The Counterfeiters
The Counterfeiters Image
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Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.3 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 22 Ratings

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  • Summary: The true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian who was in captured by the Nazis in 1944. He agrees to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeiting operation set up to finance the war effort. It was the biggest counterfeit-money scam of all time. Over 130 million pounds sterling were printed under conditions that couldn't have been more tragic or spectacular. During the last years of the war, as the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiters workshop. "Operation Bernhard" was born. Prisoners were brought to Sachsenhausen from other camps to implement the plan, and professional printers, fastidious bank officials, and simple craftsmen all became members of the top-secret counterfeiter crew. They had a choice: If they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive as first-class prisoners in a "golden cage" with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For the counterfeiters, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well... (Sony Classics)… Collapse

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    The Counterfeiters is in its own smart, trim fashion "The Bridge on the River Kwai" of concentration-camp sagas. Also based (like Kwai) on a real-life story, this movie starts small but becomes a miniature epic of overreach and moral drift.
  2. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    80
    The Counterfeiters is a testament to guile. Ruzowitzky scored the picture with tangos, and the tangos are meant to be Sally’s music--seductive, insolent, triumphant.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    75
    Based on the true story of the world's largest counterfeiting operation, The Counterfeiters is full of the weird details that, though unsurprising on one level, are so jarringly wrong that they seem fresh: As a reward for producing 134 million pounds sterling, the prisoners get a pingpong table.
  4. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    75
    It is always intriguing as it follows the arrest and captivity of Salomon Sorowitsch (the terrific Karl Markovics), one of Germany's leading counterfeiters.

See all 23 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. MikeD.
    10
    Riveting from start to finish. I thought other foreign-film Oscar nominees were worthy of winning and was surprised to see this one win, but that was before I had seen it. It deserves the Oscar, and your $10 to see it.… Expand
  2. SusanM.
    10
    This movie was incredibly well-done. It's clearly better when Europeans make WWII films - they do it much better than Hollywood.
  3. ERG1008
    8
    Austrian film about Saloman Sorowitsch, a Jewish counterfeiter who was spared the concentration camps in WWII to run a fake currency production for the Nazis.
    Moving, disturbing & great performances from Karl Markovics in the lead & Martin Brambach who gives Ralph Fiennes's Amon Goeth a run for his money as the thoroughly unpleasant Holst.
    Definitely worth a watch.    … Expand
  4. MarcK.
    6
    Nothing new. Doesn't break any new ground. Rather predictable. If you've seen "Schindler's List" or "The Pianist," you've seen this one.… Expand

See all 11 User Reviews

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