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The Experiment
What to know.
Das Experiment 's knotty plot may not prove as revelatory as it promises, but it succeeds as an action film with a lot on its addled mind.
Critics Reviews
Audience reviews, cast & crew.
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Moritz Bleibtreu
Maren Eggert
Christian Berkel
Justus von Dohnányi
Berus - Strafvollzugsbeamter
Oliver Stokowski
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Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it’s based on an actual occurrence — a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control.
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Das Experiment
Human behavior is determined to some degree by the uniforms we wear. An army might march more easily in sweat pants, but it wouldn’t have the same sense of purpose. School uniforms enlist kids in the “student body.” Catholic nuns saw recruitment fall off when they modernized their habits. If you want to figure out what someone thinks of himself, examine the uniform he is wearing. Gene Siskel amused himself by looking at people on the street and thinking: When they left home this morning, they thought they looked good in that.
“Das Experiment,” a new film from Germany, suggests that uniforms and the roles they assign amplify underlying psychological tendencies. In the experiment, 20 men are recruited to spend two weeks in a prison environment. Eight are made into guards and given quasi-military uniforms. Twelve become prisoners and wear nightshirts with numbers sewn on them. All 20 know they are merely volunteers working for a $1,700 paycheck.
The movie is based on a novel, Black Box, by Mario Giordano . The novel was probably inspired by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a classic of role-playing. On that experiment’s Web site, its director, Philip G. Zimbardo, writes: “How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.” So there, I’ve given away the plot. Some critics of “Das Experiment” question the fact that the guards become cruel so quickly, but the real-life experiment bears that out. What is fascinating is how most of the members of both groups tend to follow charismatic leaders. None of the other guards is as sadistic as Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi) and none of the other prisoners is as rebellious as Tarek Fahd ( Mortiz Bleibtreu ), who remembers, “My father would say, ‘Don’t do this,’ and I’d do it.” Perhaps uniforms turn us into packs, led by the top dog. There are a few strays. One prisoner seems custom-made to be a victim, but another, a man with military experience, holds back and tries to analyze the situation and provide cool guidance. But he’s more or less powerless because–well, the guards are in charge. One of the guards has misgivings about what is happening, but it takes a lot of nerve to defy the pack.
It would make perfect sense for the guards to say, “Look, we’re all in this together and we all want the $1,700 at the end of the two weeks. So let’s make it easy on ourselves.” But at Stanford as in this movie (and in life), that is not human nature. The outcome of the experiment is clear from the setup. We would be astonished if the guards became humane.
What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is a foregone conclusion. That’s a tribute to the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel , and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of typecasting that perhaps occurs in life. The sadist looks mean. The rebel looks like a trouble-maker. The military guy looks competent. The victim looks submissive. We see them and read them. Is it the same in life? By halfway through, I was surprised how involved I was, and I see that I stopped taking notes at about that point–stopped thinking objectively and began to identify. Of course I identified with the trouble-maker. But give me a uniform and who knows what I would have done. The fact that the movie is German inspires thoughts about the Holocaust: The Nazi command structure needed only strong leaders at the top for Hitler to find, as one book called them, willing executioners in the ranks. But is the syndrome limited to Nazi Germany? This movie argues not.
Thinking of World War II, we’re reminded not only of the Nazi uniforms, which were fetishistic, but of the genial sloppiness of the average American G.I., as unforgettably portrayed by the great Bill Mauldin. His Willie and Joe, unshaven, their helmets askew, cigarettes dangling from their lips, resented authority, but they won the war.
The Stanford Prison Experiment can be found on the Web at www.prisonexp.org.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
- Maren Eggert as Dora
- Justus Von Dohnanyi as Berus
- Christoph Darnstadt
- Don Bohlinger
- Mario Giordano
Directed by
- Oliver Hirschbiegel
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The experiment, das experiment.
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
You are invited to participate
Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it’s based on an actual occurrence — a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control.
