There is goodness to be found in this year’s Berlinale Special program and it includes some eye candy, for yours truly.
Eight more titles were just added to the list of Berlinale Special galas today. Bringing the program to a total of 12 films, with an additional 9 to be announced at their official press conference next Tuesday, they include the much anticipated Robert Pattinson starrer Mickey 17 by Oscar-winning auteur Bong Joon Ho; the series The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Justin Kurzel, an adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel starring Jacob Elordi, Ciarán Hinds, Odessa Young, Olivia DeJonge and Simon Baker; Dylan Southern’s horror thriller The Thing with Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch; and Je n’avais que le néant - "Shoah" par Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness), Guillaume Ribot’s ode to Claude Lanzmann’s monumental 1985 film Shoah, which will also be screened.
Robert Pattinson in ‘Mickey 17’ by Bong Joon-ho © 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved
“The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living,” reads the synopsis of Mickey 17, which is a “dazzling cinematic experience” according to the Berlinale. The film stars Pattinson along with Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo.
Benedict Cumberbatch, photo © Anthony Dickenson / The Thing with Feathers Ltd
The Kurzel series The Narrow Road to the Deep North starring Elordi tells the story of a “celebrated World War II hero is haunted by his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and memories of an affair that took place just before the war,” as the synopsis goes. And the Cumberbatch starrer The Thing with Feathers reads “following the death of his wife, a young father’s hold on reality crumbles as a seemingly malign presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.”
‘Islands’ by Jan-Ole Gerster, photo © Juan Sarmiento G. / 2025 augenschein Filmproduktion, LEONINE Studios
Previous titles include Islands by Jan-Ole Gerster, with Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, Dylan Torrell and personal fave Spencer actor Jack Farthing, but also the opening film starring another fave thespian of mine, Lars Eidinger who is features in Das Licht (The Light) by Tom Tykwer, about a Syrian housekeeper who enters into the lives of a semi-dysfunctional family and challenges each of them in unexpected ways.
For more information about the festival and the other impressive lineups just announced — including Panorama which features the lone Palestinian title in the whole festival so far, the documentary Yalla Parkour by director Areeb Zuaiter — check out the Berlinale website.