Is Sandra Hülser joining in?
These Germans already have an Oscar
Christoph Waltz (l.) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck already have at least one Oscar in their closet, Sandra Hülser is currently nominated.
© Imago Images/APress/mfr/ImageCollect/Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency
Will Sandra Hülser make history at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10th? These Germans did it before her.
Well over 3,000 Academy Awards are in the pipeline Oscar history has been awarded to filmmakers from all over the world since 1929. The German creatives didn’t do badly – and in 2024, the Thuringian global star Sandra Hülser (45) has excellent outside chances of winning the Academy Award for “Best Actress”.
A look back at previous Oscar winners from Germany.
2023: “Nothing new in the West”
The 95th Academy Awards in March 2023 were a huge hit for Germany. The Netflix remake of the world-famous anti-war film “Nothing New in the West” won four Academy Awards. The Austrian-German-Swiss director Edward Berger (54) was delighted to receive the Oscar for “Best International Film”.
The haunting film music by Volker Bertelmann (58), also known as Hauschka, and the production design by Ernestine Hipper (61) and Christian M. Goldbeck (50) were also honored. The fourth golden boy for “Nothing New in the West” went to British cameraman James Friend (38).
Hans Zimmer dominates among film composers
Hardly any other German has arrived in Hollywood like the film composer Hans Zimmer (66). He created the soundtracks for legendary modern classics such as Ridley Scott’s (86) “Gladiator”, the sci-fi success “Interstellar” or Christopher Nolan’s (53) follow-up work “Dunkirk”.
Zimmer received the two Oscars of his career so far for “The Lion King” and “Dune” by Denis Villeneuve (56). In total he was nominated twelve times.
Christoph Waltz and more: German acting Oscar winners
Should Sandra Hülser actually triumph at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10th, the popular actress would make it into a relatively elite club. German Oscar triumphs in acting categories are traditionally rather sparse.
The exception to the rule here is the German-Austrian Christoph Waltz (67), who won the Oscar for “Best Supporting Actor” twice. The golden boys were there in 2010 and 2013 for “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” by director legend Quentin Tarantino (60).
Before Waltz, only two German actors had actually celebrated an Oscar win, and that was quite a while ago. Luise Rainer (1910-2014), who lived to the age of 104, was the first actress to win two Academy Awards in a row: in 1937 for “The Great Ziegfeld” and again in 1938 for “The Good Earth”. This makes Rainer the only German actress to date to win an Oscar.
The triumph of Emil Jannings (1884-1950) dates back even further back. In 1929 he was the only German to win the Oscar for “Best Actor” – for “His Last Order” by Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969) and Victor Fleming’s (1889-1949) “The Way of All Flesh”. Jannings was the first actor ever to win an Oscar for Best Actor.
German winner in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category
In the recent past, it has often been – as was the case with “Nothing New in the West” – outstanding German film productions that were awarded an Oscar for “Best International Film” (or until 2019: “Best Foreign Language Film”). In 2007, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (50) triumphed with his moving Stasi drama “The Lives of Others”.
Caroline Link (59) won in 2003 with “Nowhere in Africa,” and Volker Schlöndorff (84) won the award in 1980 for “The Tin Drum.”
Bernhard Grzimek for “Serengeti must not die”
The famous German zoologist, animal rights activist and animal filmmaker Bernhard Grzimek (1909-1987), who was the first German to win an Oscar after the end of the Second World War in 1960 – for “Best Documentary” – should not be overlooked. With “Serengeti must not die,” Grzimek created a veritable classic of nature film.
Another German award winner in this category was the film producer Dirk Wilutzky (59) in 2015. He received the Oscar together with Laura Poitras (60) for “Citizenfour”, a documentary about the world-famous whistleblower Edward Snowden (40).