Moritz Bleibtreu Christian Berkel Oliver Stokowski Wotan Wilke Möhring Stephan Szasz Andrea Sawatzki Polat Dal Danny Richter Ralf Müller Markus Rudolf Peter Fieseler Thorsten Dersch Sven Grefer Justus von Dohnányi Nicki von Tempelhoff Timo Dierkes Antoine Monot Jr. Lars Gärtner Jacek Klimontko Markus Klauk Ralph Püttmann Edgar Selge Philipp Hochmair Tristan Vostry Maren Eggert André Jung Uwe Rohde Heiner Lauterbach Fatih Akin Show All… Christiane Gerboth Klaus Spinnler
Director Director
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Producers Producers
Marc Conrad Klaus Spinnler Friedrich Wildfeuer Norbert Preuss Benjamin Herrmann
Writers Writers
Christoph Darnstädt Don Bohlinger
Original Writer Original Writer
Mario Giordano
Casting Casting
An Dorthe Braker
Editor Editor
Cinematography cinematography.
Rainer Klausmann
Assistant Director Asst. Director
Isabel Kleefeld
Executive Producer Exec. Producer
Philip Evenkamp
Camera Operator Camera Operator
Moritz Bleibtreu
Additional Photography Add. Photography
Stefan Biebl
Art Direction Art Direction
Uli Hanisch Kai Koch
Set Decoration Set Decoration
Andrea Kessler
Special Effects Special Effects
Karl-Heinz Bochnig
Stunts Stunts
Ernst Reimann
Composer Composer
Alexander Bubenheim
Sound Sound
Wolfgang Wirtz Max Rammler-Rogall Christof Ebhardt Jörn Poetzl
Costume Design Costume Design
Claudia Bobsin
Seven Pictures Typhoon Fanes Film Senator Film Senator International
Germany USA
Releases by Date
07 mar 2001, 08 mar 2001, 17 may 2001, 19 oct 2001, 07 nov 2001, 22 mar 2002, 06 jun 2002, 23 aug 2002, 10 oct 2002, 03 apr 2003, 23 jul 2009, 11 may 2005, 16 jun 2010, releases by country.
- Theatrical 15+
- Theatrical 16
- Theatrical 18
- Theatrical VM14
Netherlands
- TV 16 RTL 5
- Physical 16 DVD
Switzerland
120 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page
Popular reviews
Review by DirkH ★★★ 27
Do NOT like this review.
If you do, your eternal soul belongs to me.
Review by Marcissus ★★★★ 6
I absolutely could not wait for this film to end. really liked it
Review by Faeze Pourpeyghambar ★★★½
Is power evil in its nature?
Socio-cognitive researches have indicated that power affects how people think and act. But the problem begins with an overact and how people overuse the power by only «feeling powerful». Its nature is so unreal, like we can accomplish just about anything! But it actually leads nowhere but demise. According to some psychological researches, power can enhance the normal amount of confidence and self-regulation in people so much that they may abuse their power to act in a corrupt manner. Just like what we see in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s psychological drama, Das Experiment.
The Experiment (2001) is about a group of people as part of a psychological research project. These twenty men are getting divided up…
Review by André Hecker ★★★★½
Großartiges, deutsches Kino. Unfassbar spannend und bedrückend, hervorragend gespielt, sehr gut durchdacht und beobachtet und knüppelhart. Das soziale Aufwiegeln in einer Extremsituation läuft zwar etwas im Schnelldurchlauf, dafür besitzt Das Experiment aber auch keine Längen oder Umwege.
--------------------------------
Great German cinema. Incredibly tense and oppressive, excellently acted, very well thought out and observed, and brutal. The social stirring up in an extreme situation runs a little fast, but The Experiment therefore has no lengths or detours.
Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★★ 2
Cinematic Time Capsule 2001 Marathon - Film #28
”I have a feeling we are losing control”
In this highly fictionalized thriller that’s inspired by the famous 1971 Stanford psychological experiment, test subjects are recruited to participate in a 14-day simulation as “prisoners” and “guards” in a pretend prison.
