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Poster for The People vs. Fritz Bauer

The People vs. Fritz Bauer

2015 · 1h 45m · R Drama, History, Mystery
Directed by Lars Kraume

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Overview

It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
87%
Tomatometer
Fresh

What "The People vs. Fritz Bauer" does so well is distill large, complicated political issues into an intimate, personal story about one man's desire to bring not only justice, but catharsis to post-war Germany, mired in a fog of complacency.

Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
Fresh

Director Lars Kraume's mounting of this tale, while capable enough, is also rather staid and conventional.

Godfrey Cheshire, RogerEbert.com
Fresh

From start to finish, it's absorbing.

Ken Jaworowski, New York Times
Rotten

By focusing on his subject's unwavering moral certainty, Kraume denies his ethical complexity and diminishes the difficulties of his challenging stance to educate the society that wanted him dead.

Serena Donadoni, Village Voice
Fresh

Though relatively conservative in its approach, Lars Kraume's teleplay-style treatment of a still-touchy subject has the nerve to name names, implicating everyone from chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Mercedes-Benz.

Peter Debruge, Variety

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