Berlinale Special 2026: A Meeting Place for Audiences

Berlinale Special is one of the most diverse sections of the Berlin International Film Festival. With programming for new and existing audiences, Berlinale Special offers moments of red-carpet glamour alongside genre and series filmmaking pleasures, as well as films focused on special cultural and political interests with space for dialogue around talking points.

This year’s Berlinale Special  comprises a total of 19 works from 15 countries so far, among them six documentary films and a series programme of six titles. An upcoming opening film announcement will round out this section for 2026.

Berlinale Special Galas include world premieres of Teodora Ana Mihai’s striking new drama about the devastating tragedy at Heysel Stadium Heysel 85 and Ulrike Ottinger’s witty and original horror-tinged Die Blutgräfin (The Blood Countess), co-written with Elfriede Jelinek and starring Isabelle Huppert, as well as the international premiere of Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York with John Turturro and Steve Buscemi. European premieres include Padraic McKinley’s The Weight, starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, and Gore Verbinski’s sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die with Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple and Zazie Beetz.

An additional Gala brings festival audiences the German premiere of the superb awards contender The Testament of Ann Lee by Mona Fastvold.

Late night genre and pop cultural highlights include Indonesia’s Edwin and Australia’s Natalie Erika James delivering two deliciously gory body horrors, with an infectiously joyous documentary on metal legends Judas Priest by Sam Dunn and Tom Morello rounding the Midnight offering.

World premieres of new documentary works from filmmakers Maite Alberdi, Ruth Beckermann and Sam Pollard will feature in Berlinale Special, alongside the international premiere of the searing new investigative work Who Killed Alex Odeh? by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans.

Series include the world premiere of new chapters of Mark Cousins’ The Story of Documentary Film, the eagerly awaited new adaptation of Lord of the Flies, directed by Marc Munden and written by Jack Thorne (Adolescence), darkly comic crime drama Mint directed by Charlotte Regan (Scrapper), Chilean adaptation La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits) based on Isabel Allende’s landmark novel, Spanish series Ravalear (Ravalear: Not For Sale) from the producers of Robot Dreams, as well as a bold new German six-part horror mystery, House of Yang.

The films of Berlinale Special 2026 (film list is also available as PDF)