It benefits from a splendid performance by Barbara Sukowa as the great German thinker, but whose narrative core, unfortunately, remains situated in a dialogical inertia that loses all its effectiveness between redundant scenes. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 9, 2024

It is an absolute treasure to see and inspires its viewers to return to the literature of this lauded thinker.

| Jan 14, 2021

Von Trotta, however, smartly focuses on a brief, pivotal moment in Arendt's career...

| Mar 24, 2020

Thoughtful, fierce and imperfect, Hannah Arendt runs a bit long, but is an inspiring slice of history that might just convince you to go out and read one of its subject's books.

| Feb 26, 2019

Von Trotta's film is neither profound, nor radical. It belongs to that grand dramatic tradition that trivialises and sentimentalises history until all that's left is a series of generic conventions.

| Jan 8, 2019

Philosophy must be an incredibly difficult thing to translate into film, so I give the filmmakers credit for bringing across Hannah Arendt's thinking, and that of her opponents, so clearly.

| Aug 27, 2018

This all may sound all very heavy, but it is important to also point out that Hannah Arendt is also a good movie.

| Sep 26, 2017

I found [Hannah Arendt] fascinating, though its lecture style may not appeal to some.

| Aug 11, 2017

Although the movie etches a rather thin portrait of Arendt, it succeeds in humanizing her as a person, contextualizing her as a theorist, and evoking the courage she showed in airing convictions that often went against the scholarly tenor of her time.

| Feb 28, 2016

Hannah Arendt is ultimately a pleasure, because Sukowa plays the most forbidding of intellectuals as a fabulous, passionate doll.

| Dec 31, 2015

...actors in supporting roles telegraph the controversies surrounding Arendt's personality as if they were attempting to literally touch the viewer's nose.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 2, 2014

Von Trotta doesn't do justice to this strong woman and her contribution to thinking about the nature of evil.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 7, 2014

A crisply measured character study with plenty of intriguing ideas, elevated by a terrific, finely calibrated performance by Sukowa.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 16, 2014

A dramatically solid, if talky, account of the controversial episode in the post-war world that spawned the phrase "the banality of evil", with strong performances from Barbara Sukowa and Janet McTeer.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 15, 2014

I really like this film. I like the milieu that's created of this intellectual life in New York during the 1950s. I think Sukowa is fantastic in the role.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2014

It's refreshing to find a film inspired by challenging ideas, and Von Trotta and her team are to be congratulated for bringing Arendt's story to the screen

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2014

Sukowa is a supple and brave actress; getting inside Arendt's arguments is the hardest and if the film only succeeds sometimes, that is still a major achievement. Very few films in this era would have dared.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 12, 2014

Von Trotta's style is pretty stolid. She aims for documentary thoroughness rather than exhilarating drama. Nonetheless, it's good to see a film that gets its narrative charge from the ferment of intellectual debate. It's a rare breed.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 11, 2014

it is as a piece of drama about the human condition that this film needs to be assessed, and on that score - with a few quibbles about structure and flashbacks and occasional lack of clarity - it is successful, in its own rigorous way

| Mar 8, 2014

Totalitarianism with sinful intentions versus bureaucratic compliance is what is on the menu - the result is more interesting on an academic and intellectual level than in actual engagement and entertainment terms

| Mar 8, 2014