Berlin is many things to many people. The city which dominated the European narrative for much of the 20th century – not, generally, for the better. The shining symbol of Germany’s strength and history. A modern, cosmopolitan metropolis at the heart of the EU. A haven of fine restaurants and hip bars. A clubbing hotspot with a tireless nightlife.

It is all these things and more. But the German capital is also a cinematic starlet. Today marks the start of the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, a hugely influential cultural smorgasbord which first laid out its wares in 1951.

But this scarred, seismic, sophisticated dot on the map has long been a fixture on the big screen as much as a cheerleader for it. From Cold War classics of various shades – such as One, Two, Three and The Lives Of Others – through to big-budget forays into its watchful arms for Bond and Bourne, Berlin captivates on camera, equal parts grey den of spies, post-communist phoenix and celebrated urban playground. Better still – tourists can seek and find many of the locations involved. Not least in these 10 magnificent films.

1. One, Two, Three (1961)

The plot: The Cold War has been the backdrop to many a movie, but few have taken as wry an approach to it as director Billy Wilder’s twinkle-eyed farce. One, Two, Three stars James Cagney as Mac MacNamara, an American executive working at Coca-Cola’s Berlin headquarters – and trying to keep his job after becoming entangled in the complex love life of his boss’s daughter, who has married an East German communist just days before daddy comes to town for a visit. Cue various bluffs and double bluffs, and the inspired use of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini as interrogation music.

The setting: The film made use of the Coca-Cola Niederlassung, the soft-drink giant’s then-Berlin plant. The structure – at Hildburghauser Strasse 224-232, in the Lichterfelde district, on the south-west outskirts – was Coke’s base in the city from 1936 to 1992. It fell into disrepair after the company moved to new offices after German reunification, but has since been given listed status, and renovated as a residential unit. Intriguingly, One, Two, Three had a closer glimpse of the Cold War than any other movie. Wilder was filming in the city when the Berlin Wall was built by the authorities in the German Democratic Republic in 1961. Production was shifted to the Bavaria Studios in Munich.

Cold War Berlin Credit: GETTY

2. Cabaret (1972)

The plot: Perhaps the most iconic of all Berlin movies, this feted song-and-dance routine starred a 25-year-old Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles, a performer at the Kit Kat Club – a burlesque hotspot in West Berlin. While Minnelli’s on-screen presence earned many plaudits, Cabaret is also a joy for its considered depiction of Germany’s slide into the grip of Nazism. The story is set in 1931, during the decadent days of the Weimar Republic, but darkens its tone as Hitler begins his march to centre stage, and the shadows lengthen.

Cabaret, perhaps the most iconic of all Berlin movies

The setting: Like One, Two, Three, most of the film’s interior scenes were created at Bavaria Studios. But the Kit Kat Club, while fictional, was based on Heaven And Hell – a real-life burlesque club which inspired the writer Christopher Isherwood, on whose experiences in Berlin the movie draws. This stood in Charlottenburg, at Kurfürstendamm 237, and has long since disappeared – the address now houses a branch of clothing chain H&M. It is, however, worth visiting what is one of Europe’s grandest avenues – Berlin’s version of the Champs Elysées, awash with fashion stores, cafes and general insouciance.

3. Possession (1981)

The plot: Berlin is not usually seen as a horror-film setting, but this chilling suspense flick – starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a married couple in the grip of a divorce so rancorous that it involves multiple murders and supernatural creatures – makes excellent use of the city against the grainy, checkered backdrop of the Cold-War Eighties.

The setting: Much of the action plays out in Kreuzberg. In 2016, this is one of the city’s hippest areas – but in 1981, it was the dying embers of West Berlin, pressed hard against the barbed-wire of the Berlin Wall. The flat which Anna (Adjani) – increasingly unhinged, takes up after splitting from her husband – is at Sebastianstrasse 87. Other Kreuzberg streets – Oranienstrasse, Adalbertstrasse, Schlesische Strasse – also crop up.

Trendy Kreuzberg

4. Octopussy (1983)

The plot: Considering that Berlin was a hive of Cold War espionage, it is still a surprise that the planet’s most famous fictional spy only made one foray into its suspicious streets while the Iron Curtain was standing tall. This was the 13th James Bond film, with Roger Moore in charge of the tuxedo, flitting between India and the German capital, hot on the trail of antiques dealer and criminal mastermind Kamal Khan – whose dastardly plan to destroy a US Air Force base using a circus as cover is ultimately and inevitably thwarted.

The setting: The film features an appearance from Checkpoint Charlie, the fabled Kreuzberg crossing-point between West and East Berlin. A place of stern men with guns, the site’s border booth stood at the junction of Friedrichstrasse and Zimmerstrasse between 1961 and 1989. A replica still does – although, nowadays, the main risk is of being squashed by a stampeding school party, or poked in the eye by a stray selfie-stick.

