Bernhard Wicki (Sankt Pölten, October 28, 1919 – Munich, January 5, 2000) was an Austrian actor and director, a naturalized Swiss citizen. He began his career as a stage and film actor, but achieved international fame as a director with his masterpiece *The Bridge* (*Die Brücke*, 1959). This powerful anti-war film, focusing on the tragic fate of a group of German child soldiers in the final days of World War II, earned him a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. His other notable directorial works include *The Miracle of Malachia* (1961), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and his contribution to directing the German sequences of the war epic *The Longest Day* (1962). As an actor, he worked with directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni (*La Notte*) and Wim Wenders (*Paris, Texas*). Throughout his career, he received numerous accolades, including several Deutscher Filmpreis. His commitment to humanist cinema is today commemorated by the establishment of the Bernhard-Wicki-Filmpreis.