It's no wonder Schlöndorff favors close-ups; with Mattes on screen, The Ninth Day gets right to its emotional core.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 11, 2005

Plays more like a philosophical debate than a war drama.

| Aug 18, 2005

An accomplished, confident work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2005

It just feels like too much over too little.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 15, 2005

A thoughtfully written drama of ideas with vivid performances by August Diehl and Ulrich Matthes.

| Jul 7, 2005

A morally complex and emotionally satisfying drama about the vagaries of Catholic response to the Third Reich.

Full Review | Jul 7, 2005

A film that strives for meaning and resonance but doesn't quite work.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 18, 2005

In this cat-and-mouse Faustian fable, Mr. Diehl and Mr. Matthes are singularly fascinating as tension-filled incompatibles.

| Jun 9, 2005

Credit a literate script and excellent performances by Ulrich Matthes -- tall and gaunt and wearing a wide-brimmed friar's hat -- as Kremer, and August Diehl as the Nazi bureaucrat and failed seminarian assigned to watch over the priest in Luxembourg.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 27, 2005

In the face of the Holocaust, a wrestling match over which man is the likelier Judas strikes me as a trivial pursuit.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 27, 2005

Digs beyond rote charges of ecclesiastical complicity and counter-arguments to explore various levels of resistance and protest — and their consequences.

| Original Score: A+ | May 27, 2005

In Volker Schlöndorff's somber moral thriller, a Roman Catholic priest, temporarily released from Dachau, finds his conscience tested when the Nazis try to co-opt him.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 26, 2005

Plays best as a dry exercise in historical doublespeak and rationalization.

Full Review | May 24, 2005

This film is powerful, concise, fully sustained.

Full Review | May 23, 2005