Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987) — watch online on iFILM, Wim Wenders' black-and-white meditation shot across a city still cut in two. Bruno Ganz plays Damiel, an angel who drifts through West Berlin listening to the inner voices of strangers — commuters, the elderly, children drawing on the floor.

He wants more than listening. When Damiel falls for Marion, a French trapeze artist played by Solveig Dommartin, it's the first time something feels urgent enough to risk losing everything he is. Peter Falk turns up as himself — an unexpected guide — and Otto Sander plays the other angel, watching his partner inch toward a choice he can't undo.

Wenders filmed this two years before the Wall came down, and the divided city is woven into every frame. Screenwriter Peter Handke co-wrote the script; the film took Best Director at Cannes in 1988. Stream Wings of Desire online on iFILM.