Country guide · Europe
10 Essential Luxembourgish Films + 10 Movies Set in or About Luxembourg
Luxembourg on the atlas: the strongest films of its own cinema, and the films the rest of the world has set there. Every list is curated and ranked by hand.
10 Essential Luxembourgish Films
Native cinema in Luxembourg’s own creative voice — the passport route that earns visas and citizenship.
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1. Baby(a)lone
Two troubled Luxembourg teenagers, each lashing out at a world that has failed them, drift together and slowly form a fragile bond. A raw coming-of-age drama.
Curator’s note: Two troubled teens in Luxembourg act out their frustrations on the world, and slowly grow closer.
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2. Superjhemp Retörns
A pudgy, retired Luxembourgish superhero who draws his powers from the national cheese is called back into action to save the country from a new threat. A broad comedy based on a beloved local comic.
Curator’s note: Luxembourg’s locally authored superhero comedy became the country’s most successful domestic film and adapts an established Luxembourgish comic figure.
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3. Rusty Boys
A group of grumpy, aging friends in Luxembourg, dreading the prospect of a lonely retirement home, decide to start their own communal household and reclaim a bit of freedom. A warm, wry comedy.
Curator’s note: Andy Bausch’s Luxembourgish-language comedy follows four older men resisting institutionalization and is explicitly catalogued as a national production.
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4. The Unemployment Club
A group of out-of-work men in Luxembourg band together, forming a ramshackle club as they navigate joblessness with humor and camaraderie. A gentle social comedy.
Curator’s note: This locally made working-class comedy is one of the Film Fund’s identified iconic Luxembourg works and a durable domestic audience film.
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5. Gutland
A mysterious drifter turns up in a tidy Luxembourg farming village and takes work at the harvest, ingratiating himself with the locals — but the deeper he settles in, the more the community's dark secrets close around him. A moody, unsettling thriller.
Curator’s note: Govinda Van Maele’s rural mystery turns a Luxembourg village, its language, secrecy, and social boundaries into the complete dramatic world.
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6. Sawah
A young Egyptian DJ chasing a big gig in Europe gets stranded and undocumented, bouncing between Luxembourg and Belgium as he scrambles to reach his dream. A breezy immigrant comedy.
Curator’s note: Adolf El Assal’s Luxembourg-led comedy makes the country’s institutions and multilingual immigrant experience central to its stranded-DJ story.
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7. The Last Ashes
A woman returns under a false identity to the remote village she fled long ago, bent on avenging an old wrong. Billed as Luxembourg's first Western, a brooding revenge drama.
Curator’s note: Loïc Tanson’s Luxembourgish western is a nationally produced historical genre film built around local landscape, language, and folklore.
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8. Eng Nei Zäit
In the aftermath of World War I, a young man returns to a Luxembourg village transformed by loss and upheaval, navigating a changed community and an uncertain new era. A period drama.
Curator’s note: Christophe Wagner’s postwar drama confronts collaboration, resistance, and compromised memory inside Luxembourg after liberation.
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9. Blind Spot
A young Luxembourg policeman investigating a robbery is drawn into a web of corruption and violence involving Balkan criminals — and dangerously close to home. A gritty crime thriller.
Curator’s note: This Luxembourgish police thriller ties corruption and investigation to the country’s own institutions and contemporary society.
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10. Little Secrets
Set in Luxembourg's mining region in the 1960s and 70s, this drama follows a boy growing up amid family tensions and social change, keeping the small, painful secrets of childhood. A coming-of-age drama.
Curator’s note: Pol Cruchten’s Luxembourgish-language childhood drama is rooted in a local novel and a specifically postwar Luxembourg social world.
10 Movies Set in or About Luxembourg
Outside filmmakers looking toward Luxembourg: optional perspectives for a wider journey.
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1. Luxembourg, Luxembourg
When two estranged twin brothers learn that the father who abandoned them years ago is dying in faraway Luxembourg, one is desperate to go and see him while the other wants nothing to do with it. A bittersweet Ukrainian tragicomedy.
Curator’s note: A Ukrainian tragicomedy using the absent father in Luxembourg as the brothers' central destination and family myth.
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2. The Unvanquished
A weary deserter from the French Foreign Legion on the run during the Algerian War becomes entangled with a young woman he helps rescue, and the two flee toward an uncertain refuge. Alain Cavalier's spare, tense drama.
Curator’s note: A French drama centered on resistance and occupation in Luxembourg.
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3. The Price We Pay
This documentary traces the history and modern reality of corporate tax avoidance, revealing how multinationals stash trillions in offshore havens and drain public coffers. A sweeping economic exposé.
Curator’s note: A Canadian feature documentary on tax avoidance that substantially examines Luxembourg's role.
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4. Foreign Affairs
This documentary follows Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn as he strives to make his tiny country's voice heard amid the great political crises roiling the world. An intimate diplomatic portrait.
Curator’s note: An outsider documentary following Luxembourg's foreign minister and the limits of a small state's voice.
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5. The Clearstream Affair
A dogged journalist ignites a scandal by exposing the murky dealings of a powerful Luxembourg-based clearing house, and his pursuit of the truth puts his career and his family in jeopardy. A tense investigative thriller based on true events.
Curator’s note: A French investigative drama centered on Luxembourg's Clearstream institution and the journalist exposing it.
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6. An Zéro
This docu-fiction imagines, in plausible detail, the catastrophic consequences a major nuclear accident at a nearby plant would have on Luxembourg, its people, and its future. A sobering speculative documentary.
Curator’s note: A German-French ARTE docudrama imagining Luxembourg after a Cattenom nuclear disaster.
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7. Cash Investigation: Tax Haven
This investigative documentary probes the elaborate arrangements multinational corporations use to slash their tax bills through Luxembourg. A pointed exposé of corporate tax avoidance.
Curator’s note: A French-British investigation devoted to corporate tax arrangements in Luxembourg.
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8. The Tax Free Tour
Guided by tax experts, this documentary maps the shadowy global routes multinationals use to avoid taxes, with Luxembourg and other havens at the center. An illuminating economic investigation.
Curator’s note: A Dutch documentary tracing corporate tax avoidance with Luxembourg as a principal jurisdiction.
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9. Lëtzebuerger an Argentinien
This documentary uncovers the little-known story of Luxembourgers who emigrated to Argentina, tracing their journeys and the communities they built. A historical portrait.
Curator’s note: An Argentine-led feature documentary about Luxembourg emigration and identity in Argentina.
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10. Luxembourg: The People Define This Country
This documentary portrait explores Luxembourg through its landscapes, communities, and the diverse people who give the small nation its identity. A gentle national profile.
Curator’s note: A German ARTE documentary portrait of Luxembourg's landscapes, communities, and national identity.
Selected by the FilmsAroundThe.World editorial desk
Lists are ranked for craft, enduring reputation, influence, and depth of engagement with place. Native selections require a verified creative relationship to the country; souvenir selections require an outside creative lead and a country-centered story. Read the methodology.
Editorial review: 2026-07-13
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