--- title: "Funny Games" year: 1997 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/funny-games" fi1m_id: "funny-games" imdb_id: "tt0119167" tmdb_id: 10234 wikidata_id: "Q696928" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 64 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-13" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:48.647387+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Funny Games (1997) Directed by Michael Haneke · 1h 49m · MPA R · Drama, Horror, Thriller ## Identity Funny Games - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/funny-games - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** funny-games - **IMDb ID:** tt0119167 - **TMDB ID:** 10234 - **Wikidata ID:** Q696928 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10234, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q696928 **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 64 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Two polite young men make us long for someone with the decency to shout > Michael Haneke makes quiet cruelty almost unbearable, helped by performances that keep the victims painfully human. We recommend it for the dread, with reservations about the repeated lectures on why we are watching. ## Synopsis A family encounters two polite young men whose interest in them turns into psychological torment. The men seek power over their victims and use humiliation to exercise it, leaving the family to face cruelty without an explanation that might help them understand it. Michael Haneke’s horror thriller follows this encounter while drawing attention to the audience’s position as spectators of violence. Susanne Lothar plays Anna and Ulrich Mühe plays Georg, with Arno Frisch as Paul, Frank Giering as Peter and Stefan Clapczynski as Georgie. ## Review Michael Haneke’s *Funny Games* is a frightening horror film with a habit of lecturing its audience. We recommend it to those prepared for sustained distress, with reservations about its certainty that our interest in screen violence needs correcting. The premise is spare: two polite young men subject a family to psychological torment. Haneke, who also writes the screenplay, concentrates on power and humiliation rather than giving the tormentors a motive that might make them easier to understand. Arno Frisch and Frank Giering make the menace feel horribly casual. The politeness of the two tormentors is the detail that gets under the skin: courtesy continues after any pretence of decent behaviour has gone. We were horrified by the way their quiet manner makes the family’s humiliation seem routine. That quietness gives us time to consider the cruelty, without the distraction of a villain performing rage or explaining himself. Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe give the suffering a weight that the film needs if its ideas are to matter. Our attention stays with the family rather than drifting towards admiration for the tormentors’ cleverness. That is a considerable achievement in a film built around such an unequal struggle. The actors make it possible to care about the people even when Haneke seems most interested in what their predicament will do to us. Jürgen Jürges’s cinematography works with the sparing display of violence, keeping the victims more important than the spectacle of injury. Christoph Kanter’s production design is unobtrusive enough that the people remain the source of unease. Neither contribution gives us the reassurance of a horror film proudly displaying its effects. Andreas Prochaska’s editing is more conspicuous: scenes last long enough for waiting itself to become distressing, and the attention paid to aftermath denies the easy escape of moving straight on. The lack of relief is exhausting. The difficulty comes when Haneke treats that exhaustion as proof of something about the audience. We can be distressed by fictional cruelty without needing to be corrected for having watched it, and sympathy for these victims is hardly evidence of a secret appetite for their suffering. His screenplay allows too little room for that distinction. Once the point has registered, the insistence becomes wearing; the prolonged scenes sometimes make us conscious of a director pressing his case when we would rather stay with the family. As a horror film, it gets much further with quiet coercion than many films get with elaborate injuries. The young men’s lack of motive leaves little to explain away, and their manners deny the useful warning of obvious rage. That is an unsettling choice, sustained with considerable discipline. Haneke’s skill at making fear last is the reason to watch, regardless of how much faith we place in his claims about the audience. This is not an evening’s entertainment to choose casually. At 109 minutes, it asks more of our patience than the running time suggests. Choose it for the performances and the sustained dread, provided there is room tonight for a film this determined to be unpleasant. *Fi1m score 74, published 13 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics agree that Funny Games is deeply disturbing, and that this is the point. The praise clusters on Haneke’s control: the violence kept off-screen so the audience has to imagine it, the long unbroken scenes of a family being tormented, and two polite young intruders who want nothing but power and humiliation. Several reviews single out the moments when the film turns to address the viewer directly, arguing that they make the audience complicit. The spread is wide. The reservations cluster on the lecture underneath the thriller. Slant Magazine calls the film a bullying thesis that scolds viewers for enjoying what it shows and faults Haneke for exempting himself from the violence he condemns. The New York Times finds sophisticated cinematic sadism rather than a moral challenge, and Variety thinks it outstays its welcome and is too knowing about the genre. The dissent is entirely American; the British reviews are the warmest. ## Straight answers **Is Funny Games worth watching?** *Funny Games* is worth watching for anyone prepared for sustained distress, and we scored it 74. Arno Frisch and Frank Giering make two polite tormentors horribly casual, and Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe keep the family human enough to care about. Our reservation is Michael Haneke's habit of lecturing the audience about why it is watching. **How long is Funny Games, and what is it rated?** *Funny Games* runs 1h 49m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and horror film. **Where can I watch Funny Games in the US?