Writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s psychological thriller won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in 1984, an East German Stasi agent develops suspicions that a celebrated playwright’s loyalty to the Communist regime is too good to be true and recommends to his superior that the writer and his wife be put under surveillance. What he doesn’t count on is gradually coming to sympathize with the couple and watching out for them in small ways, something that eventually causes a subtle blowback from his bosses. Paranoia slowly escalates until the surprising conclusion. With Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch and Ulrich Mühe.
“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. The Lives of Others is the best surveillance movie since The Conversation.” – Dana Stevens, Slate
“Before it reveals itself as a profound document, before it even hints at its many degrees of thought and feeling, The Lives of Others is already up and running as a tense political thriller. Far and away the richest and most brilliantly acted picture to be released this Oscar season.” – Mick LaSalle, SF Gate
“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.” – Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
