---
name: "William Dieterle"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/william-dieterle"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "15 July 1893"
died: "8 December 1972"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 72
average_as: "director"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-09-19T23:23:08.912104+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# William Dieterle

Director. Born 15 July 1893 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. Died 8 December 1972.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 15 July 1893, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany
- **Died:** 8 December 1972
- **Active:** 1926–1937
- **Also known as:** Wilhelm Dieterle, W. Dieterle, 윌리엄 디터리, 빌리암 디털레, 윌리암 디터리
- **Frequently works with:** [Henry Blanke](https://film.one/person/henry-blanke.md), [Paul Muni](https://film.one/person/paul-muni.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as director, over 2 titles
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dieterle, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55413, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0226189/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/49214

## Fi1m on William Dieterle

> William Dieterle came out of Max Reinhardt's theatre and never lost the habit of building a stage. When the material lets him dream, the pictures shimmer; when it asks him to instruct, they file past like exhibits. We rate the fairy wood above the great men.

The wood at night in *A Midsummer Night's Dream* (1935) is what Dieterle looks like when he is enjoying himself. Glitter, gauze, fairies drifting across what is plainly a soundstage and no less lovely for it, and Felix Mendelssohn under nearly every line. We were charmed more than we expected to be by the fairies coming out of the dark and by James Cagney's Bottom, and we fidgeted whenever the lovers opened their mouths. Warner Bros. had filled the parts with contract players better known for gangster pictures and musicals, and Shakespeare did not sit easily on them. The film is good in patches, and the patches are the ones in the wood.

That pattern, the picture handsome and the people a problem, runs through the career. Dieterle had acted in Reinhardt's stage company and in more than sixty German films before he directed his first feature in 1923. He remembered the people behind *Der Mensch am Wege* (1923) as "just four or five very young, enthusiastic, and revolutionary people who wanted to do something different." Warner Bros. brought him to America in 1930, and *Midsummer*, which he co-directed with Reinhardt, got the Hollywood career moving. Then came the biopics: *The Story of Louis Pasteur* (1936), *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937), three films with Paul Muni, Henry Blanke producing. Later he moved to RKO and to David O. Selznick, made romantic dramas with Joseph Cotten, among them *Portrait of Jennie* (1948), and went back to Europe in the late 1950s.

The German training shows in the frames. He likes deep backgrounds and figures placed against them, space used to keep a static shot alive, and he is kind to his characters, who are understood rather than judged. Those are real virtues, and they are the ones that survive a stiff script. The biopics have long been called pedantic, and we would not argue hard against it; a great man's life laid out in order is not a story so much as a syllabus, and Dieterle was too respectful to skip a lesson. He is better when the material is strange. *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939), *All That Money Can Buy* (1941) with its Bernard Herrmann score, and *Portrait of Jennie* all carry the reputation of films where the atmosphere does the work, and atmosphere was the thing he could always supply.

Start with the wood. Watch *A Midsummer Night's Dream* at home, where the gauze looks like gauze and nobody minds, and skip forward when the lovers start quarrelling. Then try one of the ghost stories before one of the biographies. Dieterle built beautiful rooms all his life; the question was always whether anyone interesting was allowed to stand in them.

## Biography

William Dieterle was a German actor and film director. Born Wilhelm Dieterle on 15 July 1893 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, he began his career as an actor in German theatre and silent films, appearing as Valentin in F. W. Murnau's *Faust* (1926). He emigrated to the United States in 1930 and worked primarily as a director in Hollywood.

Dieterle directed *A Midsummer Night's Dream* (1935) with Max Reinhardt, *The Story of Louis Pasteur* (1936), *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937), *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939), *All That Money Can Buy* (1941), *Duel in the Sun* (1946, co-director), *Portrait of Jennie* (1948) and *Salome* (1953). *The Life of Emile Zola* won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He died on 8 December 1972.

*Sources: imdb.com, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-life-of-emile-zola.md)
- *A Midsummer Night's Dream* (1935), Fi1m 74, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/a-midsummer-nights-dream.md)