Right from the outset the rules are very clear that there is to be no violence and everyones safety is the number one priority. However, as the study begins and the human animal emerges, what started as an interesting sociological experiment slowly spirals out of control and these power hungry guinea pigs find themselves taking over the asylum.
To me, this terrifyingly real subject, is way scarier than any supernatural horror film, and as I watched things descend into utter madness it was so horrific and uncomfortable that I wasn’t even sure how to react.
”The rules say to react to all events appropriately”
Cinematic Time Capsule - 2001 Ranked
Review by cinemacl🎃wn ★★★½ 2
A psychological thriller that observes the behavioural changes people undergo when they are placed in a position of power or submission in a confined atmosphere, Das Experiment is a patiently crafted, concisely narrated & brilliantly acted feature that begins slowly but escalates soon enough into a nail-biting tale of survival.
The story follows a taxi driver who, in order to make some quick cash, decides to take part in a social experiment after learning about it in a newspaper. The volunteers are assigned the role of guards & prisoners in a simulated prison situation but it soon spirals out of control when the guards become aware of the power they have.
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel ( Der Untergang ), the film borrows its concept…
Review by Flo ★★★★½ 5
Das Experiment ist ein ziemlich interessanter Film, welcher auf dem Stanford-Prison-Experiment basiert. Die Handlung ist schon an sich interessant, aber wie der Film die Handlung erzählt macht diesen Film unglaublich spannend und interessanter. Der Film hat genau das richtige Tempo, wodurch der Film mich gar nicht gelangweilt hat und sogar jede Minute spannender wurde. Außerdem wird der Film immer härter. Dazu hat der Film eine sehr bedrückende Atmosphäre, was zum Film passt. Die Figuren sind ziemlich gut geschrieben, denn diese sind Tiefgründig und haben auch ihre Charakterentwicklung, was sogar glaubwürdig umgesetzt wurde. Dazu sind diese auch interessant und fühlen sich überhaupt nicht leer an. Auch das Schauspiel ist sogar recht stark, was ich bei einen deutschen Film nicht erwartet habe.…
Review by Héctor ★★★★
In my opinion this movie is great, it is tough but it has a lot of background. The fact that it was based on true events led me thinking. They did an American adaptation, I should check it out but this one was really interesting. .
Review by Derek ★★★½
I need to preface this thing by saying that The Experiment has literally the worst music that I've heard had to listen to in a movie. It was more or less the kind of music you'd hear in a really bad 80s action movie, except here it's so out of place that it would have been funny if it wasn't for the fact that they blare it obnoxiously every time it randomly comes out. The movie itself was pretty good, though. I didn't know how I felt about it at first, mainly because the side plot with him and his girlfriend seemed nonsensically all over the place. When it gets into it, though, it really gets into it. It's one…
Review by Jessie ★★★★
Intense film that will leave you disgusted at the darker side of humanity. Based off of real life psychological experiment in 1971, Das Experiment is chock full of great performances by the cast, including Moritz Bleibtreu (personal favorite German actor), and looks into morality and the psychology of power and how quickly it becomes exploited.
Hard to watch, but excellent film.
Review by Denny_Crane ★★★
Filmwelt Filmclub #61 - The Experiment - Ausgewählt von CristavoFring
Sehr solider deutscher Film mit verdammt guter und überzeugender Besetzung und einer Story die einen zu keinem Moment langweilt. Die Thematik des Zumbardo-Experiments wurde zwar schon öfter verfilmt, der deutsche Film ist davon meine liebste Version.
Filmclub - Ranked
Review by Arighna ★★★★
What is it if not a well conducted psychological examination of humanistic behaviors under unfavorable and intense scenarios?
