Trivia

Considers Yasujirô Ozu to be his all-time grandmaster.

He has been infertile since an illness in childhood.

Donated his $5,000 Cannes prize for Wings of Desire (1987) to Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 42nd Cannes International Film Festival in 1989.

His book "Emotion Pictures", a collection of diary essays written while he was a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3.

He worked with all of his wives on at least one movie: With Edda Köchl: Alice in the Cities (1974), Summer in the City (1971) and The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972); with Lisa Kreuzer: Alice in the Cities (1974), The American Friend (1977), Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976); with Isabelle Weingarten: The State of Things (1982); with Ronee Blakley: Lightning Over Water (1980), Hammett (1982) and I Played It for You (1985) and with Donata Wenders: Beyond the Clouds (1995), Arisha, der Bär und der steinerne Ring (1992), Buena Vista Social Club (1999), The End of Violence (1997), Lisbon Story (1994), Land of Plenty (2004) and The Million Dollar Hotel (2000).

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 65th Venice International Film Festival in 2008. He reportedly argued with the festival's artistic director over the award rules and disliked the experience so much, that he vowed to never be part of a festival jury again.

After studying medicine, philosophy and sociology in Munich, Freiburg and Düsseldorf, he joined the Munich Academy for Television and Film (HFF) in 1968.

Many of his films are indebted to Nicholas Ray, which is proved by the expressionistic use of color in The American Friend (1977) or the title of Until the End of the World (1991) (Until The End of The World), the last spoken words in Ray's King of Kings (1961). Kings of the Road (1976) also lovingly lifts a scene from Ray's The Lusty Men (1952). His movie Lightning Over Water (1980) is a documentary about Nicholas Ray's last days.

President of the European Film Academy.

He has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Buena Vista Social Club (1999).

Wender's Gray City, Inc. Manhattan office overlooks 11 East 14th Street, the site of D. W. Griffith's American Biograph studio, whose brownstone has been replaced by a white condominium.

Born on exactly the same date as comic legend Steve Martin.

Is also a photographer.

He closed Belgrade Film Festival - FEST 2006.

Graduated from the Hochschule Fur Film & Fernsehen.

Attended Munich's Academy of Film and Television (HFF München) from 1967 to 1970.

Nephew of Margarete Hafner.

As of 2022, his three Oscar nominations came from documentary features rather than his fictional films (none of them were Oscar nominated).

His life companion between 1983 and 1992 was French actress Solveig Dommartin, who edited with him the documentary "Tokyo-Ga", starred in "Wings of Desire" and "Until the End of the World" (she also co-wrote the latter) and appeared in "Faraway, So Close!".

Uncle of Hella Wenders.