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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Fateless

Universal acclaim
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 26 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Imre Kertész
Directed by: Lajos Koltai
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 6, 2006
DVD: May 9, 2006
Running Time: 136 minutes, Color
Origin: Hungary / Germany / UK
Language(s): Hungarian / German (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Marcell Nagy, Béla Dóra, Bálint Péntek, Áron Dimény, Péter Fancsikai, Zsolt Dér, András M. Kecskés, and Dani Szabó
Fateless is based on the moving and disturbing novel by 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész about a Hungarian Jewish boy's experiences in German concentration camps and his attempts to reconcile himself to those experiences after the war. (ThinkFilm)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
This is a Holocaust movie that is so relentlessly observed and so aware of woe that it never feels like it belongs to a genre.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
This exceptional film features some of the most beautiful cinematography ever seen on film, in service of some of the most horrible images imaginable.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Fateless is a strangely beautiful film, enhanced by a typically lyrical Ennio Morricone score and by Koltai's hazy, grayed-out images.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
In the juxtaposition of cataclysmic matter-of-fact misery and cinematic poetry, the filmmaker finds a calmly stunning way to convey the experience of living with death as something intimate, and, unnervingly, almost natural.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Like "The Pianist," Fateless painstakingly builds up the reality of what it is like to be drawn into a perfectly arbitrary hell you can neither comprehend nor rationalize.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Koltai is an accomplished, Oscar-nominated cinematographer (for 2000's "Malena"), and Fateless is meticulously composed and shot.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Fateless is both haunting and poetic. It also is visually stunning.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
It represents something stranger and, to those of us with only a secondhand or thirdhand knowledge of that history, more disturbing: a survivor's conviction that there were aspects of the experience itself that can only be described as beautiful.
Read Full Review >Variety Eddie Cockrell
Exquisitely modulated and superbly mounted, the directing debut of skilled cinematographer Lajos Koltai went through an extended, unpredictable production history to emerge as a genuinely new way of looking at the Holocaust that is markedly different in tone from other such stories including "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist."
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Fateless has a remarkable absence of sentimentality. The movie is obviously artistic, but there are no cheap or superfluous effects. It's almost mystically translucent.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
It contains little that will be new to any informed viewer; yet it fascinates for all of its 140 minutes.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a work that sears the heart and conscience. The events are annihilating, the way they're told both beautiful and terrifying.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Fateless looks man's inhumanity to man square in the eye and pronounces it standard operating procedure, and that may be the greater horror.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This unique and devastating look at the Holocaust is drawn from the autobiographical novel of 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
At first startling, even disengaging, that strange style eventually dovetails with the awful substance.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Accomplishes the near impossible, bringing a fresh perspective to a horrific subject.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
The film never lacks dignity. Fateless doesn't look at life at the camp like Roberto Benigni did in "Life is Beautiful."
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The film's power also lies in the honesty of its observation. Though Gyuri survives unfathomable horrors, he can't forget them and, in the end, doesn't want to. They're the only history he has.
Empire Steve O'Hagan
Holocaust drama shot like costume drama, creating a sense of aesthetic disharmony.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer
Viewers still need a window into a character's soul if they are to connect on a deep emotional level. And that is missing here.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Long, heavy, and not particularly edifying Holocaust drama.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 26 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Robert T. gave it a1:
Pretentious shooting, struggling actors, unbearable.
Alisha T, gave it a10:
The cinematography was amazing. This movie moved me beyond words. Seeing atrocities being carried out in a concentration camp through the eyes of a young boy in his teens made me weep. Its an intense tale of survival through unimaginable situations.
justin s. gave it a10:
The cinematography is incredible. Just a really moving and haunting movie, one you truly won't forget. The ending was amazing; I won't give it away, but Nagy says something that totally changes your perception of what happened to him. Terrific acting by him. This movie should be a strong contender for best foreign film, if not best film.
Melissa H gave it a10:
This was such an amazing movie both in its harsh and realistic depiction of the holocaust but also the beauty in the filming...one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time
Julie M. gave it a10:
Very beautiful cinematically as well as poetic and tasteful. Marcell Nagy was the perfect actor for the role and his portrayal will haunt me for a long time. I haven't seen a movie so well filmed in a very long time.
Maximus gave it a7:
Thouse reviewer's who gives movie, any movie rating 100 should be fired. There is no perfect movie and there will never be as this is not a perfect movie.
Jenney L. gave it a0:
I dont know where all these high points are coming from. I just saw it on pay per view only because of these reviews. You guys suck for leading me so wrong. If you havent seen it, dont waste you time