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- "It's hypnotic, a slick and well-told story that's all the more haunting because it's finally empty." Elvis Mitchell : The New York Times
- "A harrowing study of the corrosive effects of absolute power." The Washington Post
- "An R-rated version of Survivor, Big Brother or any number of reality-TV shows that present voyeurism as entertainment and exploitation as insight." Loren King : Chicago Tribune
- "This deftly crafted film provokes the kind of creeping horror that Lord of the Flies memorably nailed." Megan Turner : New York Post
- "A disturbing film that forces moviegoers to ask: 'What would I do in a similar situation?'" Jonathan Curiel : SFGATE
- "Rigid, airless, and browbeatingly repetitive, Das Experiment is an overly didactic piece of thesis hectoring" Owen Gleiberman : Entertainment Weekly
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INTERVIEW: Behind the Bars of “Das Experiment”; Oliver Hirschbiegel on the Universal Appeal of Priso
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INTERVIEW: Behind the Bars of "Das Experiment"; Oliver Hirschbiegel on the Universal Appeal of Prison Psychiatry
by Wendy Mitchell/indieWIRE
(indieWIRE: 09.19.02) — The German film “ Das Experiment ” is one of the most intense films of the year: it’s two hours of barely-clothed German men running around a pseudo prison facing mental manipulation and physical torture. The film, the directorial debut of Oliver Hirschbiegel , is adapted from Mario Giordano ‘s novel “ Black Box ,” about a modern-day psychological experiment similar to Philip Zimbardo ‘s famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. In “Das Experiment,” cabdriver and former journalist Tarek ( Moritz Bleibtreu ) sees an ad seeking volunteers for a psychology experiment that will set up a mock prison. Intrigued by the cash payoff as well as the potential for a great newspaper story, Tarek signs up. On the inside of the “prison,” the volunteers are divided into prisoners and guards. Under the not-so-watchful eyes of the experiment’s scientists, Tarek starts provoking the guards, and violence follows.
“Das Experiment” was already a box-office smash at home in Germany, thanks in part to the star power of Bleibtreu (“ Run Lola Run “). Samuel Goldwyn released “Das Experiment” in the U.S. today. indieWIRE managing editor Wendy Mitchell spoke to Hirschbiegel about German pride, on-set improvisations, and locking the cells on his actors.
indieWIRE : I wanted to start by talking about your background in television. What kind of programs did you work on?
Oliver Hirschbiegel : I did TV movies of various kinds: a mystery, a thriller, a cop thriller, and two dramas. I also directed a TV series [“ Kommissar Rex “] that became very popular. It’s about a cop and his partner, who is a dog. It’s all set in Vienna. For me it was a nice excursion into the commercial television world. I learned a lot.
iW : Why did you choose the story of “Das Experiment” for your directorial debut?
Hirschbiegel : I started reading [Mario Giordano’s “Black Box”] and couldn’t put it down. I just had to read that novel. I read it the whole night through and finished it in the morning. I knew that this would be it. It just sat right. It reads a bit a like a Shakespeare play and it was convincing right from the beginning. All the characters are so believable in their situations.
I wanted to do this as a German film. I had a couple of offers to do English-speaking movies set in Germany, but I thought that was a little bit silly. I was really looking for something German. And this was a great opportunity.
iW : Why was it so important for you to do a German-language film?
Hirschbiegel : Because German film… t’s changing, but it had a bad reputation then. We had never shown in international festivals except for the really arty films. And that crossover of being responsible and dealing with real subjects that matter and still being entertaining and suspenseful, that’s not a typical thing for German films, but it’s very typical for me. It’s kind of my style. Also, it had to do with pride or something. I wanted it to be German.
iW : “Das Experiment” did very well in the box office in Germany. Why do you think Germans were so attracted to this film?
Hirschbiegel : I think it is a pretty universal story. It seems to work all over the world because it deals with universal emotions. I think anyone in the world can imagine how it might feel to be in that situation. The film’s prison situation is just a copy of what you would find in any prison in any country in the world these days. People seem to be able to relate to that.
