Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

34 10,000 B.C.
48 21
47 27 Dresses
17 88 Minutes
39 Alvin and the Chipmunks
55 Baby Mama
69 Bank Job, The
52 Be Kind Rewind
42 Bucket List, The
54 Charlie Bartlett
36 College Road Trip
31 Deception
51 Doomsday
41 Drillbit Taylor
29 Fool's Gold
57 Forbidden Kingdom, The
67 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
59 Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
57 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
71 Horton Hears a Who!
63 How She Move
78 Iron Man
35 Jumper
81 Juno
56 Leatherheads
41 Mad Money
37 Made of Honor
9 Meet the Spartans
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
39 Never Back Down
55 Nim's Island
50 Other Boleyn Girl, The
xx Rogue
44 Ruins, The
47 Semi-Pro
76 Shine a Light
37 Shutter
57 Smart People
37 Speed Racer
62 Spiderwick Chronicles, The
50 Step Up 2 the Streets
61 Stop Loss
55 Street Kings
33 Superhero Movie
92 There Will Be Blood
45 Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
40 Vantage Point
36 What Happens in Vegas...

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
62 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
63 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
82 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
48 Dark Matter
35 Deal
61 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
59 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
52 Noise
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
46 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
64 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
64 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
56 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
xx Unsettled
91 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
74 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Lives of Others, The
Sony Pictures Classics


9.0

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 112 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for some sexuality/nudity

Starring Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, and Thomas Thieme

At once a political thriller and human drama, The Lives of Others begins in East Berlin in 1984, five years before Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately takes us to 1991, in what is now the reunited Germany. The film traces the gradual disillusionment of Captain Gerd Wiesler, a highly skilled officer who works for the Stasi, East Germany's all-powerful secret police. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
DIRECTED BY:	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 21, 2007 Theatrical: December 1, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	137 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany
LANGUAGE(S):	German (with English subtitles)

Original title "Das Leben der Anderen"

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...

100

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

If there is any justice, this year's Academy Award for best foreign-language film will go to The Lives of Others, a movie about a world in which there is no justice.

100

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The easy, complacent distance that informs much historical filmmaking is almost entirely absent from this supremely intelligent, unfailingly honest movie.

100

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Rather than dwell on the darkness and squalor, von Donnersmarck has fashioned a genuinely thrilling tale, leavened with sly humor, that works ingenious variations on the theme of cat and mouse, speaks to current concerns about personal privacy and illuminates the timeless conflict between totalitarianism and art.

100

USA Today Claudia Puig

A thoroughly compelling political thriller, at once intellectually challenging and profoundly emotional.

100

TV Guide Ken Fox

A tense and tightly plotted fictional thriller is based on real tactics used by the Stasi -- East Germany's secret police force -- to spy on and interrogate their own citizens.

100

Slate Dana Stevens

It's an intricate, ambiguous and deeply satisfying movie, a tautly plotted tale of state surveillance and personal betrayal that ultimately becomes an ode to the transformative power of art.

100

Time Richard Corliss

Smartly crafted, impeccably acted, The Lives of Others packs a subtle punch, from its creepy first images to its poignant finale.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A great film, the best I've seen since Terrence Malick's "The New World," and far and away the richest and most brilliantly acted picture to be released this Oscar season.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

To watch "Lives" is not just to enjoy a fabulously constructed timepiece; it's to appreciate a deft cautionary tale.

100

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's so full-blooded, smart, sexy, tense and absorbing, so cleverly written and shot and cut, so filled with superb acting and music, so perfect in its closing moment, that it surely ranks with the most impressive debuts in world cinema.

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Lives is a best-foreign-film nominee competing in a year that at least three movies in this category are stronger than Oscar's best-picture contenders.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The unique, serious fun of this movie - and forbidding reputation aside, it is exhilarating - lies in the way that Wiesler, Dreyman and Sieland end up collaborating unknowingly on their own Design for Living (for a while, it's like Noel Coward for moral cowards).

100

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

von Donnersmarck creates a milieu so realistic that the attention-worthy setting becomes just a backdrop, while an intricate tale, as suspenseful as it is humanistic, takes over.

100

Empire Alan Morrison

Already fêted, von Donnersmarck’s debut sets a closely focused, personal story against a more expansive backdrop of politics and power games -- a moving, enlightening tale of recent times.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desires.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Utterly riveting fictional drama.

