The film attempts deconstruction of a reconstruction, pessimistically insisting there is no point to that when you can’t understand basic human nature. In that regard, "The Good German" is ambitious but simply a dirge, with no ire or fire to its insights.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Apr 26, 2025

Cate Blanchett's most underrated performance and the best she's looked on screen.

| Original Score: B+ | May 1, 2020

In the finest tradition of some of our most celebrated films of all time, The Good German, is destined to join their ranks as a classic and timeless tale of lies, love, intrigue, political and moral corruption.

| Nov 7, 2019

There's a certain distance with which you view the characters, the involvement is not such that they stay with you after the film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 24, 2019

| Original Score: B- | Feb 18, 2012

An utterly gaseous film

| Aug 28, 2009

A beautifully flawed experiment, "The Good German" is an entertaining if unbalanced war drama that places modern cinema mores on a classic style of American film when the Hayes code would never have allowed such overt sexual reality.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 23, 2009

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

No matter that it's based on a book, the movie is more about how the reality of the time was seen through the lens of a Michael Curtiz while he was filming "Casablanca".

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 2, 2008

The final verdict on this movie is that for all its attempts to replicate the great movies of the 1940s, it fails miserably.

| Original Score: D- | Jul 14, 2007

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2007

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 2, 2007

While admirable as an example of directorial innovation and homage, The Good German fails to connect on a basic emotional level.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 23, 2007

A homage to the romantic noir mysteries of the 1940s, a tribute that tries hard but, alas, misses the mark.

| Original Score: 4/10 | May 23, 2007

Flat noir homage.

| Original Score: C+ | May 22, 2007

| Original Score: C- | Apr 25, 2007

Buddies Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney started out so well. But The Good German is so painful that their recent decision to go their separate ways really merits a gospel choir.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 30, 2007

It's Soderbergh's commitment and creativity that lift The Good German above many of its peers, no matter the era.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

It's an achievement so hermetic it hardly bothers to be a movie.

Full Review | Mar 15, 2007

It's "The Good German," but not "The Great German."

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2007