German Movie Museum Frankfurt

Deutsches Filmmuseum

9 EUR (all exhibitions)

4.5

Rating

4.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

Great history of film making section
Good part about how to do a movie
Good temporary Disney exhibition
Lovely staff and good services

The German Movie Museum – or: Deutsches Filmmuseum is located in the heart of Frankfurt (Main). It gives you an overview about the history and the techniques of movie-making. Odeon lovers also enjoy the cinema in the basement of the building. Here is a review, based on a visit in fall 2020. At this time, the museum also hosted a temporary exhibition called The Sound of Disney 1928-1967 dealing with the importance of music and sounds for this early era of Disney movies.

German Movie Museum – Location & Admission

The museum is located at the Museumsufer, the Southern shore of river Main in Frankfurt. The German Architecture Museum is the direct neighbor of the German Movie museum – but there are also several other interesting exhibitions around. The next stations of the Underground rail system are either Schweizer Platz or Willy-Brandt-Platz.

Before pandemic limitations, the German Movie Museum was closed on Monday and opened from 10:00 to 17:00 hrs the other days. On Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, the museum had prolonged opening times until 19:00 hrs. Saturday opening time was 14:00 hrs. Adult admission was 9 Euro and included the The Sound of Disney temporary exhibition.

German Movie Museum – The Visit

If you expect screens everywhere with successful movies from any location, you are wrong at the German Movie Museum. I would rather describe it as a technological museum with a historic touch. The first floor exhibition explains how the moving image became more popular. This also includes recording and displaying devices for moving images. It also features techniques leading to films as we know them know – for example panoramic paintings like the ones I visited in The Hague and Salzburg. There are a few movies to watch as well. I felt that this part of the museum is outstanding and was finally the best part of my visit there. Most of the museum is bilingual, German and English. There was a route for the visit due to Covid-19.

The museum features quite a lot of machines to finally project moving images as well – including automatic machines with you drove with a coin. really cool stuff.

Second Floor: What It Needs to do a Movie

The second floor of the museum rather dealt with what it needs to do a movie. There are more opportunities to see some movie snippets and there are some really cool items in display (like original movie costumes including an original Darth Vader mask). I liked that part of the museum as it nicely showed how many people with different skills are necessary to drive a cnematic recording. I personally enjoyed the first floor more, though. This is definitely a matter of taste, though – this part of the museum was definitely not poorly done.

German Movie Museum – Disney Exhibition

During my limited time in Frankfurt, I had a tough time to go for the right places for a Flyctory.com review – finally The Sound of Disney 1928-1967 was a key factor to opt for the German Movie Museum. The temporary exhibition was definitely worth the visit. There were a lot items in display and you had some interactive screens as well. I especially liked the storybooks and listening to famous movie scenes.

German Movie Museum – Services

In its basement, the institute which is driving the museum is also a featuring a quite popular cinema. Apart from that, there is a cozy museum cafe close to the reception area. Of course, there was also plenty of opportunity to buy merchandise in the gift shop.

German Movie Museum – My View

I am not too much into movies – but I really loved my visit at the German Movie Museum. The presentation of the museum is really good – and especially the historic-technical part of the exhibition is fantastic. The visit was overall much better than I expected – and major parts of it are also interesting if you come with children. Enjoy it if you are around!