Goodbye Lenin!

Name: Goodbye Lenin!
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: February 27, 2004
Duration: 121 min
Rating: 68
Cast: Chulpan Khamatova, Daniel Brühl, Florian Lukas, Katrin Saß

2004

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 115 Ratings

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8.3	User Score Universal acclaim based on 115 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: February 27, 2004 | R

Starring: Chulpan Khamatova, Daniel Brühl, Florian Lukas, Katrin Saß

Summary: A human story of the reunification not only of an entire nation, but of a family living in East Berlin. (Sony Pictures Classics)

Director: Wolfgang Becker

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: R

Runtime: 121 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Ruthe Stein

I don't claim to have seen every entry from around the world, but it's hard to imagine five better than this deliciously offbeat comedy, as wildly inventive as anything Billy Wilder ever conceived. Read full review

Ty Burr

One of the most enjoyable movies I've seen lately, but it has a biting knowledge of that which history gives and history takes away. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Funny but not a comedy, serious but never overbearing, emotional in an engaging and bittersweet way, Good Bye, Lenin! is a wonderful film unto itself about a world unto itself. Read full review

David Denby

Goodbye, Lenin! is often drab--the color is washed out, the lighting flat. Yet the movie is sweetly enjoyable as a sardonic elegy for a dream that went bust. [8 March 2004, p. 92]

Pete Vonder Haar

Relies heavily on strong performances from Brühl and Sass to make the illusion believable. Read full review

Rick Groen

It's mainly a hunt for ironies, usually playful but occasionally poignant, and the search is definitely successful enough to merit our attention -- although maybe not the two-hour running time. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

The film seems overlong and drawn out, with variations on the same joke occurring throughout. Although the performances are good, the nostalgia for the past seems quaint in the new "have it your way" Burger King world. Read full review

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User Reviews

FilipeNeto

Sep 3, 2019

The Cold War was marked, at the European level, by the "Iron Curtain", which included the division of Germany into two halves: the capitalist West Germany and East Germany, in line with USSR. The division existed until the fall of the Berlin Wall and divided families, cultures, mentalitiesThe Cold War was marked, at the European level, by the "Iron Curtain", which included the division of Germany into two halves: the capitalist West Germany and East Germany, in line with USSR. The division existed until the fall of the Berlin Wall and divided families, cultures, mentalities and ways of life. In this movie, a young man decides to pretend that East Germany still exists, months after reunification, to spare his mother, a fierce socialist who has just woken up from a coma.

We are facing a true masterpiece of cinema. It's one of those fun and clever movies we've seen once and we want to see it again as soon as it's over. However, its not exactly a comedy, or at least not in its entirety. The film has some drama and the story of that family, especially that mother, is truly harsh, difficult and paradigmatic of a changing world. That mother represents well the past, and the pains of those who lived under a dictatorship, with difficulties and bitterness to which she had to turn around, while her emancipated, independent, creative and irreverent children manage to embody the aspirations of a generation that is eager for change, tired of decades of forced immobility. Another thing that strikes the eye is the speed with which everything changes, the almost dramatic and rough way in which the GDR falls and becomes Westernized.

The cast is made up of illustrious strangers to me, who am not a connoisseur of German cinema, but I think they were up to the challenge and did very well with what they were asked to do. The director, Wolfgang Becker, has achieved here his greatest work as a filmmaker. On a technical level, I especially highlight the careful photography, good camera angles, the way the movie played with color, light and shadow, the clever way it used scraps of television news and original archive material. Nor can I fail to highlight the extraordinary original soundtrack, by Yann Tiersen, who had been notable, two years earlier, with "Amelie" soundtrack.

Fairly nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film (which he lost to an Afghan film), its hard to believe as it was not even nominated for the Oscar in the same category. Who can explain Hollywood, do it! But who needs prizes anyway? This film has achieved immortality for its merit and quality, while many of those who receive awards end up forgotten a few years later.… Expand

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DogeGamer2015

Dec 27, 2020

Una buena historia sobre la reunificación alemana; muy dramática y conmovedora.
¡TOTALMENTE RECOMENDADA!

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DidierR.

Oct 7, 2005

Awesome!! I loved this film...OST with Yann Tiersen.... GREAT.

1 of 1 users found this helpful

alejandro970

Aug 11, 2019

The sociopolitical changes of Eastern Germany in 1990 through the perspective of the victims of changes. Stir of comedy and drama about how to survive transition no matter if implies white lies. One of best of recent German cinema.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

gracjanski

Apr 11, 2021

Interesting story with a very good screenplay. The movie is not a comedy, but more a drama, that shows how 1990 changed the life of a family in east berlin.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

soloms

Apr 17, 2015

a big and strong story that remind us the truth of what happen' in Europe. The way that the story was told was the best and made this movie something fabulous and something great!

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

AdamL.

Oct 10, 2007

Headache inducing. It's as if the filmmakers couldn't decide whether this should be a political drama, a period piece, or a comedy, and so tried to mash all three together in the most jarring fashion imaginable. It just doesn't work.

0 of 1 users found this helpful

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