The Berlin International Film Festival, the world’s largest public film festival, is announcing its full lineup today. The festival’s official press conference has begun, with new festival director Tricia Tuttle announcing the competition program for the 75th Berlinale. You can check out the live stream of the press conference here.
Several familiar faces return to Berlin’s competition. Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, a period drama about the final days of Lorenz Hart, half of the Rodgers & Hart songwriting team, will have its world premiere at the Berlinale, marking Linklater’s fourth time in Berlin competition. At his last go-around, with Boyhood in 2014, he walked away with the Silver Bear for best director. The feature, starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, will be released worldwide by Sony Pictures Classics.
Berlinale regular, and four-time Silver Bear winner Hong Sang-soo returns with his latest intimate drama, What Does That Nature Say to You?; and Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud, whose feature Sex was an audience favorite at Berlin last year, is back with Dreams, the last feature in his Sex, Love, Dreams trilogy.
Other competition highlights include Hot Milk, the directoral debut of Polish screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, Disobedience); Michel Franco’s Dreams, the Mexican helmer’s re-teaming with his Jessica Chastain; and French drama The Ice Tower from director Lucile Hadžihalilović, starring Marion Cotillard, Gaspar Noé, and August Diehl.
Opening the press conference, Tuttle nodded to Berlin’s reputation as the most political of the big festivals.
“People often ask me, and the press often ask me if we’re a political festival, and we cannot, and we do not shy away from this,” Tuttle said. “It’s arguably in the DNA of the city itself and also in the festival itself, but it’s fair to say that the Berlinale is many things, and for all festivals and all culture right now, the news agenda can often dominate the discourse, but we really hope, and we believe, that the films that audiences are going to see over the next over the weeks of the festival are going to get people talking about the vibrancy of the art form itself and the films themselves.”
There are certainly plenty of political talking points in the official lineup, which include the world premieres of Marcin Wierzchowski’s Das Deutsche Volk, a look at the far-right attacks in the German city of Hanau in 2020; Michtav Le’David (A Letter to David) from Israeli director Tom Shoval, a cinematic letter to his friend David Cunio, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7th; and My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, a documentary from U.S. director Julia Loktev, which documents independent journalists in Moscow facing government crackdown as Russia invades Ukraine. All three films will screen in the Berlinale Special program.
Berlin has already announced most of the films screening in its gala sections this year, including Mickey 17, the sci-fi feature starring Robert Pattinson from Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho, which will bow out of competition, and Das Licht, the new film from German helmer Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlas), which will open the 2025 Berlinale on Feb. 13.
Berlin’s sidebars are also complete. The full lineup for Panorama — an “explicitly queer, explicitly feminist, explicitly political” section featuring indie arthouse cinema from around the world — as well as for Forum (experimental cinema) and Generation (youth and children’s films) were unveiled earlier this month.
Sidebar highlights include new features from arthouse favorites Ira Sachs (Peter Hujar’s Day), Denis Côté (Paul), and Michel Gondry (Maya, Give Me a Title).
U.S. director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far From Heaven), whose debut feature Poison won the Teddy Award at Berlin in 1991, is president of this year’s international jury which will pick the winners of Berlin’s Gold and Silver Bears.
