Germany, Year Zero

The number of studio-shot scenes in the concluding part of director Roberto Rossellini's war trilogy, which also includes Rome, Open City and Paisà, shows that he was already moving away from the neorealist style. Yet the documentary footage of a decimated Berlin is still enormously powerful, especially when compared to the coverage of that other vanquished, but unscathed, capital in Rome, Open City. The shadow of Nazism hovers over this chilling depiction of desperation, as 12-year-old Edmund Moeschke scavenges among the ruins to feed his family. His murder of his ailing father is harrowing, but the tiny human details with which Rossellini invests the crime make it somehow forgivable, a testament to his film-making skill.