Berlin Film Festival 2026: Read All Of Deadline’s Movie Reviews

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.

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

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

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

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

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