Aaron Hilmer

Aaron Hilmer is a German-Australian actor who began as a child on German television, accumulating guest and recurring roles on series including the long-running crime strand Tatort, where a large share of German screen actors serve their apprenticeship. His first real lead came in 2018 with The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, a teen comedy that transplants Cyrano de Bergerac into a contemporary school, a part that needs a performer who can be funny about his own self-consciousness.

The role that travelled was Albert Kropp in the 2022 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front. Kropp is one of the schoolboys who enlist together in the opening reel, and the film uses him for the slow business of showing what the trenches take out of a face that started out eager. Hilmer plays it without any of the actorly signalling the part invites, which is exactly why it registers in a cast where several performances are pitched much larger. The film went on to win four Academy Awards.

Since then he has stayed mostly in German-language work, including a series lead that ran from 2020 to 2024 and the crime drama Luden, with two features due in 2026. He is still young enough that the shape of the career is undecided, which makes the restraint in the war film the most interesting thing about him.