5. Run Lola Run (1998)

The plot: This colourful – right down to the unabashedly red hue of the starring actress Franka Potente’s hair – thriller dragged Berlin away from the sepia tones of the Cold War, and out into the relative brightness of the reunified Germany in the late Nineties. The title is a neat summary of a movie which sees the titular heroine sprinting frantically across the city, trying to save her small-time criminal boyfriend from his ruthless bosses after he has bungled a cash drop-off. Lola’s three sprints are filled with drama – explosions, gun shots, street robberies and car chases – but are also a devoted love letter to the metropolis.

Franka Potente in Run Lola Run

The setting: Lola’s apartment is at Albrechtstrasse 13-14 in Mitte. Boyfriend Manni is arrested at the Deutsche Oper U-bahn station in Charlottenburg. And – spoiler alert – Lola is shot at the top end of Cuvrystrasse, where it hits the River Spree, in Wrangelkiez.

6. Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

The plot: Widely recognised as a masterpiece of German cinema (or indeed, cinema full stop), this dark comedy pitches itself in 1989 and 1990, as the Iron Curtain is crashing down. It involves the increasingly outlandish attempts of a young East Berliner, Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl), to protect his mother – a staunch acolyte of the GDR – from the news that, while she has been in a coma, the Berlin Wall has fallen. Cue a litany of faked TV bulletins and desperate measures – all served up with a soft affection for the old days.

The setting: The film returns regularly to Karl-Marx-Allee, the broad boulevard which cuts through Friedrichshain and Mitte. More than a mile long, and flanked by socialist-era buildings, the street is still an architectural echo of the Cold War – it was even called Stalinallee between 1949 and 1961. Since German reunification, there has been talk of it reclaiming its pre-1945 title, Grosse Frankfurter Strasse – but to date, Marx has held on.

7. Downfall (2004)

The plot: A brilliant dissection of the final days of the Third Reich which is all the more damning for showing Hitler as a human being – caught up in the minutiae of life in his bunker as the Allies close in; fretting about his dog – Downfall (Der Untergang in German) earned widespread praise on its release, particularly for Bruno Ganz’s star turn.

Downfall is a brilliant dissection of the final days of the Third Reich

The setting: Much of the film was created on the sound stage (again, at Bavaria Studios in Munich). And there is little point in searching for the remnants of Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. The site, on In Den Minstergarten, is deliberately kept nondescript – it’s a car park. Better to focus on the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a minute’s walk north between Behrenstrasse and Hannah-Arendt-Strasse – where 2711 concrete blocks of differing heights and depths offer sombre, considered reflection (stiftung-denkmal.de).

8. The Edukators (2004)

The plot: A bright, sharp drama – which went by the distinctly less snappy title of Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei (“The Golden Years Are Over”) in Germany – which pre-empted the 2008 recession by depicting the efforts of three disenfranchised young Berliners to wage a non-violent crime campaign against the city’s rich. Notably by breaking into their homes and rearranging the furniture as a statement against capitalism.

The setting: In a key plot development, the trio targets a salubrious property in Zehlendorf – an affluent Berlin suburb in the south-west of the city, towards Potsdam. Bordered by the Grunewald Forest, the area is home to some of Berlin’s priciest houses.

The affluent suburb of Zehlendorf Credit: KATJA XENIKIS

9. The Lives Of Others (2006)

The plot: A work of genius which wrings gulps of human emotion from the narrow-eyed subject matter of state surveillance in the GDR. It centres on Ulrich Mühe’s wonderful performance as Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi official who is assigned to monitor the activities of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) – only to become wholly disillusioned with government intervention in private lives and question everything about his own existence.

The setting: Pertinently, some of the film was created at the Berlin Hohenschönhausen Memorial (stiftung-hsh.de) – a ghost-ridden site in north-easterly Lichtenberg which was the Stasi’s main political prison and interrogation hub. Since 1994, it has been a museum and tribute to those who faced official oppression in the GDR, its cells eerily preserved.

Inside the Hohenschönhausen Memorial

10. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

The plot: Where Bond goes, Bourne will generally follow (or vice-versa, if you believe that Daniel Craig’s gritty incarnation of 007 owes much to Robert Ludlum’s most famous character). So the ongoing saga of CIA amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has shot its way through Berlin – notably in The Bourne Ultimatum, the third installment of the movie series, where the German capital managed a fine impersonation of Moscow.

The setting: “Kievsky train station”, where Bourne evades pursuers, is, in reality, the Lichtenberg rail hub – a busy junction box out in the east of the Berlin conurbation. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) has also found the city in Russian guise, the decommissioned Templehof Airport – which ceased to welcome planes in 2008 – creeping onto the screen.