The 2026 Berlin Film Festival is underway in the German capital with Afghan director Sharbanoo Sadat’s No Good Men serving as the opening-night pic.
This year’s lineup features major world premieres including At the Sea, starring Amy Adams; the Sandra Hüller-led Rose; Queen at Sea, starring Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay and Florence Hunt; Rosebush Pruning, with Callum Turner and Riley Keough; and others.
Read all of Deadline’s takes below throughout the festival, which runs February 12-22. Click on the title to read the full review and keep checking back as we update the list.
‘At The Sea’
At The Sea
Section: Competition
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Cast: Amy Adams, Murray Bartlett, Chloe East, Brett Goldstein, Dan Levy, Redding Munsell, Jenny Slate, Rainn Wilson
Deadline’s takeaway: This latest English-language production for Mundruczó is sadly a miss, especially disappointing since I have been a fan of not just Pieces of a Woman but especially his extraordinary Cannes prize-winning dog story White God. This time, even with a talent like Adams at the helm, he can’t seem to get around a familiar kind of melodrama Hollywood did so much better in the ’50s. — PH
‘Everybody Digs Bill Evans’
Shane O’Connor/Cowtown Pictures/Hot Property
Section: Competition
Director: Grant Gee
Cast: Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Laurie Metcalf, Barry Ward, Valene Kane
Deadline’s takeaway: Grant Gee’s extraordinary, intimate and gloriously experimental film asks where does the magic of art come from and where does it go? Like his perceptive doc about Joy Division, Everybody Digs Bill Evans is about the ordinary that feeds the extraordinary and leaves us to figure out the rest for ourselves. — DW
‘Mouse’
Nate Hurtsellers and Luke Dyra
Section: Panorama
Directors: Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan
Cast: Katherine Mallen-Kupferer, Sophie Okonedo, Tara Mallen, Chloe Coleman, Iman Vellani, David Hyde Pierce, Beck Nolan, Audrey Grace Marshall, Addisyn Cain, Christopher R. Ellis
Deadline’s takeaway: Mouse is a humane, rich, and rewarding experience, and a new level of accomplishment after Thompson and O’Sullivan’s terrific 2024 debut Ghostlight. If there is any justice the film will come out of this year’s Berlinale with a distributor ready to spring it on the world. — PH
‘No Good Men’
Section: World Dramatic Competition
Director-screenwriter: Shahrbanoo Sadat
Cast: Shahrbanoo Sadat, Anwar Hashimi, Yasin Negah, Masihullah Tajzai, Torkan Omari, Fatima Hassani
Deadline’s takeaway: While the filmmaker is fooling you into thinking that this is just a simple case of will-they-or-won’t-they, the violent seeds of unrest shown at the beginning of the film are about to return, big-time. What started with fun poked at ineptitude of the Taliban and Afghan government takes a really dark turn. This modest but super-smart production punches way above its weight. — DW
‘Rose’
Berlin Film Festival
Section: Competition
Director: Markus Schleinzer
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt, Godehard Giese, Augustino Renken
Deadline’s takeaway: Rose is a historical drama that plays out like a folk tale, an aggregate of many similar true-life stories — some detected, others not — lightly fictionalized and thoughtfully distilled into one. It marks the latest triumph for Sandra Hüller, with another remarkable piece of work that cements her reputation as a striking yet surprisingly chameleonic talent with Tilda Swinton’s eye for dark but intellectually rewarding material. — DW
‘Rosebush Pruning’
Felix Dickinson
Section: Competition
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Cast: Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning, Pamela Anderson
Deadline’s takeaway: This insane black comedy might well be worth your while, a bad-taste riot that surpasses Karim Aïnouz’s last film Motel Destino (2024) in all its candy-colored decadence. These satanic majesties request the pleasure of your company. Dare you accept? — DW
‘Yellow Letters’
© Ella Knorz/ifProductions/Alamode Film
Section: Competition
Director: İlker Çatak
Cast: Özgü Namal, Tansu Biçer, Leyla Smyrna Cabas, İpek Bilgin
Deadline’s takeaway: The trenchantly honest and terrifically acted new film from Ilker Çatak might be the most important film yet made about Donald Trump’s America. Though it obviously has more specific ties to Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it also has plenty to share with western audiences about the role of art in political protest and the myriad forms that cancel culture can take. — DW
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