Newsweek David Ansen

It's hard to believe this is von Donnersmarck's first feature. His storytelling gifts have the novelistic richness of a seasoned master. The accelerating plot twists are more than just clever surprises; they reverberate with deep and painful ironies, creating both suspense and an emotional impact all the more powerful because it creeps up so quietly.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Despite the fact that parts of this film remind us of past pictures with comparable themes, the director and his actors make it immediate, gripping.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Ulrich Mühe gives a marvelously self-contained performance. There isn't an ounce of fat on his body, or in his acting: He has pared himself down to a pair of eyes that prowl the faces of his character's countrymen for signs of arrogance--i.e., of independent thinking.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Like all great screen performances, Mühe's magic comes out most in its tiniest moments: a raised eyebrow here, a slight upturn of the lips there. It's a triumph of muted grandeur; it's like watching someone being born.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The Lives of Others has similarities to Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic "The Conversation" but with undercurrents that resound across an entire century of European political history.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Beautifully textured and layered movie.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A movie that combines the Cold War intrigue of John Le Carré with the wired buzz of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" -- one of those rare two-hour-plus pictures that runs long but plays bracingly, excitingly short.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The skillfully acted and directed The Lives of Others is a timely warning about governments that seek to repress dissent.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Works beautifully, both as a social and psychological drama and as a taut, tightly wired thriller.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Von Donnersmarck has crafted the best kind of movie: one you can't get out of your head.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

With solid performances and a terrific screenplay, this movie offers solid, no-frills drama that feels organic and believable, not contrived.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

von Donnersmarck delivers something extraordinary and rare: a thriller that's entirely adult in both its concerns and perspective which manages to be as thoroughly gripping as any finely tuned albeit adolescent Hollywood nail-biter.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Except for Hempf, every character is under incredible duress, and the performances are exceptional. With his first feature, an Oscar nominee for foreign-language film, von Donnersmarck has certainly left his mark.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The director is fortunate to have cast actors who fully embody their roles. Muehe, who once played Josef Mengele in Costa-Gavras's "Amen," has the ability to let you see far beneath his masklike countenance. Koch, dashing and intense, is entirely believable as a man of the theater; Gedeck exudes a sensuousness that this covert society cannot abide.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Mühe's performance is brilliant, communicating more turmoil and pain with the droop of a lip and a flicker of the eye across an otherwise intently passive face than all the emotional storms of the cast.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a teasingly complex political thriller, but it's also a sort-of romance.

The Hollywood Reporter Eric Hansen

Starts out dark and challenging then comes to a startlingly satisfying and warmly human conclusion that lingers long after the curtain has come down.

Variety Derek Elley

Superbly cast drama… that looks to be a solid upscale attraction wherever the special chemistry of good writing and performances is appreciated.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

von Donnersmarck gives his debut feature, The Lives Of Others, no particular style, and the absence of visual risk-taking renders an exciting premise ponderous and stolid.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A compelling thriller but an unsatisfying character drama.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The fictional story here, set between 1984 and 1991, focuses on the investigation of a popular and patriotic playwright (Sebastian Koch); that the captain assigned to his case (touchingly played by Ulrich Mühe) is mainly sympathetic and working surreptitiously on the playwright's behalf only makes this more disturbing.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The Lives of Others wants us to see that the Stasi -- at least some of them -- were, like their Gestapo brethren, “just following orders." You can call that naive optimism on Donnersmarck's part, or historical revisionism of the sort duly lambasted by the current film version of Alan Bennett's "The History Boys." I, for one, tremble at the thought of what this young director does for an encore.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 112 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bill gave it a10:
Films don't get much better than this. A simple story that manages to portray human strength and weakness in uncommonly poignant terms and does so with humor and wit. Must-see simply for the reminder of how malignant the power of the state can be.

Fritz gave it a10:
Despite the LA weekly review this movie does NOT imply anything. The viewer (as in so many German movies these days) is shown just 'another' side of the coin. Fictional or not, in order to write and portait such a metamorphosis in a little over 2 hours takes great acting talent. No car chases, special effects and gunfights needed. Thank you Ulrich Mühe and rest in peace.

Ray S. gave it a10:
This is the best foreign movie I have seen in a long time. It deals with the political and personal realities of its time in a totally different way than Pan's Labyrinth. Both excellent movies, I would rate Lives of Others a little higher because it gave the characters more breath, more subtlety of emotion.

Dan B. gave it a10:
No comment. It's just plain good.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Should give pause to all Americans whose reaction to the Bush administration's broad eavesdropping initiative is a casual "What's the big deal, I've got nothing to hide." A brilliant piece of work about the discovery of humanity in even the most inhumane of professions.

Slotkins Q. gave it a10:
Not overpraised at all. This is one of the best films of our time.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Great, kind of slow, not as impressed as I thought I would be.

Lives of Others, The Sony Pictures Classics

Lives of Others, The
Sony Pictures Classics