Egregoros

I watched a #German movie named Die Welle (The Wave) (with English subtitles) today.

I don't think it helped me in improving my German.

How do you watch a movie in a language you want to learn?

About the movie, it was fine (I hardly get impressed by movies; I have high standards).

On another hand, all the English websites or subreddits only suggest movies on World War II, Hitler, or fascism when I search for German movies.

I like to watch something else too. Any recommendations?

@ravi
If you want to improve your language, don't focus on the subtitles, focus on the audio, and use the subtitles only when you're not sure of the audio.

@wouter Does that work for beginners? Am I supposed to watch the same movie multiple times? What about watching again with German subtitles?

@ravi

I did indeed got way better in English by watching English-speaking movies with English subtitles.
If your German level isn't up to the task of watching with German subtitles, it is probably indeed better to watch twice (with some time between the two viewings, so as to not get bored).
Or if you prefer, to watch the second time with the subtitles in a separate file, so you can pause and check if you missed something.

As for movie recommendation, I really loved Run, Lola, Run.

@wouter

@ravi

It's more of an art movie, but Undine was great too.
I stopped Die Welle after a few minutes, by the way.

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes is famous but I haven't watched it yet.
Same for Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum

And of course, there's Der Untergang.

@lienrag Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I will try out.

@ravi

I forgot to mention that when watching English videos with English subtitles, I delay the subtitles by around 1 second (1250 ms precisely, YMMV).
That way the subtitle appears after the phrase has at least begun to be pronounced, and acts as a clarification/confirmation/correction of what I understood.
But I still get a first understanding from the spoken words.

@ravi

Note also that when I suggested watching the same movie/series episode twice, I meant once with English subtitles (to understand and enjoy it) and the second time with German subtitles (to improve your language).
That way if you lose a dialog, you don't lose the plot (as you already know it).

That may be particularly interesting to do on a series like Dark, because a second watch will help understanding the intricate plot.

@ravi

Caveat : I've been disappointed by Dark's ending, but maybe it's because I only watched the episodes once and so the really intricate plot was a bit lost on me; so what I found to be easy cop-outs maybe were not.
Anyway the resolution is quite good, we're not in Game of Thrones territory.

And the actors, filming, etc. is very, very good.

@ravi

I haven't watched it, but Babylon Berlin is supposed to be very good.
I found Fritz Lang's "M" boring, but that's probably just me.

I remember really enjoying another German movie, but alas I don't remember its name at all...