German Film Award for Best Fiction Film

The German Film Award for Best Fiction Film (Bester Spielfilm) is the main award given for best German film at the annual Deutscher Filmpreis awards, the German national film awards. It has been held annually since 1951 in varying formats. As the constitution said the prize was only awarded, if outstanding achievement was given, not every year a film was declared the winner of the prize. For the first three years, the Golden Candlestick was the highest honour for this category. It was then replaced by the Golden Bowl as a Challenge Prize, that would be passed to the winner of the next occasion, however as it was not given out for 17 years, the prize was abandoned for good in 1996. Regular prize winners receive a Film Award in Gold whereas the runners-up receive a silver award. A bronze award for the second runner-up was introduced in 2008. On some occasions, no film received the gold prize and a winner of the Silver Award was declared the best film of the year.

1951–1986
From 1951 to 1986 the prize was awarded by a commission which selected the best German feature film released in the previous 12 months.