One of the most historical and brutal rulers that have come through ages, Adolf Hitler, lived ten days from hell from his 56th birthday on April 20th, 1945 to his suicide on April 30th. In this dramatic epic movie Traudl Junge, the final secretary for him recounts details about these ten days and how were his feelings.
1 June 1973, East Berlin, East Germany
16 March 1920, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
3 April 1977, Linz, Upper Austria, Austria
23 July 1953, Halle, German Democratic Republic
24 July 1959, Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland
28 October 1957, Berlin, Germany
1973, Marktredwitz, West Germany
13 May 1970, Halle an der Saale, German Democratic Republic
4 March 1995, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
7 August 1941, Landsberg an der Warthe, Germany [now Gorzów Wielkopolski, Lubuskie, Poland]
16 October 1954, Suhl, German Democratic Republic
12 June 1942, USSR
9 May 1959, Berlin, Germany
22 March 1974, Munich, Germany
14 August 1960, Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
20 June 1941, Berlin, Germany
1953, Drieberg, German Democratic Republic
19 October 1958, Munich, Germany
1 October 1973, Bergen auf Rügen, East Germany [now Germany]
14 February 1970, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
20 December 1985, Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
1973, Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany
16 August 1942, Essen, Germany
May 20, 2014
Provocative look at Hitler's last days is extremely violent.March 18, 2005
Viewed through a North American lens, the movie itself seems more familiar than fascinating, more innocuous than inflammatory, and, at 21/2 hours, more tedious than anything else.March 18, 2005
For emotional effect it trades less in the spectacle of ebbing power than the tragedy of power's mysterious thrall.April 08, 2005
May be the definitive account of Hitler's final days and the collapse of the Third Reich.March 17, 2005
Hirschbiegel and Ganz are not apologizing for Nazism. They are trying to come to terms with the fact that the evils of Nazism were invented and carried out by human beings.July 21, 2009
It's reach exceeds its grasp; nonetheless, a compelling study of Hitler's last days.April 18, 2009
As the first German-made film about Hitler's ruination since G.W. Pabst's "Der Letzte Akt" ("The Last Act" - 1956) "Downfall" is a stunning cinematic achievement that illuminates minutiae about the last 10 days of the nefarious German leader who won the hSeptember 25, 2010
"Downfall" isn't about commuting history's sentence for the Nazis, but heeding its warning - a gruesome, sustained-tension lesson about informed politics and whether those who left evil to its own devices could arrive at a place of complicit guilt.June 29, 2013
...an unflinching, hard, relentlessly honest movie that refuses to ask questions that have easy answers. It is also brilliantly acted, written and focused...February 28, 2008
What an act of bravery it was to make Downfall.April 01, 2005
With a steely, unblinking resolve, Downfall stares into the abyss, but does not pretend to comprehend it.March 14, 2005
In a remarkable performance, perhaps the most impressive portrait of Hitler ever captured on film, Bruno Ganz plays Hitler as delusional, hateful and cruel man -- but also human.