Few films are so rich, so intriguing, or so ambitious.
Wings of Desire (1987)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:38
Fresh:37
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.4/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: The sky over Wenders's war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle angels wearing trench coats who listen to the tortured thoughts of mortals and try to comfort them. One wishes to become mortal after... The sky over Wenders's war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle angels wearing trench coats who listen to the tortured thoughts of mortals and try to comfort them. One wishes to become mortal after falling in love with a beautiful trapeze artist. Peter Falk, as himself, assists in the transformation by explaining the simple joys of a human experience, such as the sublime combination of coffee and cigarettes. The result is a film that is simultaneously sentimental and cerebral. [More]
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Peter Falk
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Hans Martin Stier, Nick Cave, Crime and the City Solution
Director: Wim Wenders
Director: Wim Wenders
Producer: Wim Wenders, Anatole Daumon
Screenwriter: Wim Wenders, Peter Handke
Composer: Jurgen Kneiper
Reviews for Wings of Desire
The delicate way that Wenders’ articulates feelings of loss, alienation, and the first twinges of love let the film transcend its historical place.
It's hard to think of another movie of its era that makes the viewer so fully feel like a denizen of its setting; the roving, dollying, craning camera makes angels of us all.
A unique and enriching film. A film worth spending time getting to know.
Depending on your tastes, you'll find the film either a beautiful, moving experience, or a slow and pretentious one.
Wings of Desire enthralls me, and it sends me back to my life a richer person, glad to be alive, looking about at the mundane and the everyday with new appreciation.
Wings of Desire is the most optimistic of films, finding freedom and potential in the quotidian privileges most of us take for granted.
What Wim Wenders has done in his most transcendent film is not merely praise assenting angels, but embrace descending ones – we humans – as well.
While it takes a little getting used to, Wenders' look at Heaven and Earth and the tug between living an experience instead of merely observing is pleasantly haunting.
Latest News for Wings of Desire
September 15, 2005:
Critical Consensus: Critics Thank "Heaven," But Don't Praise The "Lord"
This week at the movies brings us a supernatural romance ("Just Like Heaven"), a jaded arms dealer ("Lord of War") and two experiments in terror... More...
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