--- title: "The Good German" year: 2006 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-good-german" fi1m_id: "the-good-german" imdb_id: "tt0452624" tmdb_id: 182 wikidata_id: "Q1470342" fi1m_score: 53 critics_score: 47 critics_reviews: 16 published: "2026-09-09" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:54.412008+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." --- # The Good German (2006) Directed by Steven Soderbergh · 1h 48m · MPA R · Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, War ## Identity The Good German - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-good-german - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-good-german - **IMDb ID:** tt0452624 - **TMDB ID:** 182 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1470342 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452624/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/182, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1470342 **Fi1m score: 53** · Critics 47 from 16 reviews *In a sentence:* Casablanca with the swearing left in and the heartbreak taken out > Steven Soderbergh shoots 1945 Berlin the way a 1946 studio would have, and the effect is often striking. But the story underneath is a muddle, the hero a bystander, and the film keeps everyone, including us, at arm’s length. ## Synopsis Berlin, summer 1945. The war is over and the Allied leaders are meeting at Potsdam. Jake Geismar (George Clooney), an American correspondent, flies in to cover the conference. His driver, Corporal Tully (Tobey Maguire), spends his evenings selling whatever the black market will take. Tully is also seeing Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a German woman Jake once knew, and Jake sets out to find her. Around them are an American colonel (Beau Bridges), an army investigator (Leland Orser), a congressman (Jack Thompson) and a Russian general (Ravil Isyanov), all interested in the same people. Steven Soderbergh directs, in black and white, from Paul Attanasio’s adaptation of Joseph Kanon’s novel. ## Review Steven Soderbergh has set out to make a 1946 studio thriller sixty years late. *The Good German* is in black and white, it runs a tidy 108 minutes, and it is set in Berlin in the summer of 1945, with the Allied leaders meeting at Potsdam down the road. Jake Geismar (George Clooney) flies in as a correspondent to cover the conference. His driver is a corporal called Tully (Tobey Maguire), who sells whatever the Russians will buy and sleeps with a German woman called Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett). Jake knew Lena before the war. He goes looking for her, and the film is about what he finds instead. Soderbergh shot and cut the film himself, and the look is the reason it exists. The light is hard and comes from one direction; faces go white, coats go black, and the shadows have edges. Philip Messina’s Berlin is a stage set of rubble and doorways with nothing behind them, and Louise Frogley dresses everybody in the belted raincoats and pulled-down hats a 1940s wardrobe department would have reached for without thinking. Thomas Newman writes for a full orchestra and lets the strings sob. We sat up the first time Blanchett walked into a scene, because she has the walk and the cheekbones of a Dietrich picture and looks as though she has been cut out of one and pasted in. For twenty minutes the imitation is enough. Then the film starts doing the things a 1946 picture could not. People swear. People take their clothes off. Tully hits people, and Maguire, with his choirboy’s face, plays him as a cheerful little sadist. The idea is plain enough: the world these films were made in was fouler than the films admitted, and here is the version with the foulness left in. Once, it lands. After that it becomes a habit, and the habit sits oddly against the rear projection and the swelling brass. Clooney has the harder problem. Jake is a man to whom things are done. He is beaten up, lied to and beaten up again, and he learns most of what he learns because someone in a uniform decides to tell him. Paul Attanasio’s screenplay, from Joseph Kanon’s novel, moves the plot forward in rooms: Beau Bridges’s Colonel Muller has a room, Leland Orser’s Bernie Teitel has a room, Jack Thompson’s congressman and Ravil Isyanov’s Russian general each get a room, and in each of them a man explains. Somewhere in the second half we lost track of who wanted which piece of paper and why. Then we stopped minding. Then we were annoyed at ourselves for not minding, because this is Berlin in 1945 and we ought to. Blanchett holds the middle of the film together on her own. She plays Lena as a woman who has already decided how much she will tell and to whom, and she keeps that decision in her face for the whole running time. When she does show something, it is a flicker, and the film around her is so cool that the flicker registers as heat. Clooney is at his best opposite her, listening; on his own he looks like a man waiting for his cue. Soderbergh has a long record of experiments, and this is one of the purer ones. The comparison it invites is [*Casablanca*](https://film.one/film/casablanca), and it does not survive it. The comparison it should have wanted is [*The Third Man*](https://film.one/film/the-third-man), Carol Reed’s 1949 film about another occupied capital, which also has a man who understands nothing walking through the ruins, and which is frightened and funny and sad in ways this film never manages. The difference is not the lenses. Reed cared what happened to his people. Most critics found it cold, and so did we, though we would put more on the credit side for the discipline of the surface. See it if a modern cast inside a