Film location: Berlin

Berlin has everything to offer – glittering high-rise façades, dreary pre-fabricated blocks of flats, historic landmarks. You can find a street that will serve as a suitable backdrop for almost any era. So it's hardly surprising that the city is so popular with film-makers. The Jason Bourne movie series, the successful German film Goodbye Lenin, the Homeland series – Berlin plays a key role in these and other productions. A film tour of the German capital.

Karl-Marx-Allee: “The Queen’s Gambit” 

The hit Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” (2020) tells the story of Beth Harmon, an orphan in the 1950s with an exceptional talent for chess. Although the series plays out across the USA, Moscow and Paris, many scenes were filmed in Berlin. The foyer of the Friedrichstadt Palast theatre formed the backdrop for a chess tournament, while in another scene, leading lady Anya Taylor-Joy strolls down Karl-Marx-Allee in the east of the city. 

Clärchens Ballhaus – Inglourious Basterds

Christoph Waltz is seldom as nasty as when playing SS man Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Part of the film was shot at Clärchens Ballhaus, a dance hall in the Berlin district of Mitte near the river Spree. It's also worth a visit because of the many open dance evenings. Beginners can book a course. 

The Messedamm subway: an old favourite 

The orange pillars and round ceiling lights of the tunnel beneath the Messedamm dual carriageway have appeared in many Hollywood hits. Charlize Theron was caught up in shootout from a moving car here in “Atomic Blonde” (2017), while the tiled underpass was the setting for a frantic chase in “Captain America: Civil War” (2016). In “Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” (2015), the subway represents the capital’s underground, where which leading lady Jennifer Lawrence must fight a way through.

Karl Marx Bookshop – The Lives of Others

The final scene in The Lives of Others is as strong as the entire film. Former Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), who has been delivering newspapers since Germany's reunification, discovers the book Sonata for a Good Man in a bookshop window. He enters the store, picks up the book and sees that the author has dedicated it to him. Wiesler had once spied on the opposition artist, but finally saved him from the Stasi – at the cost of his own career. "Shall I gift-wrap it?" asks the salesperson. "No, it's for me," says Wiesler. The Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung really exists. Not surprisingly on the street Karl Marx Allee.

Humboldt University – Memory of a Paper

Not only German films and Hollywood productions are made in Berlin. Memory of a Paper is an Arab soap opera that was shown during Ramadan in 2015. It portrays the lives and loves of eight students from Kuwait. Some scenes were shot on Gendarmenmarkt square and at the Brandenburg Gate. 

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