The building of the Berlin Wall, which began Aug. 13, 1961, gave a stark architectural face to the Cold War and spawned a slew of spy movies located on the fault line of East-West intrigue. Hollywood masters like Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock were among the first to spin political fables in this divided city. But in the ’80s and beyond, as Soviet ideology cracked along with its most notorious edifice, German filmmakers addressed their own fissured history.
Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies
It's been 50 years since the start of construction on the Berlin Wall. TIME looks back at 10 movies that were set in the time of the Wall—and now have outlasted it.