Berlinale 2025 Competition
Ari, director: Léonor SerrailleFrance / Belgium (2025)
Blue Moon, director: Richard LinklaterUSA / Ireland (2025)
La cache (The Safe House), director: Lionel BaierSwitzerland / Luxembourg / France (2025)
Dreams, director: Michel FrancoMexico (2025)
Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)), director: Dag Johan HaugerudNorway (2024)
Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What Does That Nature Say to You), director: Hong SangsooSouth Korea (2025)
Hot Milk, director: Rebecca LenkiewiczUnited Kingdom (2025)
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, director: Mary BronsteinUSA (2024)
Kontinental ’25, director: Radu JudeRomania (2025)
El mensaje (The Message), director: Iván FundArgentina / Spain (2025)
Mother’s Baby, director: Johanna ModerAustria / Switzerland / Germany (2025)
O último azul (The Blue Trail), director: Gabriel MascaroBrazil / Mexico / Chile / Netherlands (2025)
Reflet dans un diamant mort (Reflection in a Dead Diamond), directors: Hélène Cattet, Bruno ForzaniBelgium / Luxembourg / Italy / France (2025)
Sheng xi zhi di (Living the Land), director: Huo MengPeople’s Republic of China (2025)
Strichka chasu (Timestamp), director: Kateryna GornostaiUkraine / Luxembourg / Netherlands / France (2025)
La Tour de Glace (The Ice Tower), director: Lucile HadžihalilovićFrance / Germany (2025)
Was Marielle weiß (What Marielle Knows), director: Frédéric HambalekGermany (2025)
Xiang fei de nv hai (Girls on Wire), director: Vivian QuPeople’s Republic of China (2025)
Yunan, director: Ameer Fakher EldinGermany / Canada / Italy / Palestine / Qatar / Jordan / Saudi Arabia (2025)
Berlinale Special 2025
After This Death, director: Lucio CastroUSA (2025)
A Complete Unknown (Like A Complete Unknown), director: James MangoldUSA (2024)
Heldin (Late Shift), director: Petra VolpeSwitzerland / Germany (2025)
Islands, director: Jan-Ole GersterGermany (2025)
Köln 75, director: Ido FlukGermany / Poland / Belgium (2025)
Das Licht (The Light), director: Tom TykwerGermany (2025)
Lurker, director: Alex RussellUSA / Italy (2025)
Mickey 17, director: Bong Joon HoUSA / South Korea / United Kingdom (2024)
The Thing with Feathers, director: Dylan SouthernUnited Kingdom (2025)
Ancestral Visions of the Future, director: Lemohang Jeremiah MoseseFrance / Lesotho / Germany / Saudi Arabia (2025)
Das Deutsche Volk, director: Marcin WierzchowskiGermany (2025)
Honey Bunch, directors: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty MancinelliCanada (2025)
Je n’avais que le néant – “Shoah” par Claude Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness), director: Guillaume RibotFrance (2025)
Kein Tier. So Wild. (No Beast. So Fierce.), director: Burhan QurbaniGermany / Poland / France (2025)
Leibniz – Chronik eines verschollenen Bildes (Leibniz – Chronicle of a Lost Painting), directors: Edgar Reitz, Anatol SchusterGermany (2025)
A melhor mãe do mundo (The Best Mother in the World | Die beste Mutter der Welt), director: Anna MuylaertBrazil / Argentina (2025)
Michtav Le’David (A Letter to David), director: Tom ShovalIsrael / USA (2025)
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, director: Julia LoktevUSA (2024)
Pa-gwa (The Old Woman with the Knife), director: Min Kyu-dongSouth Korea (2025)
Shoah, director: Claude LanzmannFrance (1985)
Friendship’s Death, director: Peter WollenUnited Kingdom (1987)
Berlinale Perspectives 2025
Al Mosta’mera (The Settlement), director: Mohamed RashadEgypt / France / Germany / Saudi Arabia / Qatar (2025)
Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox), directors: Tanushree Das, Saumyananda SahiIndia / France / USA / Spain (2025)
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, director: Kahlil JosephUSA (2025)
Come la notte (Where the Night Stands Still), director: Liryc Dela CruzItaly / Philippines (2025)
El Diablo Fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja) (The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box)), director: Ernesto Martinez BucioMexico (2025)
Duas Vezes João Liberada (Two Times João Liberada), director: Paula Tomás MarquesPortugal (2025)
Hé mán (Eel), director: Chu Chun-TengTaiwan (2025)
How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World, director: Florian PochlatkoAustria (2025)
Kaj ti je deklica (Little Trouble Girls), director: Urška ĐukićSlovenia / Italy / Croatia / Serbia (2025)
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), director: Joel Alfonso VargasUSA (2025)
Minden Rendben (Growing Down), director: Bálint Dániel SósHungary (2025)
Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen (Punching the World), director: Constanze KlaueGermany (2025)
On vous croit (We Believe You), directors: Arnaud Dufeys, Charlotte DevillersBelgium (2025)
Le rendez-vous de l’été (That Summer in Paris), director: Valentine CadicFrance (2025)
