MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Up 18 this week

Wings of Desire (1987)
"Der Himmel über Berlin" (original title)

 -  Fantasy | Drama | Romance  -  6 May 1988 (USA)
8.0
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 8.0/10 from 31,928 users   Metascore: 79/100
Reviews: 181 user | 80 critic | 9 from Metacritic.com

An angel tires of overseeing human activity and wishes to become human when he falls in love with a mortal.

Director:

Writers:

, (screenplay), 1 more credit »
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2369 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 180 titles created 21 May 2012
 
a list of 1269 titles created 6 months ago
 
a list of 1228 titles created 02 May 2012
 
a list of 123 titles created 3 weeks ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Wings of Desire (1987)

Wings of Desire (1987) on IMDb 8/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Wings of Desire.
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 18 wins & 6 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Fantasy | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.9/10 X  

A sequel to Wender's Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of desire), it again follows a group of angels in the German capital who look longingly upon the life of humans.

Director: Wim Wenders
Stars: Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Mikhail Gorbachev
Drama | Fantasy | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

An uncommonly gentle young man, who happens to have scissors for hands, falls in love with a beautiful teenage girl.

Director: Tim Burton
Stars: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest
Comedy | Drama | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A film set in a strange afterlife way station that has been reserved for people who have committed suicide.

Director: Goran Dukic
Stars: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Shea Whigham
2046 (2004)
Drama | Fantasy | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same ... See full summary »

Director: Kar Wai Wong
Stars: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Li Gong, Faye Wong
Drama | Fantasy | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

Adélaïde, Belle, Félicie and Ludovic are young adult siblings who once lived in grandeur until their father's merchant ships were lost at sea. The family is now near ruin, but Adélaïde and ... See full summary »

Director: Jean Cocteau
Stars: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély
Thirst (2009)
Drama | Horror | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

Through a failed medical experiment, a priest is stricken with vampirism and is forced to abandon his ascetic ways.

Director: Chan-wook Park
Stars: Kang-ho Song, Ok-bin Kim, Hae-suk Kim
Orpheus (1950)
Fantasy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

Orphee is a poet who becomes obsessed with Death (the Princess). They fall in love. Orphee's wife, Eurydice, is killed by the Princess' henchmen and Orphee goes after her into the ... See full summary »

Director: Jean Cocteau
Stars: Jean Marais, François Périer, María Casares
Drama | Family | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.7/10 X  

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.

Director: Frank Capra
Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
Drama | Fantasy | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

After dying in a car crash a widowed man searches the afterlife for his wife.

Director: Vincent Ward
Stars: Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra
Drama | Fantasy | Music
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Weronika lives in Poland. Véronique lives in Paris. They don't know each other. Weronika gets a place in a music school, works hard, but collapses and dies on her first performance. At this... See full summary »

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Stars: Irène Jacob, Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik
Comedy | Drama | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of the movie star, John Malkovich.

Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener
Arizona Dream (1992)
Comedy | Drama | Fantasy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's ... See full summary »

Director: Emir Kusturica
Stars: Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
Otto Sander ...
Curt Bois ...
Homer
...
Der Filmstar
Hans Martin Stier ...
In weiteren Rollen - Der Sterbende
Elmar Wilms ...
In weiteren Rollen - Ein trauriger Mann
Sigurd Rachman ...
In weiteren Rollen - Der Selbstmörder
Beatrice Manowski ...
In weiteren Rollen - Das Strichmädchen
...
Im Zirkus - Marion's Trainer
Bruno Rosaz ...
Im Zirkus - Der Clown
Laurent Petitgand ...
Im Zirkus - Der Kapellmeister
Chick Ortega ...
Im Zirkus - Der Schlagzeuger (as Chico Rojo Ortega)
Otto Kuhnle ...
Im Zirkus - Die Jongleure
Christoph Merg ...
Im Zirkus - Der Jongleure
Edit

Storyline

This Wim Wenders film centers around the story of two angels wandering in a mixture of post-war and modern Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys of everyday life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fufillment of all his mortal desires. He also discovers that he is not alone in making this cross over, and that a purely spiritual experience is not enough to satisfy anyone. Written by Nell Rehn <NRehn@aol.com>

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

angel | circus | desire | love | flashback | See more »

Taglines:

There are angels on the streets of Berlin.

