melancholic nephew – a vegetarian vampire named Rudi Bubi – and his psychotherapist as they expand their search to Bohemia. Meanwhile, a pair of vampirologists and a police inspector remain hot on their trail … Filmmaker and visual artist Ulrike Ottinger reinterprets the vampire myth as a sumptuous adventure tale full of morbid black comedy.

Director: Ulrike Ottinger
Producers: Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Bady Minck, Bettina Brokemper
Casting: Eva Roth
World Sales: MAGNIFY
akennedy@magpictures.com

Panorama

Geunyeoga doraon nal

The Day She Returns

South Korea 2026•Black/White•Korean•Subtitles: English

After getting married, she gave up acting. Then, after getting divorced, she took it up again and starred in an independent film. Now, the film is about to be released and she is giving interviews to support it. Having reached middle age, she is presenting her face to the world as an actor for the first time in a long while. She does three interviews at 30-minute intervals, and tries to answer each question as best as she can. Later that day, her acting coach asks her to re-enact the interviews she did earlier. But every time she reaches the crucial parts, for some reason she is unable to remember a thing. She is tired and wants to go home. Her daughter is waiting.

Director: Hong Sangsoo
Producer: Hong Sangsoo
Casting: Song Sunmi (Bae Jeongsu), Cho Yunhee (Kim Young), Park Miso (Park Junhee)
World Sales: Finecut
sales@finecut.co.kr

Berlinale Special Gala

No Good Men

Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Afghanistan 2026•Colour•Dari, Pashto

Afghanistan, 2021, shortly before the Taliban’s return to power. Naru, the only camerawoman at Kabul’s main TV station, is struggling to retain custody of her three-year-old son. After leaving her serially cheating husband, she has become convinced that no good men exist in her country. Naru is therefore caught off guard when Qodrat, Kabul TV’s most important journalist, offers her a career opportunity. As the two criss-cross the city reporting on its last days of freedom, sparks fly between them and Naru starts to doubt her conviction. Could there be a good man out there after all?

Director: Shahrbanoo Sadat
Producers: Katja Adomeit, Shahrbanoo Sadat, Jeppe Wowk, Marina Perales Marhuenda, Xavier Rocher, Ingvil Sæther Berger, Balthasar Busmann, Maxi Haslberger
Casting: Shahrbanoo Sadat, Moshtari Hilal
World Sales: Lucky Number
hello@luckynumber.fr

Forum

Nous sommes les fruits de la forêt

We Are the Fruits of the Forest

Cambodia, France 2025•Colour•Central Mnong•Subtitles: English

The Indigenous Bunong cultivate Cambodia’s forests and fields with the flick of a wrist. The rice grain embodies and brings together the ideas of preserving natural cycles, tradition, balanced economy and the worship of ancestors and gods; this equilibrium has been eaten up with the arrival of modernity and globalisation. The Bunong are losing the forest of whose ownership they have no conception. Pa Kreb belongs to the last generation of this culture of all-round skills, his voiceover analyses the clash of competing economic practices and the loss of a world in which exchange (instead of money) is imaginable. What looks like an ethnographic study (in the language of the Bunong) in the beginning and fuses the real-life present with the past that flashes up in split-screen archive material gradually becomes a lesson both bitter and valuable.

Director: Rithy Panh
Producer: Catherine Dussart
Casting: Pa Kreb, Mak Kreb, Yeay Kreb, Mak Lisa, Pouk Choeut
World Sales: Playtime
info@playtime.group

Panorama

Only Rebels Win

France, Lebanon, Qatar 2026•Colour•Arabic

Beirut, Lebanon. Suzanne gets to know Osmane after saving him from a racist attack. Osmane is Sudanese, young, undocumented and searching for a better future. Suzanne is a middle-class widow with Palestinian roots, a mother of two adult children and well over twice his age. Unexpectedly, the two lonely souls open up to each other and connect. Shy at first, they grow closer, until they admit they are in love. As a fractured Lebanon teeters on the brink of collapse, their relationship provokes a wave of anger and indignation all around them. Suzanne’s children stop seeing her. Colleagues turn their backs on her. Priests refuse to marry them. Their neighbours call the police on them. The same people who threw the country into civil war now stand there, judging, forcing Suzanne and Osmane to face the hostility, and to resist.

Director: Danielle Arbid
Producers: Omar El Kadi, Nadia Turincev, Georges Schoucair
Co-Producers: Amanda Turnbull, Ziad Srouji, Antoine Khalife
Casting: Mona Khaouli
World Sales: Fandango
sales@fandango.it

Berlinale Special Gala

The Testament of Ann Lee

USA, United Kingdom 2025•Colour•English

The extraordinary true legend of Ann Lee, founder of the devotional sect known as the Shakers, who preached gender and social equality and was revered by her followers. The film captures the ecstasy and agony of her quest to build a utopia, featuring more than a dozen traditional Shaker hymns rapturously imagined anew.

Director: Mona Fastvold
Producers: Andrew Morrison, Joshua Horsfield, Viktória Petrányi, Mona Fastvold, Brady Corbet, Gregory Jankilevitsch, Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Lillian LaSalle, Mark Lampert
Casting: Isabella Odoffin
World Sales: Searchlight Pictures
https://www.searchlightpictures.com

Berlinale Special Gala

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

USA 2026•Colour•English•Subtitles: German

Back in his glory days, the exquisitely honed skills and infallible street smarts of expert pickpocket Harry Lehman (John Turturro) made him a master of his craft. Now approaching 70, he is living in a much-changed New York City where the average citizen no longer carries large amounts of cash or wears expensive watches, where credit cards can be cancelled instantly and mobile phones tracked just as quickly. Harry remains an analogue guy in a digital world, struggling to make ends meet. Then, on one of his late-night prowls, he unwittingly lifts a valuable USB stick from a hard-partying rich kid. Unfortunately, Harry’s mark turns out to be Dylan Diamond (Will Price), the heir apparent to a ruthless crime family that will stop at nothing to get their property back. The journey to retrieve the stolen data stick will take Harry through all five boroughs of New York City, from his pal Benny’s Bronx pawn shop to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and finally Staten Island, as he revisits the rapidly fading world of his past.

Director: Noah Segan
Producers: Leopold Hughes, Katie McNeill
Casting: Christine Kromer

Competition

Josephine

USA 2025•Colour•English•Subtitles: German

Early one morning, Josephine and her father Damien are on the way to the park to play football together when they see a jogger being sexually assaulted by a stranger. Damien chases after the man. In the aftermath, Josephine asks what the man was doing to the woman but her dad dodges the question. When Josephine looks up the word “rape”, she starts to see the world as an increasingly dirty, dangerous place. Damien tries to cope with the situation by enrolling Josephine in Kung Fu classes, but he fails to address her emotional trauma. Josephine increasingly displays violent outbursts in school and divides her classmates into friends to protect and foes to protect herself from. A conflict emerges between her parents that causes further instability in Josephine’s life. As she seeks to understand what she has witnessed, and the part she has to play in the search for justice, Josephine starts to take control of her own safety and grows wise beyond her young years.

Director: Beth de Araújo
Producers: David Kaplan, Beth de Araújo, Marina Stabile, Josh Peters, Mark H. Rapaport, Crystine Zhang
Casting: Channing Tatum (Damien), Gemma Chan (Claire), Mason Reeves (Josephine)
World Sales: WME William Morris Endeavor Entertainment
filmsalesinfo@wmeagency.com