Golden Bear

For other uses, see Golden Bear (disambiguation).

The Golden Bear (German: Goldener Bär) is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion,^[1][2] the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

Golden Bear
Goldener Bär (German)
2025 recipient: Dag Johan Haugerud
Location	Berlin
Country	Germany
Presented by	Berlin International Film Festival
First award	1951
Winner	Dreams (Sex Love) by Dag Johan Haugerud
Website	www.berlinale.de

History

The winners of the first Berlin International Film Festival in 1951 were determined by a West German panel, with five winners of the Golden Bear, divided by categories and genres.^[3]

Between 1952 and 1955, the winners of the Golden Bear were determined by the audience members.^[4]

In 1956, the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films formally accredited the festival, and since then, the Golden Bear has been awarded by an international jury.^[4]

The award

The statuette shows a bear standing on its hind legs and is based on the 1932 design by German sculptor Renée Sintenis of Berlin's heraldic mascot that later became the symbol of the festival. It has been manufactured since either the first^[5] or third^[6] edition by art foundry Hermann Noack.^[7]

The original award was redesigned in a larger version in 1960,^[8] with the left arm of the bear raised as opposed to the right in the former model.^[9]

As of 2010^[update], the bear is 20 cm (7.9 in) high and is fixed onto a base where the winning name is engraved.^[10] The figurine consists of a bronze core, which is then plated with a layer of gold. The total weight of the award is 4 kg (8.8 lb).^[11]

Winners

Below is a list of all Golden Bear winners since 1951:^[12]

Gene Kelly won for Invitation to the Dance (1956)

Ingmar Bergman won for Wild Strawberries (1958)

Pier Paolo Pasolini won for The Canterbury Tales (1972)

Satyajit Ray won for Distant Thunder (1973)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder won for Veronika Voss (1982)

John Cassavetes won for Love Streams (1983)

Ang Lee won twice for The Wedding Banquet in 1993 and for Sense and Sensibility in 1996.

Hayao Miyazaki won for Spirited Away (2002)

Asghar Farhadi won for A Separation (2011)

Adina Pintilie with the Golden Bear for Touch Me Not in 2018

Carla Simón with the Golden Bear for Alcarràs in 2022

Nicolas Philibert with the Golden Bear for On the Adamant in 2023

Mati Diop with the Golden Bear for Dahomey in 2024

1950s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
1951	Four in a Jeep (Drama)	Die Vier im Jeep	Leopold Lindtberg
	Without Leaving an Address (Comedy)	...Sans laisser d'adresse	Jean-Paul Le Chanois
	In Beaver Valley (Documentary)		James Algar
	Justice Is Done (Thriller & Adventure)	Justice est faite	André Cayatte
	Cinderella (Music Film)		Wilfred Jackson
1952	One Summer of Happiness	Hon dansade en sommar	Arne Mattsson
1953	The Wages of Fear	Le salaire de la peur	Henri-Georges Clouzot	/
1954	Hobson's Choice		David Lean
1955	Die Ratten		Robert Siodmak
1956	Invitation to the Dance		Gene Kelly
1957	12 Angry Men		Sidney Lumet
1958	Wild Strawberries	Smultronstället	Ingmar Bergman
1959	Les Cousins		Claude Chabrol

1960s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
1960	El Lazarillo de Tormes		César Fernández Ardavín
1961	La Notte		Michelangelo Antonioni
1962	A Kind of Loving		John Schlesinger
1963	Bushido, Samurai Saga	武士道残酷物語	Tadashi Imai
	To Bed or Not to Bed	Il diavolo	Gian Luigi Polidoro
1964	Dry Summer	Susuz yaz	Metin Erksan
1965	Alphaville	Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution	Jean-Luc Godard	/
1966	Cul-de-Sac		Roman Polanski
1967	Le Départ		Jerzy Skolimowski
1968	Who Saw Him Die?	Ole dole doff	Jan Troell
1969	Early Works	Rani radovi	Želimir Žilnik

