Brilliantly told through exceptional performances and dynamic storytelling, this heart-wrenching thriller is a triumph of nuanced tension centred on rediscovering one's humanity in a place where it seems forgotten.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 8, 2024

'The Lives of Others' is dark, but burning beneath the scathing political exposé of the GDR’s despotic paranoia and the personal tragedy of the drama is a bracing story of idealism, disillusionment, and defiance.

| Apr 14, 2023

It is an exceptional piece of intrigue in the deepest shades of gray in which the culture of fear of being spied on was deeply heightened.

| Feb 22, 2023

In an on itself the film is about freedom, love, compassion, solitude, and everything that gets downtrodden in an oppression regime. An incredible paradox around obsession disguised as a film. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 17, 2022

One must point out there is a right-wing and a left-wing critique of Stalinism and the GDR, the opposite of genuine socialism.

| Feb 14, 2021

The actors are marvelous, with special mention of Ulrich Muhe who plays Wiesler. He gives a chilling portrayal of a man reluctantly driven to something approaching heroism.

| Jan 24, 2020

Examines the effects of watching and being watched, both willingly and unwillingly, and turns them into a fascinating work of pure cinematic poetry.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 5, 2019

As [Captain Gerd] Weisler discovers his real self, layer by layer, we are in the presence of a masterful performance.

| May 7, 2019

Donnersmarck makes an assured debut, builds the atmosphere of deceit, suspicion and suffocation and also undercuts it with some jokey moments.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 30, 2019

The Lives of Others is exquisitely tense, with massive stakes and a pervasive sense of danger.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 23, 2018

It uses the syntax and conventions of Hollywood to convey to the widest possible audience some part of the truth about life under the Stasi, and the larger truths that experience revealed about human nature.

| Aug 23, 2018

Cinematic smugness has a fatal impact on the delineation of Wiesler's quietly heroic political calisthenics and The Lives of Others' supposedly uplifting denouement.

| Oct 3, 2017

The worst crime that this film has to offer is pure old simple dumbness, paper-thin characters, and a plot that leans heavily on artiness to give it the look of a more serious thinking story.

| Aug 23, 2017

Reopens our eyes to the cruelties and soul assassinations that were carried out daily in the name of state socialism.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 26, 2014

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 18, 2011

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 17, 2011

The scope is especially impressive given that the movie is about a society obsessively focused on the tiniest of details.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 5, 2011

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 4, 2011

Activism proves tough on people who've thrived at their political patrons' blessings, and one character cruelly chooses a path of least resistance when the chips are down. A cataclysmic conclusion depicts political clamps on expression and emotion.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 19, 2010

If the filmmaker commits a crime, it's in pushing the [Stasi] character's rehabilitation slightly too far--about as much as the weight of a teardrop.

| Aug 24, 2009