Genres:

Fantasy | Drama | Romance

Certificate:

PG-13 | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

|

Release Date:

6 May 1988 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

The Sky Above Berlin  »

Filming Locations:

 »

Box Office

Gross:

$3,806,540 (USA) (18 September 1998)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

(Eastmancolor)| (partly)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

The scene where Otto Sander is shown riding a bus looking morose, with his head in his hands, was shot that way because the actor had developed a large bald spot on the day of shooting and makeup couldn't hide it. See more »

Goofs

The position of the trapeze artists' arms change after Bruno stands in her trailer. See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
[in German, using English subtitles]
Damiel: [voiceover] When the child was a child, it walked with its arms swinging. It wanted the stream to be a river, the river a torrent, and this puddle to be the sea. When the child was a child, it didn't know it was a child. Everything was full of life, and all life was one. When the child was a child, it had no opinion about anything, no habits. It often sat cross-legged, took off running, had a cowlick in its hair, and didn't make faces when ...
See more »

Crazy Credits

Dedicated to all the former angels, but especially to Yasujiro, François and Andrej. See more »

Connections

Referenced in The Debridement of Rome (2012) See more »

Soundtracks

"Zirkusmusik"
by Laurent Petitgand
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

lyrical and haunting work of art
13 June 2004 | by (Mississippi,United States) – See all my reviews

Two angels named Damiel and Cassiel are onlookers on the lives of people in Berlin. Damiel longs to become human mainly because of a trapeze artist he has become drawn to. Both dote on how the world would look if they could see it with color, feel of things, and breathe air. The angels in Wim Wender's "Wings Of Desire" are separated by the rest of the world and see this world in black and white. They look upon the many sad happenings that occur, how people go about their daily lives. The angels take notes and share lifelong memories of people they have looked upon over the years. They can hear people's thoughts and how they feel about their lives. Damiel is the one the movie focuses on more. Cassiel understands Damiel's desire, but doesn't long for humanity iname way. The film isn't coy about the fact that being an angel could be quite lonely and sort of exasperating. The film's dialogue(mostly thought)from the people across Berlin are more lyrical. It's as if their thoughts are a daily constant of Shakespeare..a long tragedy of loneliness among other emotional longings. The trapeze artist, Marion, is quite a thinker and always feels as if someone has always been their to guide her through the paths of life. Peter Falk(Yep, Columbo)appears as himself playing in a film in Berlin. Many address him as that famous detective. He, like the children, can sense the Angels' presense around him..and there's quite an interesting reason why he can. The film is very pondering and haunting. Life is quite bleak. Berlin is a fascinating setting for a film like this. We often see what history has done to Berlin..the scars show such devastation, yet this brings an element that reaches out to you. We see that life goes on around the ruin..the devastation. The angels have seen that ruin first hand. The film has Cassiel following an old dying Jew. There's a particular scene I love which has the old man walking down ruined streets. He says to himself,"This can't be Potsdamer Platz." He continues to walk and remember the places that use to exist where only ruin reveals. This scene, among so many, define the film's elegant melancholy. The film really is an unforgettable gem. Towards the end, our angel Damiel makes a decision to accept a life as a human. This adds to the film's overall dilemma. I asked myself,"Are we taking things like smelling coffee, touching an apple, or simply watching the rain as it slides from a gutter for granted." The opportunities to exist and live should be appreciated somewhat. What if we are on the otherside of the spectrum? What if we had to look at others living and breathing and smelling? *****/*****


54 of 59 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Am I the only one who thinks she was the Devil at the end of the film? atthautmale
Is it possible to be moved by a film you don't completely understand? mcrandle
Best Foreign Films by decade Alexandar
I could onlly stand this for 20 minutes alucardjb
european cinema vs hollywood marianeta
Peter Falk's role imeka
Discuss Wings of Desire (1987) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?