It persuades us early on that its aura of political tension and suspicion, its taciturnity, its very strictness of silent observation as it begins, are fostering an intelligent thriller.

| Jun 17, 2013

Petzold handles personal, formal and political concerns in such harmony that it's difficult, and not especially desirable, to separate one from the next.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 21, 2013

The movie examines the possibility of maintaining one's humanity in a truly oppressive society.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 8, 2013

Hoss, wearing her blond hair pulled back tight, and wearing an expression of inscrutable melancholy, gives a performance that doesn't feel like a performance at all.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 8, 2013

The occasional ravings of the patients, ringing off the walls in Petzold's measured quiet, provide an appropriate backdrop to the heroine's need for freedom, yet the movie's politics never trump its humanity.

| Mar 7, 2013

This is well-trod ground for Petzold, but never has it been so fully realized, so palpable, as in "Barbara."

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 7, 2013

Hoss is fantastic. Barbara is ice cold at the start, understandably so. Yet Hoss makes her sympathetic.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 7, 2013

[Leaves] you drained and horrified.

| Jan 7, 2013

Sometimes, the sun shines and the wind blows fresh and the very elements that make for intense hardship also open a window on intense joy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2012

Hoss is mesmerizing as a woman who holds it all together to the point of losing herself.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 27, 2012

It's one terrific film, as smart, thoughtful and emotionally involving as just about anything that's out there.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 21, 2012

It's a quiet film built of careful details.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 21, 2012

"Barbara" re-visits the quiet, everyday tragedies of the Iron Curtain era, when paranoia ran deep and for very good reasons.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 21, 2012

The plotting, the planning and the deepening relationships don't make for kinetic action, but they are the foundation for a smart, engrossing film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 21, 2012

Lit from within, like a lantern; Petzold has made a nighttime movie that ends right on the edge of dawn.

| Dec 20, 2012

"Barbara" is a film about the old Germany from one of the best directors working in the new: Christian Petzold.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 20, 2012

Hoss' acting is a marvel of subtlety; her body language is precisely calibrated to reveal a great deal about the character's inner feelings by the slightest changes of posture and facial expression.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 20, 2012

The movie's quiet power comes from its air of meticulously maintained suspicion.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 20, 2012

A sturdy suspense story, set in Stasi-infected East Germany, rich in moral compromise, individual integrity and general desperation, it's elevated by Hoss to something sublime and unforgettable ...

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 20, 2012

Barbara is Hoss' fifth film with Petzold, and the movie rests on the depth and subtlety of their working relationship.

| Original Score: A | Dec 20, 2012