Funny Games isn't meant to echo reality. Most of the incidents that transpire are "plausible," to borrow Paul's word, even if he and Peter aren't intended to resemble actual human beings, and Haneke doesn't burden the characters with a back story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 31, 2024

Don’t think of Haneke’s picture as a thriller, bound by typical thriller tropes, complete with an exciting thriller climax and gratifying conclusion. Think of it as an experiment to show you how Hollywood cinema has manipulated your expectations

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 5, 2024

Michael Haneke‘s Funny Games finds little humor in the horror it unleashes on the unsuspecting Farber Family. A game to shock and horrify, this is not a film with a happy ending, but rather a terrifying understanding of the continuing cycle of violence.

| Feb 4, 2024

A frustrating, yet rewarding, viewing experience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2023

An interesting experiment that was totally pointless for someone who'd seen the original numerous times

| Jan 14, 2022

The former vision possessed a rugged authenticity and unrecognizable casting choices that were decidedly superior.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Haneke's film is disturbing to watch, but that is exactly the point. In an era where the media has pretty much desensitized violence, Haneke has found a way to make it all seem uncomfortable.

| Original Score: B- | Oct 29, 2019

Funny Games is a masterful torture-porn film that implicitly castigates the viewer for sitting through it. Its true and lasting violence is inflicted not upon its characters but upon us.

| Oct 18, 2018

The film's polemic on violence in modern popular culture has a self-defeating narcissism; cheap comic violence is used to propel the action forward rather than develop plot or characters.

| May 14, 2018

Funny Games is the most disturbing film I have ever seen.

| Feb 3, 2018

Defenders of Funny Games repeatedly point out that it shouldn't be fun. But if it isn't, then it should at least be subversive.

| Aug 24, 2017

A cool, calculated exercise in serious discomfort.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 5, 2015

For an audience that willingly hands over fistfuls of cash to see men and women savagely tortured in the name of entertainment, Funny Games U.S. is just the director giving the people what they want. Enjoy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 14, 2012

This new version adds nothing novel, but it lacks none of the original's bite.

| Original Score: 5/6 | Sep 12, 2008

If you saw the original, the elements of suprise may be missing, but dread and suspense and nastiness are translated perfectly.

| Sep 12, 2008

As an experiment in film form, Funny Games is intriguing, but the self-congratulation and post-modern trickery are at once irksome and intellectually and artistically dishonest.

| Sep 12, 2008

We're left with the nasty taste of our own bloodlust long after the credits have rolled.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 12, 2008

Registers more strongly than the original as a film about privileged white people...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 12, 2008

An actors' showcase and a hefty serving of director Michael Haneke's self indulgence

| Sep 7, 2008

There is something far uglier and dirtier below the surface: voyeuristic sadism in which Haneke implicitly involves his audience

| Sep 7, 2008