Balloon Backdrop Blur
Balloon Poster

Balloon

"One of the most daring escapes of the Cold War."

Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape the GDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.

Top Cast

  • Karoline Schuch

    Karoline Schuch

    Doris Strelzyk

  • Friedrich Mücke

    Friedrich Mücke

    Peter Strelzyk

  • Alicia von Rittberg

    Alicia von Rittberg

    Petra Wetzel

  • David Kross

    David Kross

    Günter Wetzel

  • Jonas Holdenrieder

    Jonas Holdenrieder

    Frank Strelzyk

  • Tilman Döbler

    Tilman Döbler

    Andreas 'Fitscher' Strelzyk

  • Thomas Kretschmann

    Thomas Kretschmann

    Lieutenant Colonel Seidel

  • Ronald Kukulies

    Ronald Kukulies

    Erik Baumann

  • Emily Kusche

    Emily Kusche

    Klara Baumann

Overview

Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape the GDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.

Rating

7.5 / 10
480 Reviews
2 Popular

Trailers & Clips

Recommendations

Alone in Berlin

Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.

Alone in Berlin

6.7 2016
The Last Execution

The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...

The Last Execution

6.2 2021