Alexander Kluge, New German Cinema Pioneer, Dies at 94

Alexander Kluge, the German filmmaker whose career spanned more than six decades and helped define the New German Cinema movement, has died. He was 94.

Kluge’s family confirmed his death to German media on Wednesday. A cause of death was not given.

Kluge was one of the signatories of the 1962 Oberhausen Manifesto, which called for a new, auteur-driven German cinema and is credited with helping spark the New German Cinema movement. He was a favorite on the international festival circuit, particularly in Venice. His 1967 debut Abschied von gestern (released in the U.S. as Yesterday Girl), which dramatized the struggles of a young Jewish refugee from East Germany, won the Silver Lion, the first postwar Italian festival prize for a German director. Two years later, Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos (Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed), an experimental collage of a film, integrating newsreels and interviews exploring societal ideals and protest movements, won Venice’s top prize, the Golden Lion.

Other notable films included Starke Männer (Strongman Ferdinand), winner of the Fipresci international critics prize in Cannes in 1976, and Germany in Autumn (1978), his anthology film, made in collaboration with other New German Cinema directors including Volker Schlöndorff and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which looked at far-left terrorism in Germany at the time and the subsequent crackdown by the German state. One of his last major works was the nine-hour News From Ideological Antiquity: Marx-Eisenstein-Capital (2008), a daring reimagining of Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished project on Marx’s Capital. That same year, he received a lifetime achievement award from the German Film Academy.

Born in 1932 in Halberstadt, Kluge initially earned a doctorate in jurisprudence and began practicing as a as a lawyer. His time at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research brought him into close contact with famed German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, whose mentorship shaped Kluge’s intellectual trajectory. By 1958, he was shifting towards cinema, working as an assistant to legendary German director Fritz Lang.

Kluge’s influence extended beyond cinema. He was a prolific write, of short stories, essays, and philosophical texts, earning literary accolades including the Georg Büchner Prize, Theodor W. Adorno Prize, Heinrich-Heine-Preis, and the Klopstock Prize. In 1987, he founded the television production company dctp, creating news and debate programs such as 10 vor 11, News & Stories, and Mitternachtsmagazin.

Kluge remained active into his 90s, writing books and designing art exhibitions. His final work, the 2025 visual essay Primitive Diversity, explored AI and the future of moving images, and premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam.

A true polymath, Kluge never separated art from politics or philosophy. As a filmmaker, writer, and television producer, he interrogated modern life, memory, and society, leaving an indelible mark on German culture. The Berlin Film Festival remembered him as “a cherished guest for decades…whose passion for filmmaking, critical thinking, and storytelling shaped German cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers.”