List of movies about Martin Luther

Numerous movies have been produced about Martin Luther's life and his doings. In a narrow sense, a Luther movie is a feature movie or a television movie. In an wider sense a Luther movie could also be a documentary movie about Martin Luther, like Curt Oertel's Der gehorsame Rebell (translated: The Obedient Rebel).

Hermann Litt played Martin Luther in 1911

Background

Since the time of the silent movies movies telling the story of Martin Luther have been made. 1911 was made the silent movie Doktor Martinus Luther, with a running time of round about 20 minutes. 1913, 1923 und 1927 were made the next movies. The movies of the year 1923 and 1927 were made with support of the church.

The newest movie is called Luther. It was released in 2003.

Overview of the feature movies and television movies about Luther

Year	Title	Country of production	Director	Luther-actor
1911	Doktor Martinus Luther	Germany		Hermann Litt
1913	Die Wittenberger Nachtigall	Germany	Erwin Báron	Rudolf Essek
1923	Martin Luther	Germany	Karl Wüstenhagen	Karl Wüstenhagen
1928	Luther	Germany	Hans Kyser	Eugen Klöpfer
1953	Martin Luther	United States Germany	Irving Pichel	Niall MacGinnis
1964	Luther	Australia	Christopher Muir	Terry Norris
1965	Luther	United Kingdom	Alan Cooke	Alec McCowen
1965	Der arme Mann Luther	Germany	Franz Peter Wirth	Hans Dieter Zeidler
1968	Der Reformator	Germany	Rudolf Jugert	Christian Rode
1968	Luther	United States	Stuart Burge	Robert Shaw
1974	Luther	United Kingdom United States Canada	Guy Green	Stacy Keach
1976	Disput u noci	Yugoslavia	Milenko Maricic	Jovan Milicevic
1981	Frère Martin	France Germany	Jean Delannoy	Bernard Lincot
1983	Martin Luther	Germany	Rainer Wolffhardt	Lambert Hamel
1983	Martin Luther	East Germany	Kurt Veth	Ulrich Thein
1983	Martin Luther, Heretic	United Kingdom United States	Norman Stone	Jonathan Pryce
1984	Martin Luther & Thomas Münzer oder Die Einführung der Buchhaltung	East Germany	Hanns Anselm Perten Michael Krull	Uwe-Detlev Jessen
2003	Luther	Germany United States	Eric Till	Joseph Fiennes

Overview of the documentary movies about Luther

Jahr	Documentary movie title	Country of production	Director	Luther-acteur
1952	Der gehorsame Rebell	Germany	Curt Oertel
1967	Credo: Martin Luther – Wittenberg 1517	East Germany	Rudi Müller
1983	Ein Schüler aus Mansfeld – Die Jugendjahre Martin Luthers	East Germany	Heide Gauert
1983	Der die Zeit beim Worte nahm – Martin Luther auf der Wartburg	East Germany	Hanna Emuth
1983	Bürger Luther – Wittenberg 1508–1546	East Germany	Lew Hohmann
1992	Where Luther Walked	United States
2001	Open Door for Luther	United States
2002	Martin Luther	United Kingdom	Cassian Harrison	Timothy West
2003	Martin Luther – Ein Leben zwischen Gott und Teufel	Germany	Lew Hohmann	Jan Henning Kraus and Matthias Hummitzsch
2004	Luther contre le pape	France	Jean-François Delassus	Romain Redler and Claude Brosset
2005	Luther – Sein Leben, Weg und Erbe	Germany	Thomas Meewes	Joseph Fiennes
2007	Luther – Kampf mit dem Teufel	Germany	Günther Klein	Ben Becker

Literature

• E. P. Wipfler: "Luther im Stummfilm: Zum Wandel protestantischer Mentalität im Spiegel der FIlmgeschichte bis 1930" (Luther in Silent Films: about the change of Protestant mentality through the history of movie until 1930). In: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Bd. 98, 2007, S. 167-198.
• Jäschke, Wolfgang: Martin Luther. Reformator - Ketzer - Nationalheld?. München, 1983: ISBN 3-442-06443-0
• Dähn, Horst: Luther und die DDR. Berlin, 1996: ISBN 3-929161-81-8

Other websites

• EKD - Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland - Martin Luther im Film (German) Archived 2009-05-17 at the Wayback Machine
• Document title - Luther im Stummfilm - Luther in silent films - Résumé Archived 2014-02-22 at the Wayback Machine