The Germans also love Moritz Bleibtreu . He’s practically our number-one star here. Still, I was surprised. My hopes were to get half a million people into the cinema, and it turned out to be nearly two million. I don’t know.
iW : Were you ever concerned that your film might perpetuate negative stereotypes about German violence or intensity?
Hirschbiegel : No, I wasn’t worried about that because I think it’s a universal scene we’re dealing with.
iW : Right. It could’ve happened anywhere. The Stanford Prison Experiment [Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 experiment] happened in sunny California.
Hirschbiegel : Exactly. I later found out that all the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment were students. In our story the participants came from various backgrounds. Some were unemployed, others were students, one guy was a manager in a very good insurance company. At Stanford, they were all educated young men, yet they behaved in the same manner.
iW : I want to talk a little about the process the long process you had in adapting the book into the screenplay. How many cooks were in the kitchen?
Hirschbiegel : All together there were four cooks. The first cook was the writer of the novel [Mario Giordano]. We teamed up, sat down and brainstormed. He was to write the screenplay. After a while we both realized that it didn’t really work out the way we wanted because he didn’t have a lot of experience in screenplay writing. After six months and four or five drafts, we decided to stop it and get someone new involved. I called Don Bohlinger , an American writer I had collaborated with on a TV movie. He was a great help, especially with structure. He wrote six drafts, yet I wasn’t really happy with any of them either. The drafts had very good elements, great ideas like, “Take him out and shave his head and pee on him!” But that’s not a German idea…
iW : That’s an American’s idea!
Hirschbiegel : I wasn’t entirely happy with his drafts, and then something funny happened. Christoph Darnstadt , another writer who was working on a pilot script for TV, had just read our screenplay and was intrigued by the project. He wrote his own version on spec and sent it to us. It wasn’t bad, a lot of things didn’t work — but then he had great ideas on the other side. When it was really close to shooting, like three months prior to the first day, I teamed up with Don and Christoph. We locked ourselves in a hotel suite for two and a half weeks and took elements from all the drafts and nailed them together. It was a real collaboration
iW : How is the book is different from what ended up on screen?
Hirschbiegel : I did some research on the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments, and found two or three things that I loved and wanted to get onto the screen. For instance, the scene where they use fire extinguishers to calm the prisoners during the riot is not in the novel. That, and the manipulating of the scientist, actually happened. The cat-and-mouse play is something Milgram did with his volunteers. I wanted to include that in the film, too.
I must not forget to give credit to all the actors. A third of the stuff in the film came up during the shooting, it was stuff the actors suggested, or we developed together. There are whole scenes that Christian Berkel , or Moritz, developed in the morning and then shot later. So it was very much a work in progress.
The interviews were never in the script. I started doing the interviews when I realized that it was unclear as to what the characters were really about, or what their background was. The interviews always took place after long days of shooting. I just set the actors in front of a camera. They were in character, so they had no idea what I was going to ask. I pretended to be Professor Thon before receiving a briefing from the psychologists. I tried to imagine what kinds of questions a scientist would ask. It was weird because the border between fiction and reality became very thin.
iW : Were there any other instances of this slippery slope between the film and reality? It was a movie set, but it looked like a prison, and you were confined to the space for a month or so. Did it take its toll on anyone?
Hirschbiegel : We all got along pretty well. There weren’t any great fights or quarrels. I made sure that the prison was solid and real. When the doors were locked, they were really locked — there was no way of getting out. It was even true for the crew. When they locked the big fence in the back we were locked in, too.
iW : You’re a tough director!
Hirschbiegel : Well, you have to be as a director. Nice and tough. The rooms had very intense energy. Sometimes it was positive, sometimes it was negative. In this case it was very intense energy, because the set was the former basement of a factory. The walls and ceilings were solid concrete, and the floor was made of steel plates. A lot of people who came down to visit and watch just couldn’t stand it for more than a half hour. They had to go back up to see the sunlight. We had gotten used to it, so to us it was more of a normal thing.
iW : I read that you have background in visual art. How do you think that influenced the look of “Das Experiment”?
