Airing collective dreams of being independent, known, and loved, Solo Sunny took East Germany’s youth by storm. Time-capsuling all the sounds and colors of the GDR, this vibrant portrait of a woman with starry eyes remains iconic for Renate Krössner’s deeply moving, Silver Bear–awarded performance.

Awarded the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, this wartime drama by East German director Konrad Wolf opposes Nazi barbarism with tender humanity. Constellating a fulgurant spectrum of cinematic techniques to telegraph the dreams and fears of the Jewish people, Stars is a triumph of art in dark times.

Konrad Wolf looked back at his personal journals for this tremendous film, an impressive reckoning with the pitiful ends of war. With subtlety, empathy, and starkest realism, I Was Nineteen illuminates how a homeland now synonymous with “Goethe and Auschwitz” hangs heavy over the heads of the young.

Moody, modernist, and highly provocative for its time, Konrad Wolf’s East German masterpiece follows two lovers in an ideologically divided Berlin. Full of fast cuts and sharp angles, this scandalous adaptation of Christa Wolf’s ’60s novella is an iconic gem in the canon of East German cinema.