Kings of the Road

Released Mar 4, 1976

2h 56m

Drama

List

100%

Tomatometer

7 Reviews

88%

Audience Score

500+ Ratings

While traveling his route along the border between East and West Germany, projector repairman Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler) meets pediatrician Robert (Hanns Zischler) when the latter attempts suicide by driving his car into a shallow lake. From such off beginnings, the two form a genuine friendship as Robert accompanies Bruno on the road. They discuss the decline of German film, the hegemony of America culture and their challenging relationships with women before ultimately parting ways.

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Richard Brody

New Yorker

Bewilderment in a wasteland has rarely been filmed with such tender irony and sentimental optimism.

Mar 2, 2015

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

A sprawling portrait of alienation perfectly outfitted for the Roger Miller track with which it shares its name (and utilizes in its final frames).

Rated: 4/5

Oct 8, 2020

Full Review

Fernando Trueba

El Pais (Spain)

Kings of the Road is one of the most beautiful and original poems of modern cinema. [Full Review in Spanish]

Jul 26, 2019

Full Review

James Kendrick

Q Network Film Desk

has an amiable, rambling quality that befits its emotionally dislocated protagonists

Rated: 2.5/4

Jun 16, 2016

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Most brilliant and original film.

Rated: A

May 23, 2007

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 4/5

Aug 11, 2005

Full Review

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Audience Member

This is a truly great road movie from Wim Wenders who directed two of my favourite films, "Paris, Texas" and "Wings of Desire". The film follows a projectionist who is traveling across Germany showing films, and he picks up a traveling companion along the way. They chat along the way and have impactful life moments on the trip. The black & white film looks gorgeous in this recent 4k restoration print. The look of the film is inspired by the works of photographer Walker Evans. This films is definitely worth seeking out in my opinion!

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The most remarkable thing about Kings of the Road is that even though the movie runs a VERY slow three-hours, and even though the plot is effectively aimless, and even though we witness Rudiger Vogler, the hero of Wim Wenders previous two movies in the Road Trilogy, taking a big ol' dump on screen, it plays like a legitimate masterpiece. It's Wenders anchoring his stylistic and tonal touchstones and completing his metamorphoses into a legit cinematic force. It's no mean feat making a three hour movie where nothing happens, and where the characters barely talk about themselves, and to have that film turn out as compelling as this one. This is Wenders' genius. He gets you with amazing cinematography and very specific tone that arises from the small adventures of the film's protagonists. Kings of the Road feels like an amalgamation of the two films that come before it in the quasi-trilogy. It features the same wandering quality as Alice in the Cities, but feels less like an ode to French New Wave and takes the camera out of the streets and into the wide open road. The shots here are some of the most beautiful you will ever see. Kings of the Road has a lot of philosophical underpinnings, and where those were overblown in Wrong Move, they feel woven into the fabrice of Kings of the Road and serve as a supplement rather than the main course. It feels a bit like a Bergman film, but more natural. I still can't figure out how Wenders made this so captivating. It should be boring, and a lot of folks probably think it's boring as hell, but I was transfixed. It's so strange watching a film this calm, this willing to take its time.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A road trip made with the most sensitive eye and ear. My first viewing years ago blew me away by its grasp of life and the give-and-take relationship between man and machine. My second viewing confirms a love for life and film that is lost in the people it portrays. Loving masterpiece.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

Audience Member

http://filmreviewsnsuch.blogspot.com/2016/05/kings-of-road.html

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Riveting from beginning to end - all 3 hours of it - no matter how leisurely the pace may (occasionally) be or how much the plot may meander. Wenders' stunning sequence of mid-to-late '70s films is one of the best dud-free runs in celluloid history, & Kings Of The Road is probably the best of the lot. Derek Malcolm claimed it "achieves a palpable sense of time, place & atmosphere, & of how everybody is affected by their tiny spot in history" - a near-perfect summation.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Wim Wenders' King of the Road is a wonderful so called Road movie which in contrast to most other road movies actually feels like a real road trip, with all kinds of episodes for good and for worse. And it's also a great view of the Americanized West-Germany which have lost it's own identity. As one of the main characters says: "The Americans have colonized our subconscious". We follow the mobile film projector repairman, Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler) who on his trip pick up a hitchhiker, Robert (Hanns Zischler) who have left his wife and child and decided to just run away. So he joins Bruno in his work and they become full time companions and they becomes friends and trawell trough every corner of West Germany, fixing projector and visiting old places from their earlier life. Kings of the Road is a playful film that takes it's time and don't rushes. All boring small talk, all the quiet moments, and even unnecessary toilet breaks when

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/08/23

Full Review

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Wim Wenders

Director

Rudiger Vogler

Bruno Winter

Hanns Zischler

Robert Lander

Lisa Kreuzer

Pauline, cashier

Rudolf Schündler

Robert's Father

Marquard Bohm

Man Who Lost His Wife

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Synopsis

While traveling his route along the border between East and West Germany, projector repairman Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler) meets pediatrician Robert (Hanns Zischler) when the latter attempts suicide by driving his car into a shallow lake. From such off beginnings, the two form a genuine friendship as Robert accompanies Bruno on the road. They discuss the decline of German film, the hegemony of America culture and their challenging relationships with women before ultimately parting ways.

Director: Wim Wenders
Screenwriter: Wim Wenders
Production Co: Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Genre: Drama
Original Language: German
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 4, 1976, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): May 31, 2016
Runtime: 2h 56m
Aspect Ratio: 35mm

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