Hirschbiegel : Before I start to shoot a film, it’s hard to get any information out of me, such as how the visual style will turn out. It’s rather a feeling I have in my belly, and the more I get into the process of shooting, the clearer that feeling becomes.
I told my production designer, “I don’t want this to be a chic movie set. I want this to be a realistic as possible, so think about how a group of scientists would set up a prison. Don’t exaggerate, and make it within a reasonable budget.”
iW : Overall, do you think there are other films or directors that directly influenced “Das Experiment”?
Hirschbiegel : I think my biggest influences were Japanese directors such as Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano . They stick to their story, and never use spectacular tricks or cliche elements to get things moving. That is something that has impressed me for as long as I can remember.
In general, it’s the three American directors: Hitchcock , Hawks , and Huston , because they were straightforward storytellers. From them I learned the most.
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The Experiment
Time out says, release details.
- Duration: 115 mins
Cast and crew
- Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
- Screenwriter: Mario Giordano, Christoph Darnstädt, Don Bohlinger
- Moritz Bleibtreu
- Christian Berkel
- Oliver Stokowski
- Wotan Wilke Möhring
- Stephan Szasz
- Justus von Dohnànyi
- Nicki von Tempelhoff
- Timo Dierkes
- Edgar Selge
- Andrea Sawatzki
- Maren Eggert
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THE EXPERIMENT
by Oliver Hirschbiegel
All began as a game in the name of science. Twenty men. Two weeks. The payoff a breezy $2000. They came looking for a quick way to make easy money. Now they're just looking for a way to stay alive.
| international title: | The Experiment |
| original title: | Das Experiment |
| country: | |
| year: | 2000 |
| genre: | fiction |
| directed by: | |
| film run: | 120' |
| release date: | DE 08/03/2001, CH 17/05/2001, BE 07/11/2001, GR 09/11/2001, ES 18/01/2002, NO 08/03/2002, PT 22/03/2002, UK 22/03/2002, NL 06/06/2002, EE 14/06/2002, IT 23/08/2002, HU 10/10/2002, SI 12/12/2002, PL 17/01/2003, CZ 03/04/2003, FR 21/05/2003 |
| screenplay: | , , |
| cast: | , , , , , , , , |
| cinematography by: | |
| film editing: | |
| art director: | |
| costumes designer: | |
| music: | |
| producer: | , , |
| production: | , , |
| distributor: |
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Mario Giordano (also novel ), Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstädt, Oliver Hirschbiegel (uncredited), Friedrich Wildfeuer (uncredited) .
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Sorry, there was a problem.Image unavailable. 
 The Experiment (Das Experiment)
Product DescriptionWith a terrific display of ensemble acting and unforced use of the popular claustrophobic semi-documentary look, Hirschbiegel's movie takes its time to get underway, with apparently irrelevant cutaways to Fahd's outside girlfriend (Maren Eggert), but works up to a powerful second half that delivers a sustained symphony of psychological and physical anguish. --Kim Newman Product details
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German. Box office. US$ 11.6 million [1] Das Experiment (English: The Experiment) is a 2001 German drama thriller film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. It is based on Mario Giordano 's novel Black Box and deals with a social experiment which resembles Philip Zimbardo 's Stanford prison experiment of 1971.
The Experiment: Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. With Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke Möhring. For two weeks, 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a prison. The "prisoners" have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the "guards" are told to retain order without using physical violence.
Das Experiment's knotty plot may not prove as revelatory as it promises, ... German. Release Date (Theaters) Sep 20, 2002, Original. Box Office (Gross USA) $141.1K. Runtime 1h 56m. Sound Mix
Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it's based on an actual occurrence — a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control. Mario Giordano. Author.
