Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Without been in China, in 2018, I would not fully understand this great film. I have seen it many years ago in China, during college maybe, did not consider it anything special. But now, after living in US for 5 years, come back to China and saw this film, it's heavy. People here are under state surveillance in the most extensive way for whatever they say through internet. They complain offline, they escape the country like me, but not much people fight back. Now I realize, we Chinese citizens deserve all this, all of us, and this film explains my point.

The movie is set in East Berlin in the year 1984. Back when Germany was a totalitarian state. The Stasi was in charge of spying on its citizens and that's exactly where the movie starts. The protagonist, Mr. Wiesler, is a seasoned Stasi agent who has had an illustrious career. So much so that he's even instructing upcoming agents in the practices of interrogation techniques. Another important task that Stasi agents were known for; their "interrogation" methods. Early on in the movie the protagonist gets assigned to a special "public figure". He himself wanted to get the assignment but as we later find out there were ulterior motives at play. Motives that concern his superiors.Mr. Wiesler takes great pride in his job because he's really good at it. But as the movie progresses he has to reconcile with the fact that his current assignment is morally unjustified. Even though the protagonist is clearly meant to be the "bad guy" we are constantly witnessing the moments when his humanity shines through; to the point where we're able to empathize with him. He's a flawed character just like everybody else. Which makes the movie so believable.Dreyman on the other hand is a good person but too many bad things keep happening to him. All of these bad turns of events eventually force him to step out of his "zone of complacency", to make a hard decision. With unforeseen consequences.This movie is so powerful. It evokes so many emotions that it literally covers the entire emotional spectrum: anger, contempt, suspicion, deceit, humor, compassion, sadness, grief,...It's ultimately a really sad movie though, with a lot of character development. The protagonist keeps indulging in the lives of the people who he's supposed to spy on. And by doing so he becomes a better person.The ending was extremely satisfying to watch. Arguably one of the best movies I've ever seen. Everything came full circle, so poetically. I was not prepared for this. This is exactly what good filmmaking is all about. It's the full package. Even the setting is flawless; watching the movie feels like travelling back in time. That's how immersive it was.Final verdict: supremely recommended (you're not going to regret it)

A Stasi trainer, Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), is ordered to place a famous play writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) under constant surveillance. The orders come from the highest echelons of the government, but Wiesler slowly begins to understand that the motives for them may not be as patriotic as they should. And at the same time the life of these two content souls begins to lure him in.Despite this film being just over a decade old, it feels much older. And in this case that works in the film's favour, giving it an authentic feel, like it could have happened right there and then. it gives the film weight, which is good, because Stasi and their human right violations are some of the darkest aspects of East German history. And yet, at the same time the film tries to shy away from black and white moralizing. Wiesler's character, despite being a high-ranking Stasi officer, is not a monster, does posses a soul and certainly has his sympathetic moments. This has apparently caused certain amount of controversy, some believing that Stasi and its legacy should be shown no mercy, no sympathy. Which seems uncomfortably harsh to me.Then again, I was only a few months old when the Berlin Wall came down. For me, this is history, something that happened in the distant past. It's funny for me to think that the events of this film took place when my parents were teenagers or young adults. The world has certainly changed since then.For me this film is more interesting than it is good. Certainly it's acted well and directing is superb, but it still seems more like a gateway into a subject, a conversation starter, rather than a great movie in its own right.

"Your missing this film means you necessarily did not live another human dimension of life". That's my simple suggestion,if expected,when it comes to this film.This probably is one of the films directed from first to last minute with the highest degree of intelligence and consciousness a human being can afford or perhaps have ever attempted to exercise. It's worth almost of fifty other films combined and you will feel that glint of humanity that is sublime,instinctive yet here is in distress and being challenged in such an overwhelming way that has only to be felt,ever represented in a film perhaps in the whole of film history.It can test one's breaking points,shake one's core principles that one snuggles deep inside.It teaches what humanity is with grueling and sometimes deeply undermining a test.It can break and penetrate one,it can lacerate one,it can consume one if one believes himself to be a human and;even if he doesn't believe himself to be human,this film will recommend that,that disbelief or desensitization is artificial and imposed thus is not inherently human and can afford to let a man be wavered.It is capable of stirring one's human feelings irrespective of the extent of exposure,hardening to inhumanity one has been or can be imagined to have been subjected to.