For me, 2006 was the best year for cinema in the last two decades. There were three films so well made and enjoyable, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Lives of Others, that in most other years they’d each have been runaway winner of my Film of the Year.

More than a decade on, the director of The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, has created a film which is as good as, possibly surpassing, his earlier work.

Never Look Away is a sweeping drama following the story of the young and talentedly artistic Kurt Barnert, and his nemesis, gynaecology Professor Carl Seeband. The film follows their intertwining stories from an oppressed pre-war Nazi Germany through to their lives in a prosperous, increasingly decadent, West Germany after their unrelated defections from the east.

Tom Schilling as the adult Kurt, and Sebastian Koch as Professor Seeband, both give strong, nuanced performances and are aided by a flawless and large supporting cast. The themes of love, war, betrayal and death are timeless.

Direction from von Donnersmark, as it was in The Lives of Others, is taut and focused, occasionally providing a deliberate false narrative.

Cinematography from Caleb Deschanel is excellent.

Incidental music from Max Richter, which would be overbearing in a lesser film, is totally in keeping with the scale of this magnificent story.

And the subtitling is so good, you’ll forget you’re reading a film.

It’s a recurring theme of mine to berate filmmakers for releasing films too long for their storyline. Not this time. Although Never Look Away comes in at over 3 hours, there is not a wasted scene, not a superfluous line of dialogue in the entire piece. The pace is consistently level and, if the large audience I saw the film with is typical, at all times captivating.

And another lesson for other filmmakers. One of Herr von Donnersmark’s greatest strengths is his ability to make political points for you to observe and work out by yourself, rather than the crass, sledgehammer ‘in your face’ method used by so many – Hollywood please take note. In Never Look Away he makes an historic case, showing Professor Seeband segueing seamlessly from committed arch-Nazi to committed apparatchik of Soviet-style Socialism, the difference between the two being infinitesimal.

One of the very best films, if not the best, I will see this year.