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Goebbels Experiment, The

EMAILPRINTFirst Run Features

Goebbels Experiment, The reviews
67
9.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 11 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 1 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Documentary  |  Foreign

Written by: Lutz Hachmeister
Michael Kloft

Directed by: Lutz Hachmeister

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 12, 2005
DVD: May 23, 2006

Running Time: 107 minutes, Color

Origin: Germany / UK

Language(s): German / English

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Kenneth Branagh (narrator in English), and Udo Samel (narrator in German)

This documentary lets the Nazi propaganda mastermind behind Hitler talk directly to you as actor Kenneth Branagh reads pages of the diary he kept without interruption from 1924 to 1945. (First Run Features)

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...

90

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A fascinating, veritable self-portrait, masterfully culled from a trove of archival materials.

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80

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

A rare and chilling glimpse into a brilliant but toxic mind.

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80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Brilliantly edited for drama and irony, The Goebbels Experiment juxtaposes little-seen German propaganda films with excerpts from Goebbels' diary.

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75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Informative and illuminating.

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75

New York Post Kyle Smith

Seeing what Hitler's propaganda minister saw, hearing only his diary entries and what he heard, we effectively live inside the monster's head.

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75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Weirdly enthralling film.

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70

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Would be funny if it weren't so horrifying.

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63

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Ultimately, the project suffers from a nearly complete lack of contextualization. We could surely use some background on Goebbels' complicity in mass genocide while listening to him brag about his beautiful, healthy children and happy family life.

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60

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Mostly though, The Goebbels Experiment proves that historical figures have the worst perspective on themselves.

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50

Variety Derek Elley

A man whose name has become a byword for pure evil gets a disarming makeover in The Goebbels Experiment. Far from being the horror show expected from its title, Lutz Hachmeister's cool, almost anti-dramatic docu paints a portrait of an insecure manic-depressive solely through extracts from Joseph Goebbels' own voluminous diaries.

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50

Village Voice Joshua Land

The master propagandist comes across here as a brooding, insecure megalomaniac--or at times, a bitchy member of a particularly malevolent high school clique, an effect enhanced by some of narrator Kenneth Branagh's English line readings.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ted W. gave it a9:
Fascinating.

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