1970s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
1970	No awards given because of the controversy surrounding Michael Verhoeven's anti-war film o.k.[13][a]
1971	The Garden of the Finzi-Continis	Il giardino dei Finzi Contini	Vittorio De Sica	/
1972	The Canterbury Tales	I racconti di Canterbury	Pier Paolo Pasolini
1973	Distant Thunder	অশনি সংকেত	Satyajit Ray
1974	The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz		Ted Kotcheff
1975	Adoption	Örökbefogadás	Márta Mészáros
1976	Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson		Robert Altman
1977	The Ascent	Восхождение	Larisa Shepitko
1978	Ascensor		Tomás Muñoz
	Las truchas		José Luis García Sánchez
	What Max Said	Las palabras de Max	Emilio Martínez-Lázaro
1979	David		Peter Lilienthal

1980s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
1980	Heartland		Richard Pearce
	Palermo or Wolfsburg	Palermo oder Wolfsburg	Werner Schroeter
1981	Deprisa, deprisa		Carlos Saura
1982	Veronika Voss	Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1983	Ascendancy		Edward Bennett
	La colmena		Mario Camus
1984	Love Streams		John Cassavetes
1985	Wetherby		David Hare
	The Woman and the Stranger	Die Frau und der Fremde	Rainer Simon
1986	Stammheim	Stammheim – Die Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe vor Gericht	Reinhard Hauff
1987	The Theme	Teмa	Gleb Panfilov
1988	Red Sorghum	红高粱	Zhang Yimou
1989	Rain Man		Barry Levinson

1990s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
1990	Larks on a String	Skřivánci na niti	Jiří Menzel
	Music Box		Costa-Gavras
1991	The House of Smiles	La casa del sorriso	Marco Ferreri
1992	Grand Canyon		Lawrence Kasdan
1993	The Wedding Banquet	喜宴	Ang Lee	/
	Woman Sesame Oil Maker	香魂女	Xie Fei
1994	In the Name of the Father		Jim Sheridan	/
1995	The Bait	L'appât	Bertrand Tavernier
1996	Sense and Sensibility		Ang Lee
1997	The People vs. Larry Flynt		Miloš Forman
1998	Central Station	Central do Brasil	Walter Salles	/
1999	The Thin Red Line		Terrence Malick

2000s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
2000	Magnolia		Paul Thomas Anderson
2001	Intimacy		Patrice Chéreau
2002	Bloody Sunday		Paul Greengrass	/
	Spirited Away	千と千尋の神隠し	Hayao Miyazaki
2003	In This World		Michael Winterbottom
2004	Head-On	Gegen die Wand	Fatih Akin
2005	U-Carmen eKhayelitsha		Mark Dornford-May
2006	Grbavica		Jasmila Žbanić	/
2007	Tuya's Marriage	图雅的婚事	Wang Quan'an
2008	Elite Squad	Tropa de Elite	José Padilha
2009	The Milk of Sorrow	La teta asustada	Claudia Llosa	/

2010s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
2010	Honey	Bal	Semih Kaplanoğlu
2011	A Separation	جدایی نادر از سیمین	Asghar Farhadi
2012	Caesar Must Die	Cesare deve morire	Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
2013	Child's Pose	Poziția copilului	Călin Peter Netzer
2014	Black Coal, Thin Ice	白日焰火	Diao Yinan
2015	Taxi	تاکسی	Jafar Panahi
2016	Fire at Sea	Fuocoammare	Gianfranco Rosi
2017	On Body and Soul	Testről és lélekről	Ildikó Enyedi
2018	Touch Me Not	Nu mă atinge-mă	Adina Pintilie
2019	Synonyms	Synonymes	Nadav Lapid	/

2020s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director	Production Country
2020	There Is No Evil	شیطان وجود ندارد	Mohammad Rasoulof
2021	Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn	Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc	Radu Jude
2022	Alcarràs		Carla Simón	/
2023	On the Adamant	Sur l'Adamant	Nicolas Philibert	/
2024	Dahomey		Mati Diop	/ /
2025	Dreams (Sex Love)	Drømmer	Dag Johan Haugerud

Multiple winners

As of 2025, Ang Lee is the only filmmaker to win the award twice, for The Wedding Banquet in 1993 and for Sense and Sensibility in 1996.^[12]

See also

• Honorary Golden Bear
• Silver Bear and other awards at the Berlin International Film Festival
• Palme d'Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival
• Golden Lion, the highest prize awarded at the Venice Film Festival

Notes

1. which led to the resignation of the international jury before the end of the festival.