Wolfgang Becker, 2003, Germany (9*)
This is a heartwarming German comedy about the fall of the wall and the GDR, and the resulting German reunification. While you're watching, you realize that in time it's a very poignant tale of a son's love for his mother, touchingly portrayed by Katrine Sass. A single mom, she turns her interest to the socialist government after her husband leaves her with two kids, defecting to the west while on a business trip to West Berlin. He remains just an imaginary figure to the kids, now teenagers.

One night, on her way to a government function as a 'model citizen', she gets stopped by the police, then has a heart attack while witnessing a demonstration of students at the wall, who riot with the police, and goes into a coma just when history is about to be made. Fortunately for her, she misses the collapse of the wall and the East German government, and the whole socialist Europe dream.

When she awakens (now in just Germany), her kids go to great extremes to hide the world-changing events from her, with hilarious results. A filmmaking buddy of the son, lovingly played by Daniel Bruhl, helps them in a way I won't spoil. You'll never see a son, played by go through this much out of love for his mother. A totally original story, reminds one of the old classic comedies, and like those, its a film you can watch again and again. One of the best German films.

This internationally acclaimed film still has a popular web site:
Good Bye Lenin Website

Other great German films: Nowhere in Africa, The Lives of Others (both Oscar® winners for foreign film), and Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo