The film serves as an allegory about former East Germans yearning to attain capitalist success, only to find disillusionment in an economic climate of mergers and layoffs.

| Apr 21, 2023

Christian Petzold's Yella is an unassuming story with a powerful metaphor about the complexities of German reunification

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 18, 2022

2007's cool psychological suspense piece Yella, with Hoss as a woman who can't quite escape her troubled past, was one of the first films that made the international reputations of both its star and her frequent director Christoph Petzold.

| May 27, 2021

Yella slowly-but-surely begins to lose its already-tenuous grip on the viewer...

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 25, 2020

Watching the transformation of Yella is as mesmerising as the steely transformation at the heart of Steven Soderbergh's largely comparable Erin Brockovich.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 3, 2018

Petzold, a leading light of the current generation of young German filmmakers, succeeds in making the modern world strange again.

| Nov 14, 2013

An edgy, intellectual and enigmatic dream-like metaphysical thriller about living in post-reunification contemporary German as a venture capitalist.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 24, 2012

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Yella is a strange beast: a twisty, slightly surreal mystery wrapped around the tedious art of the business deal.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 28, 2009

The twist ending that softens the blow of this otherwise unique and atmospheric work is not for me to ruin, but it should be said that it shows a chink in the filmmaker's armor

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 25, 2009

A strange blend of corporate thriller and supernatural mystery.

| Dec 1, 2008

While too lean and unassuming to provide real chills, Yella is a cool, disorienting trip, a meditation on death and the complexity of the human brain.

| Sep 19, 2008

This unusual film has all the appearance of simply being a well-done drama, but there is considerably more on writer-director Christian Petzold's mind.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2008

[A] tightly controlled metaphysical horror movie.

| Sep 18, 2008

Yella clamps down on the viewer with a psychological hold that doesn't immediately reveal itself.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 18, 2008

This crisply made thriller begins as a harrowing tale of a young German woman stalked by her deranged ex-husband, but quickly turns into an investigation of the murkier depths of capitalism.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 5, 2008

Strikes a perfect balance between corporate intrigue and metaphysical mystery; his 2007 drama is filled with suspense but ends in delicious ambiguity.

| Aug 1, 2008

Yella is a reserved young woman with unrevealed depths of intelligence, larceny and passion. Their gradual revelation makes this more than an ordinary thriller, in great part because of the performance of Nina Hoss in the title role.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2008

The German offering Yella begins with an utterly gripping first 15 minutes, follows with a passable drama and ends with a big disappointment.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 31, 2008

An import non-thriller so enigmatic and subtle that it's inert.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 11, 2008