## Complete filmography (127)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau* (2002), as Valentin (archive footage)
- *Ein Sommernachtstraum* (1968), Director
- *Samba* (1966), Director
- *Quick, Let's Get Married* (1964), Director
- *Das Vergnügen, anständig zu sein* (1962), Director
- *Gabriel Schillings Flucht* (1962), Director
- *Die große Reise* (1961), Director
- *Carnival Confession* (1960), Director
- *Mistress of the World - Part II* (1960), Director
- *Mistress of the World - Part I* (1960), Director
- *Dubrovsky* (1959), as Kirila Petrowitsch · Director
- *Omar Khayyam* (1957), Director
- *One Against Many* (1956), Director
- *Screen Director's Playhouse* (1955), series, Director
- *Magic Fire* (1955), Producer, Director
- *Elephant Walk* (1954), Director
- *Salome* (1953), Director
- *The Turning Point* (1952), Director
- *Boots Malone* (1952), Director
- *Red Mountain* (1951), Director
- *Peking Express* (1951), Director
- *September Affair* (1950), Director
- *Dark City* (1950), Director
- *Paid in Full* (1950), Director
- *Volcano* (1950), Director, Producer
- *Rope of Sand* (1949), Director
- *The Accused* (1949), Director
- *Portrait of Jennie* (1948), Director
- *Duel in the Sun* (1946), Co-Director
- *The Searching Wind* (1946), Director
- *This Love of Ours* (1945), Director
- *Love Letters* (1945), Director
- *I'll Be Seeing You* (1944), Director
- *Kismet* (1944), Director
- *Tennessee Johnson* (1942), Director
- *Syncopation* (1942), Director, Producer
- *All That Money Can Buy* (1941), Producer, Director
- *A Dispatch from Reuters* (1940), Director
- *Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet* (1940), Director
- *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939), Director
- *Juarez* (1939), Director
- *Blockade* (1938), Director
- *The Life of Emile Zola* (1937), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/the-life-of-emile-zola.md)
- *Another Dawn* (1937), Director
- *The Great O'Malley* (1937), Director
- *Satan Met a Lady* (1936), Director
- *The White Angel* (1936), Director
- *The Story of Louis Pasteur* (1936), Director
- *Dr. Socrates* (1935), Director
- *A Midsummer Night's Dream* (1935), Director — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/a-midsummer-nights-dream.md)
- *The Secret Bride* (1934), Director
- *The Firebird* (1934), Director
- *Madame du Barry* (1934), Director
- *Fog Over Frisco* (1934), Director
- *Fashions of 1934* (1934), Director
- *From Headquarters* (1933), Director
- *Female* (1933), Assistant Director
- *The Devil's in Love* (1933), Director
- *Adorable* (1933), Director
- *Grand Slam* (1933), Director
- *Lawyer Man* (1932), Director
- *Scarlet Dawn* (1932), Director
- *6 Hours to Live* (1932), Director
- *The Crash* (1932), Director
- *Jewel Robbery* (1932), Director
- *Man Wanted* (1932), Director
- *Her Majesty, Love* (1931), Director
- *The Last Flight* (1931), Director
- *The Holy Flames* (1931), Director
- *One Hour of Happiness* (1931), as Eddy · Director, Writer
- *Demon of the Sea* (1931), as Christoph/Captain Ahab
- *The Costume Falls* (1931), Director
- *Kismet* (1931), Director
- *The dance goes on* (1930), Director
- *Ludwig II, King of Bavaria* (1930), as Ludwig II - König von Bayern · Director, Writer
- *Silence of the Forest* (1929), as Heinz von Ettingen · Director
- *Frühlingsrauschen - Tränen, die ich dir geweint* (1929), as Friedrich · Director
- *The Brandenburg Arch* (1929), Director
- *Ich lebe für Dich* (1929), Director
- *Diebe* (1928), Actor
- *Sex in Chains* (1928), as Franz Sommer (as Wilhelm Dieterle) · Director
- *Ritter der Nacht* (1928), as Marius
- *The Saint and Her Fool* (1928), as Harro, Graf von Torstein · Director
- *Frau Sorge* (1928), as Paul
- *Violantha* (1928), as Adelrich
- *Behind the Altar* (1927), as Der Abbé · Director, Writer
- *Petronella - Das Geheimnis der Berge* (1927), as Josmarie Seiler
- *Heimweh* (1927), as Ivan Bogdanov, administrator
- *Liebesreigen* (1927), as Robert Baumeister
- *At the Edge of the World* (1927), as John
- *Ich habe im Mai von der Liebe geträumt* (1927), as Peter
- *The Weavers* (1927), as Moritz Jäger
- *The Gypsy Baron* (1927), Actor
- *Unter Ausschluß der Öffentlichkeit* (1927), as Fritz Sehring
- *The Escape to the Circus* (1926), as Cossack
- *Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld* (1926), Actor
- *Faust* (1926), as Valentin
- *Hölle der Liebe* (1926), as Werner Ehlermann
- *Ehegeheimnisse* (1926), Actor
- *Zopf und Schwert* (1926), Actor
- *Qualen der Nacht* (1926), as Jap Geel
- *Familie Schimek* (1926), as Josef Baumann
- *Der rosa Diamant* (1926), Actor
- *The Bohemian Dancer* (1926), as Földessy
- *The Fallen* (1926), as Grosser
- *Die Dame aus Berlin* (1925), as Wulf Tormann
- *Der Hahn im Korb* (1925), as Anton
- *Wetterleuchten* (1925), Actor
- *Die Blumenfrau vom Potsdamer Platz* (1925), as August Mahnke
- *Lena Warnstetten* (1925), as Freiherr von Borkenhagen
- *In the Valleys of the Southern Rhine* (1925), as Heinz von Springe
- *Moderne Ehen* (1924), Actor
- *Waxworks* (1924), as The Poet / Assad the Baker / Russian Prince · Assistant Director
- *Mother and Child* (1924), as Christian
- *Don Carlos und Elisabeth* (1924), as Marquis Posa
- *The Expulsion* (1923), as Lauer - der Jäger, Lauer - der Jager
- *Man by the Roadside* (1923), as Michael · Director, Screenplay
- *The Second Shot* (1923), Actor
- *Bohème* (1923), Actor
- *Marie Antoinette - Das Leben einer Königin* (1922), as Drouet
- *Lucrezia Borgia* (1922), as Giovanni Sforza, Herr von Pesaro
- *Der Graf von Charolais* (1922), as Junge Charolais
- *Frauenopfer* (1922), as Maler
- *Fräulein Julie* (1922), as Jean
- *Backstairs* (1921), as The Lover
- *Die Geierwally* (1921), as The Bear Joseph
- *Die Verschwörung zu Genua* (1921), Actor

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1938: Best Director (nominated), for *The Life of Emile Zola*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Goethe-Plakette des Landes Hessen 1961: Goethe-Plakette des Landes Hessen (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/william-dieterle