European cinema is enjoying renewed attention for reasons unrelated to tie‑ins or franchise planning. While much of Hollywood continues to rely on sequels, superhero epics and formulaic horror, some of the year’s most compelling films are coming from Europe: mature, politically engaged works that prize ambiguity, moral complexity and time for reflection rather than quick comfort.
That tone is evident at this year’s European Film Awards in Berlin on January 17. Nominees from France, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia and beyond share a seriousness and formal boldness that feel increasingly rare in mainstream US releases. Many are unsettling, overtly political and formally adventurous, and several have already surfaced in awards-season conversations — including talk of Oscars recognition.
Leading the pack is Jafar Panahi’s urgent political thriller It Was Just an Accident. A co‑production with France, the film blends dark comedy, satire and Hitchcockian suspense. It follows Vahid, a former political prisoner convinced he recognizes the man who tortured him; he kidnaps the suspect and, blindfolded himself during imprisonment, cannot be sure he has the right person. As Vahid drives through the city with the bound captive and gathers other ex‑prisoners to debate revenge versus mercy, the movie becomes grimly funny and increasingly unnerving. Panahi made the film after serving seven months behind bars for “anti‑government propaganda,” and it reads as a furious, playful indictment of authoritarianism. The film’s urgency is heightened by ongoing protests and state violence in Iran. Panahi has since been sentenced in absentia to another year in prison and given a two‑year ban on working; he has said he intends to return to Iran after the film’s awards run.
Oliver Laxe’s Sirat is stranger and more elemental. It begins as a search for a missing daughter inside Morocco’s underground rave scene and morphs into something larger — an unspecified global catastrophe, possibly a world war, as military forces appear and a group of ravers plus a father and son flee across desert roads in camper vans. Part post‑apocalyptic chase, part existential odyssey, the film is driven by a relentless techno score and evokes The Wages of Fear and Mad Max: Fury Road refracted through a spiritual, psychedelic sensibility.
Not all entries are apocalyptic. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Norway’s Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner, works in a quieter register. It centers on Gustav Borg, a once‑admired director in personal and creative crisis who struggles to reconnect with his estranged adult daughter by writing a film for her. When she declines to participate, he contemplates recasting the role with an American star and remaking the story in English. Part industry satire, part intimate family drama, the film channels Bergman and Fellini while remaining a raw study of how art can express what people cannot say to one another.
Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling takes a wider historical view. Set on a rural German farm, it traces four generations of women across a century, focusing on lives often neglected by official narratives. Visually austere and thematically rich, it nods to the rigor of Michael Haneke and the generational sweep of Edgar Reitz while carving its own space by centering women’s experiences.
Politics runs through much of the lineup: Petra Volpe’s Swiss drama Late Shift turns the care crisis into a single‑night emergency for a nurse; Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab confronts the real‑life killing of a young girl in Gaza without allowing abstraction; and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia uses conspiracy and paranoia as tools of social satire rather than pure escapism. Two hand‑drawn French animations, Arco and Little Amelie or the Character of Rain, have also attracted Academy attention.
What feels notable this season is how these European films are reaching beyond the continent. It Was Just an Accident, Sirat and Sentimental Value are being discussed not only in the international feature category but as contenders for directing and best picture. Once dismissed as too austere or niche, European cinema is again shaping global conversations. As Hollywood leans on franchises and recycled formulas, audiences hungry for meaning over spectacle are increasingly looking elsewhere.
DW, The Hollywood Reporter and the European Film Academy will host a live roundtable with directors Jafar Panahi, Oliver Laxe, Mascha Schilinski and Joachim Trier on Friday, January 16 at 15:45 CET, streaming on DW’s History and Culture channel on YouTube.
Edited by Tanya Ott