System Crasher (Systemsprenger) is without a doubt a challenging watch, one that tests your ability to project empathy towards someone who in real life would definitely spurn it.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 10, 2021

A punk rock salute to the painful roots of the antisocial impulse.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 31, 2021

The nuance of the performances allows us to read between the lines and see the stark, sad reality of what isn't being said.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2020

Being outsider. Forced to be. The social medicalization of a disease. The seventh art as an extension of reality. Realities, like the one that Helena Zengel masterfully shows us. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 27, 2020

System Crasher (Systemsprenger) features a tremendous central performance from Helena Zengel, along with superb use of editing and colour. Although the tone is occasionally muddled, the film manages to be both viscerally engrossing and heartbreaking.

| Apr 16, 2020

...startling and grippingly raw portrait of childhood monstrosity. Zengel's furious face is resourcefully inspired as her walking wounded minor is a major firecracker with atom bomb-like capabilities.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2020

Punkishly propulsive... a portrait of a child in the grip of a troubled psyche.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 8, 2020

[A] brilliant performance by the child at the centre of German drama System Crasher saves this otherwise frantic and spuriously plotted film about the limits of the care system.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 2, 2020

The heartbreaking expose leaves us with a sense of despair.

| Original Score: B | Apr 1, 2020

I saw this German language film at the Berlin Film Festival last year and I didn't like it. Lots of people did. So I watched it again recently. Still didn't like it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2020

It has many touching scenes, and Benni is brought to life so well by Helena Zengel that you understand why she means so much to the people doing their best for her.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2020

Fingschied has rejected the typical 'rebel child' clichés and instead given us a film about a child starved of love and security, told with angst and honesty.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2020

It's a remarkable depiction of the way the system struggles to cope with children who don't fit in, leading to scenes that are both hopeful and heart-stopping. And as the story develops, it takes a number of surprising, wrenching turns.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 30, 2020

You absolutely do understand the world of the central character. A really powerful piece of cinema.

| Mar 30, 2020

System Crasher' may veer towards being over-sympathetic in its approach to its violently problematic protagonist, but it delivers a powerful exposé of the limitations of the foster system.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 30, 2020

Most essential is the central performance: Zengel's oscillating wild joys and storming furies are painful to watch.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 29, 2020

As a truthful portrait of a young person at once vulnerable and still so brilliant, System Crasher thrives, and earns a deep sense of urgency.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 28, 2020

The power of System Crasher lies in a script, from which it is clear has been carefully researched and worked on over time. It doesn't seek to explain every little detail but treats the audience as intelligent.

| Mar 27, 2020

Anchored by a stellar child performance, Fingscheidt's sensitively nuanced dramatisation of children's lives in the system takes a bleak subject and transforms it into something hopeful.

| Mar 26, 2020

System Crasher is an absorbing piece of film-making .

| Mar 26, 2020