Synopsis. Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it's based on an actual occurrence — a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control.
"Das Experiment," a new film from Germany, suggests that uniforms and the roles they assign amplify underlying psychological tendencies. ... The fact that the movie is German inspires thoughts about the Holocaust: The Nazi command structure needed only strong leaders at the top for Hitler to find, as one book called them, willing ...
Intense film that will leave you disgusted at the darker side of humanity. Based off of real life psychological experiment in 1971, Das Experiment is chock full of great performances by the cast, including Moritz Bleibtreu (personal favorite German actor), and looks into morality and the psychology of power and how quickly it becomes exploited.
The Experiment is a film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel with Moritz Bleibtreu, Maren Eggert, Christian Berkel, Justus von Dohnanyi .... Year: 2001. Original title: Das experiment. Synopsis: The movie is based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras.
(indieWIRE: 09.19.02) — The German film "Das Experiment" is one of the most intense films of the year: it's two hours of barely-clothed German men running around a pseudo prison facing ...
Submitted by Anja on 14/02/2002 17:22 I saw this film in the original (German) version in March 2001, and it left me shocked and astonished. It is quite brutal in parts, with a convincing plot.
This slick, occasionally disturbing German thriller (adapted from Mario Giordano's novel Black Box) was inspired directly by the notorious Stanford University prison psychology studies of the ...
The German director is currently shooting his new tragicomedy in Hamburg, ... The actor seen in The Experiment and Oh Boy, Justus von Dohnányi, is shooting another dead black gangster comedy, ... At its 30 April meeting the Bavaria Film & TV Fund agreed to distribute a total of Euro7.88m amongst 20 film projects this year. The titles include ...
Movie review of DAS EXPERIMENT (2001), starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Justus Von Dohnanyi, and Maren Eggert. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. ... Das Experiment being a German film, most foreign audiences will inevitably read a fascist subtext into the movie. Indeed, one of the prisoners finally accuses of Berus of being a Nazi (a ...
This is a German movie. Das Experiment translates to The Experiment. The experiment is about observing human behavior in a simulation of a prison environment. In 1971, Philip Zimbardo a professor at Stanford conducted a real life prison experiment using college students in order to study the psychological effect of perceived power. This film ...
This is the fascinating question posed in the new German film by director Oliver Hirschbiegel, Das Experiment. A couple dozen ordinary men are recruited to play the roles of inmates and guards in a make-believe prison for two weeks. Tarek (Moritz Bleibtreu of Run Lola Run) catches wind of the experiment and becomes convinced that it will make a ...
Das Experiment is a German film loosely based on the Stanford University Prison Study in the 1970s where a group of students were split into guards and prisoners which lead to minor authoritarian regime with torture being used. The film focuses on a Tarek Fahd (Moritz Bleibtreu), a taxi driver, who see an advert for the experiment in the local ...
THE EXPERIMENTDas starbesetzte US-Remake des erfolgreichen deutschen Thrillers!DVD- und Blu-ray-Verkaufsstart: 04. November 2010Eine Gruppe von Testpersonen ...
Amazon.com. Inspired by a famous 1971 psychological experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel's German-language movie The Experiment finds a group of 20 volunteers randomly divided into 12 prisoners and eight guards and asked to play out their roles for a fortnight while scientists study their reactions. A conflict arises between undercover reporter Fahd (Moritz Bleibtreu), a con with a hidden agenda ...
The Experiment. A remake of the powerful German thriller Das Experiment, in which 26 men are chosen to act the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study. Values are tested and lines are when seemingly normal participants are pushed to breaking point as the experiment spirals out of control. Adrien Brody stars as Travis, after ...
The Experiment is a remake of the German film, The Experiment (2001) (2001), both of which were loosely based on the novel Das Experiment - Black Box (1999) by German writer Mario Giordano. American screenwriter/director Paul Scheuring wrote the screenplay for The Experiment.