Paula Beer

Paula Beer is a German actress born on 23 February 1995 in Mainz. She is best known for her prominent artistic collaborations with director Christian Petzold, starring in films such as Transit, Undine, Afire, and Miroirs No. 3. Over the course of her career, she has earned several major international acting honors, including a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and a European Film Award.

Beer grew up as an only child in Mainz. At the age of eight, she took part in a theatre course that sparked her dedication to acting. Her family moved to Berlin in 2007, where she attended a Montessori school. Starting at age twelve, she spent four years gaining acting and dance experience with the youth ensemble at Berlin's Friedrichstadt-Palast theatre. After graduating from high school in 2013, she relocated to Paris.

Her screen career began to gain recognition during her teenage years when she played the lead role in Chris Kraus's 2010 film Poll. In 2015, Beer made her television debut in Kai Wessel's Pampa Blues alongside Sven Gielnik and Joachim Król. That same year, she starred in Theresa von Eltz's drama 4 Kings as one of four teenagers spending Christmas in a psychiatric hospital. During the summer of 2015, she furthered her training by attending an acting course at the Drama Summer School of London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Beer achieved her major career breakthrough in 2016 in François Ozon's historical film Frantz. Playing Anna, a German woman who meets a mysterious French ex-soldier after World War I, Beer had six weeks to learn her role in both German and French. Her performance earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Performer at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and a nomination for the César Award for Best Female Revelation. Following production, she spent a month in Marseille to further refine her French.

In 2018, Beer starred in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Never Look Away, which received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. That same year, she began her ongoing international work with Christian Petzold by starring in his feature Transit.

Beer reunited with Petzold for the 2020 title Undine, winning both the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival and the European Film Award for Best Actress. She subsequently starred in Petzold's 2023 film Afire, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, and worked with him again on Miroirs No. 3, which premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in 2025.