** *Funny Games* is streaming on HBO Max, Tubi, The Roku Channel and Hulu in the US. It leaves HBO Max on 30 September. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Funny Games, and is it suitable for children?** *Funny Games* carries an 18 certificate and is not suitable for children. The violence is shown sparingly, but the film is built on prolonged psychological torment and humiliation, with long scenes in which waiting itself becomes distressing. We would not recommend it to the squeamish or to anyone wanting relief along the way. **How does Funny Games compare to Caché?** *Funny Games* is the harsher of Michael Haneke's two ordeals, putting a family through direct psychological torment where [*Caché*](https://film.one/film/cache) works through the slower pressure of surveillance on a comfortable couple. Both share his determination to direct our judgement, which wears in each. *Caché* is the more absorbing evening; *Funny Games* is for those who want the fear kept close and unrelieved. **What should I watch after Funny Games?** After *Funny Games*, try [*The Vanishing*](https://film.one/film/the-vanishing) (1988, Fi1m 88): A disappearance thriller that makes curiosity feel like a dangerous personal weakness. Then [*Caché*](https://film.one/film/cache) (2005, Fi1m 88): Another Haneke ordeal, with surveillance putting a comfortable household under pressure; and [*The Servant*](https://film.one/film/the-servant) (1963, Fi1m 89): For class hostility and domestic power struggles conducted through careful manners. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (85/100, inferred): Haneke delivers a remarkable film that encourages identification with the victims while making the villains creepily unforgettable. Its sparing on-screen violence and protracted scenes make it one worth seeing despite being arguable. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/funny-games-review/) - **Little White Lies**, Stephen Puddicombe (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Haneke’s meta home-invasion film as a chilling, technically masterful satire on screen violence that still shocks through its naturalistic tension and fourth-wall breaks. It singles out the film’s ability to implicate viewers in the violence while delivering genuine horror despite its didactic intent. [Read](https://lwlies.com/articles/funny-games-michael-haneke-satire-screen-violence/) - **Total Film** (80/100, inferred): Haneke subverts thriller conventions by keeping violence off-screen and forcing the audience to imagine terrors and witness aftermaths. The result is an immensely disturbing piece of cinema that makes viewers complicit through direct address and rewinding tricks. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/funny-games-review/) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (65/100, inferred): Haneke's 1998 Funny Games is a masterful home-invasion thriller designed to drive people out of the theater or punish those who stay. It succeeds by being deeply unsatisfying through its relentlessly sadistic story of a bourgeois family tormented by two young psychos. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/four-films-by-michael-haneke-1798201677) - **Variety**, David Rooney (50/100, inferred): The film is a chilling psychological thriller about a family subjected to sadistic torment, continuing Haneke's examination of violence and media. However, it outstays its welcome and feels overly knowing in its manipulation of genre expectations. [Read](https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/funny-games-1117329710/) - **The New York Times**, Stephen Holden (40/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a blood-curdling portrait that uses Brechtian devices to confront viewers with their voyeurism toward violence. It ultimately comes across as a sophisticated act of cinematic sadism rather than a genuine moral challenge. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/11/movies/film-review-an-exploration-he-explains-of-reactions-to-torture.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Derek Smith (30/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a bullying thesis statement that scolds viewers for enjoying thriller violence through metatextual tricks, resulting in a dour and grueling experience of condescending sadism. Haneke is faulted for refusing to implicate himself in the violence he condemns. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/funny-games-blu-ray-review-michael-hanekes/) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (85/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as skin-crawlingly terrifying and more frightening than conventional horror due to its quiet, realistic psychological torture of an upper-class family by two polite young men with no motive beyond power and humiliation. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/funny-games-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) ## Details - **Director:** Michael Haneke - **Director:** Michael Haneke - **Screenplay:** Michael Haneke - **Cinematography:** Jürgen Jürges - **Editor:** Andreas Prochaska - **Production design:** Christoph Kanter - **Costume design:** Lisy Christl - **Producer:** Veit Heiduschka - **Cast:** Susanne Lothar as Anna; Ulrich Mühe as Georg; Arno Frisch as Paul; Frank Giering as Peter; Stefan Clapczynski as Georgie; Doris Kunstmann as Gerda; Christoph Bantzer as Fred; Wolfgang Glück as Robert - **Runtime:** 1h 49m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 11 March 1998 - **Genres:** Drama, Horror, Thriller - **Box office:** $2,506 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - Tubi: free, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd *Checked 2026-09-13.* Also available in: BE, BR, CA, GB, IE, IT, JP, NL, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Peeping Tom* (1960): For another uncomfortable encounter between watching violence and wanting to keep watching - *The Vanishing* (1988), Fi1m 88: A disappearance thriller that makes curiosity feel like a dangerous personal weakness — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-vanishing.md) - *Caché* (2005), Fi1m 88: Another Haneke ordeal, with surveillance putting a comfortable household under pressure — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/cache.md) - *The Servant* (1963), Fi1m 89: For class hostility and domestic power struggles conducted through careful manners — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-servant.md) - *The Invitation* (2015): A dinner where good manners make it harder to admit something is wrong --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/funny-games