Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (2009) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Release, runtime and language

2009 · 117 mins · English

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Directed by

Karen Thomas

Starring

Sigourney Weaver, Peter Lorre, Fred Zinnemann, Elsa Lanchester, Marlene Dietrich, Billy Wilder

Eight hundred German filmmakers—actors, directors, producers, composers, editors and writers—fled the Nazis in the 1930s. Using voice‑overs, archival footage and film clips, the documentary first surveys Berlin’s vibrant 1920s cinema, then follows these exiles to Hollywood, where some found success while many struggled. It profiles figures such as Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder and Peter Lorre. In America they housed new arrivals, raised money for further escapes, contributed to anti‑Nazi projects like *Casablanca*, and infused Hollywood with German Expressionist aesthetics that helped spawn film noir.