13 Locations
Film classics have a devoted audience in Berlin, screened in arthouse cinemas and open-air venues across the city. From silent masterpieces to Hollywood golden-age favourites, film classics fill programmes in Mitte, Kreuzberg and beyond, often in the original language.
This overview gathers Berlin locations for film classics, from historic picture houses and cinematheques to summer open-air screens. Some focus on German and European cinema, others on world classics and cult favourites.
Browse the venues below to find the best film classics in Berlin, compare programmes and prices, and plan your evening.
On the old open-air stage in Volkspark Friedrichshain, around 1,500 guests sit on benches with backrests, 300 more at bistro tables, plus a sunbathing lawn. Laser projection, an induction loop, and about 300 free fleece blankets are provided, and the programme ranges from cinema favorites and classics to original versions with subtitles.
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In the green area behind the Bethanien Art Quarter, approximately 300 deck chairs are set up under old trees, along with seat cushions and free fleece blankets. Arthouse films, international classics, and award-winning works are continuously shown here in original versions with German or English subtitles, and the access is wheelchair-friendly.
Top10 Club Perk
Exclusive for Top10 Club members
Value ~ €9
The Astor Film Lounge on Kurfürstendamm pampers its audience with a luxurious ambience, selected films and in-seat service!
Beneath the intersection at the ICC lies a pedestrian tunnel from the seventies with orange tiles, round columns, and cylindrical ceiling lights, which has never been modernized. Production teams book it more frequently than the Brandenburg Gate or the Reichstag, from The Bourne Conspiracy to Hanna and Don to Atomic Blonde.
In Nikolaikirchplatz during Advent, only one film is shown: “Die Feuerzangenbowle” with Heinz Rühmann from 1943, approximately 90 minutes long. It is screened in a wooden house equipped with armchairs, sofas, and blankets. Among Berlin's winter leisure activities, this has the lowest barrier: admission is free.
Among other cultural-social institutions, Kulturfabrik Moabit houses the Filmrauschpalast as an independent art-house cinema.
Today, the screen is located in the Atelier Gardens on Oberlandstraße, on the former Berliner Union-Film-Ateliers site at the edge of Tempelhofer Feld. Comfortable deck chairs await in front of the studio halls, showing independent cinema, current arthouse highlights, short films, documentaries, and festival specials, including special screenings.
Rum-soaked sugar cones and the classic film "Die Feuerzangenbowle" (The Fire-Tongs Punch) are the focus of the atmospheric Winter Film Festival in the Nikolaiviertel in Berlin-Mitte.
The beautiful Astor Film Lounge on Kurfürstendamm presents the 1963 film classic 'The Pink Panther' as its 2017 New Year's Eve Special.
A prefabricated building in Friedrichshain, not far from Ostbahnhof, where Paul lives in The Legend of Paul and Paula, the cult film by DEFA from 1973. Opposite was Paula's old building, which today houses a supermarket, and on Rummelsburger See are the Paul-and-Paula-Ufer along with the bench for lovers, where the scene with the freight barge was filmed.
The Eva is a small district cinema in Wilmersdorf, showing a sophisticated program with less commercial productions.
Wilmersdorf's oldest cinema opened in 1913 as Roland Lichtspiele and survived the war almost unscathed. What remains is a single auditorium with 250 seats, a colorful facade from the fifties, and the neon sign above it. For a marriage proposal, a cinema has a tangible advantage: you know exactly when it will get dark beforehand.
What could be more romantic than a cinematic three-course meal in the beautiful restaurant Duke and a subsequent visit to the Astor Film Lounge? This combo can be booked as a gift set "Cinema & Kitchen" at the Ellington Hotel.