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The Lives of Others

Das Leben der Anderen

2006

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur ...

8.0

76,128

Drama. Thriller East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly doesn't always think loyal to the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Richard Corliss Time	"A taut, terrific German thriller"
		Joe Morgenstern The Wall Street Journal	"[A] brilliant debut (...) [A] superlative political thriller"
		Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly	"The filmmaker’s control of story and pacing is so wily, his script so literate (in his feature debut, no less), that to reveal much more would interfere with the thrill of the tentacled plot’s twists."
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Wiesler is a fascinating character (...) 'The Lives of Others' is a powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desires (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		David Gritten Telegraph	"A magnificent tribute to the human soul (...) Unfailingly intelligent, the film shows up the perversion of language under authoritarian regimes (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"The big, showy emotional setpieces of this film are robustly staged and powerfully acted, though not as telling as the little details (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		A. O. Scott The New York Times	"A suspenseful, ethically exacting drama, beautifully realized (...) Elegant and complicated."
		Anthony Lane The New Yorker	"It is a tribute to the richness of the film that one cannot say for sure who the hero is (...) One of the marvels of Ulrich Mühe’s performance (...) is that he never distills Wiesler into a creature purely of his times."
		Alan Morrison Empire	"Von Donnersmarcks debut sets a closely focused, personal story against a more expansive backdrop of politics and power games a moving, enlightening tale of recent times (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Stella Papamichael BBC	"It offers a rare and fascinating snapshot of life behind The Berlin Wall (...) Even when the pace lags slightly, you just cannot help but watch (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

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