Toni Erdmann doesn't exist: he's a fictitious character made up by a retired German piano teacher named Winfried, an aging prankster who likes to put on wigs and false teeth and disrupt the status quo. His estranged daughter Ines is his polar opposite: a tightly-wound, fiercely ambitious corporate management consultant currently posted to Bucharest. And this is where her disruptive dad appears, in Toni Erdmann guise, intent on shaking up her rigidly controlled life.

This premise doesn't begin to suggest the riches contained in Maren Ade's expansive, uproarious comedy, which touches emotional chords and social insights one doesn't expect in a movie so laugh-out-loud funny. You will see why critics made this the most beloved movie at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize.

"A work of great beauty, great feeling and great cinema." Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"Filled with grand comic inventions... a film that is abundant in so many of the qualities lacking in modern cinema, not the least of which are a continual deepening of character, moment-to-moment surprise, and genuine warmth."  Kent Jones, Film Comment