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The White Ribbon Review

Movies.com Critics

5.0

Dave White Profile

The German Problem Read full review

5.0

Jen Yamato Profile

Village of the Damned by way of Carl Th. Dreyer. Read full review

Other Critics provided by Metacritic.com

Critics scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 5.0
    82

    out of 100

    Metascore®
    Universal acclaim
    based on a weighted average of all
    critic review scores.

  • 100

    out of 100

    Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

    The film is visually masterful. It's in black and white, of course.

    Read Full Review

  • 100

    out of 100

    The Hollywood Reporter

    It's a superb cinematic work and an appropriately serious one, given its subject matter and its intentions.

    Read Full Review

  • 63

    out of 100

    USA Today Claudia Puig

    An artful examination of a small town and small-mindedness and the potential for full-blown, large-scale evil. But it's strangely bloodless.

    Read Full Review

  • 67

    out of 100

    Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

    Shot in vivid black and white, the movie is like "Village of the Damned" directed by Ingmar Bergman, only without Bergman's intensity.

    Read Full Review

  • 70

    out of 100

    The New York Times A.O. Scott

    An unnerving but unsatisfying chronicle of a German village filled with hidden cruelty, set on the eve of World War I.

    Read Full Review

  • 80

    out of 100

    Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

    A severe and eerily beautiful German-language drama.

    Read Full Review

  • 90

    out of 100

    Variety Todd McCarthy

    Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.

    Read Full Review

  • 90

    out of 100

    Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

    We don't go to Michael Haneke films for comfort, but to gaze through a glass darkly. That vision -- tense, provocative and unnerving -- is on full display in The White Ribbon, which could be considered a culmination of this difficult director's brilliant career.

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  • See all The White Ribbon reviews at Metacritic.com

Fan Reviews provided by

5

An Allegory for the Future of Germany by Powerhugs
This film's setting was a typical small German town set in Pre World War I - perhaps the end of innocence in Germany...The town is very much a throwback to feudal times where the rich baron controls the majority of the wealth in town and everyone lives revolve around working for that family..The plot is a series of acts of violences that no one seems to know who perpretated...The one chilling common theme in the film is that the parents thru discipline and dysfunction are creating a new generation of unemotional detached children who in the years to come will be of age during World War II. That is the lesson from this film and it is meant to be discussed and not to excuse or exonerate Germany...

3

by Big daddy 1

3

In a word...ANITCLIMATIC by joplinspig
It's deep, it draws you in, and you have to pay attention to small details. It does have a a very interesting story, and it can get creepy. Unfortunately, it doesn't supply you with any answers; after all of these creepy events, you are left with just speculation, like charging up the side of a mountain to get to the top, but getting lost, never finding the summit, then meandering your way down.

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