museum-quality 1940s frame interests you as an idea; it is 108 minutes and there is always something to look at. Watch it at home with the lights off, where the blacks stay black. Do not expect to feel much, and do not blame Blanchett when you do not. *Fi1m score 53, published 9 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics agree on one thing: Soderbergh has rebuilt the look of a 1940s studio thriller with real care. The black-and-white photography, the backlot Berlin and the period lighting are praised almost everywhere, even in the harshest notices, and Cate Blanchett is the performance most often singled out, with several critics describing her as a visitor from an earlier era. The few who like the film treat it as a bold experiment and take its coldness as part of the point. That coldness is where the reviews split, and the split is wide. The majority find the film lifeless: a muddled script, a passive hero, no romance and no warmth, technique with nothing underneath it. Several object to how closely it leans on Casablanca. The New Yorker goes further, arguing that the film-buff approach glosses over the real horrors of 1945 Berlin, and The Guardian calls the whole enterprise cynical. A handful of positive notices keep the score from falling lower. ## Straight answers **Is The Good German worth watching?** *The Good German* is worth watching only for viewers curious about a modern cast inside a museum-quality 1940s frame, and we scored it 53. Soderbergh's black and white Berlin is often striking and Cate Blanchett holds the middle together, but the plot is a muddle explained in rooms and the film keeps everyone at arm's length. Do not expect to feel much. **How long is The Good German, and what is it rated?** *The Good German* runs 1h 48m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and mystery film. **Where can I watch The Good German in the US?** *The Good German* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $2.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is The Good German, and is it suitable for children?** *The Good German* is certified 15 in the UK and R in the US, and it is not for children. Unlike the 1940s thrillers it imitates, it keeps the swearing, the nudity and the beatings in, with Tobey Maguire's corporal played as a cheerful sadist. It is not frightening so much as cool and grim; teenagers who can take an adult wartime drama will manage. **How does The Good German compare to The Third Man?** *The Good German* invites comparison with [*The Third Man*](https://film.one/film/the-third-man) and does not survive it. Both follow a baffled American through an occupied capital that knows more than he does, but Carol Reed's film is frightening, funny and sad, with a man worth caring about, where Soderbergh's is a handsome, cold exercise. Watch the earlier film first; it is the better one by a distance. **Is The Good German based on a true story or a book?** *The Good German* is adapted from Joseph Kanon's novel of the same name, not from a true story, though it is set among real events: Berlin in the summer of 1945, with the Allied leaders meeting at Potsdam. Paul Attanasio wrote the screenplay. You do not need to have read the book to follow it, and we cannot say how closely it keeps to Kanon. **What should I watch after The Good German?** After *The Good German*, try [*The Third Man*](https://film.one/film/the-third-man) (1949, Fi1m 92): Occupied Vienna, a baffled American and a city that knows more than he does. Then [*Phoenix*](https://film.one/film/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix) (2014, Fi1m 68): Petzold’s postwar Berlin melodrama has the ache this film reaches for; and [*The Man Who Wasn't There*](https://film.one/film/the-man-who-wasnt-there) (2001, Fi1m 81): The Coens’ black-and-white noir imitation, with a heart under the hat. ### Reviews we read (16) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (B+): The critic praises the rigorous technical recreation of postwar Hollywood cinema and its knowing sophistication, while noting the film's clinical detachment leaves it chilly at heart yet still rewarding in its exploration of moral ambiguity. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-good-german-1798202266) - **Little White Lies**, Matt Bochenski (3/4/3): Soderbergh’s monochrome mystery has a winning, slightly oddball charm with Blanchett brilliant as an apparition from an earlier era. Clumsy plotting and passive protagonist are minor drawbacks in an otherwise fine vintage. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-good-german) - **Total Film** (80/100, inferred): Soderbergh's noir throwback impresses with its old-school style and contemporary resonance, bringing desperation and fatalism of the 1940s into the present through a hard-boiled story and standout performances, especially Blanchett's. It succeeds as a bold, invigorating experiment from a daring director. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-good-german-review/) - **Time Out**, Geoff Andrew (70/100, inferred): Soderbergh's canny audacity produces a strong, mostly successful foray into post-war Berlin's wreckage with terrific black-and-white visuals. The bleak moral tale lacks sympathetic characters and dramatic engagement in places. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-good-german-1) - **Los Angeles Times**, Carina Chocano (65/100, inferred): Soderbergh crafts a stylish noir throwback that captures period nuance and bleak worldview through vintage techniques, though the characters feel layered to the point of lacking believable emotional bonds. The critic singles out the moral confusion at the story's core as both intriguing and ultimately mired in style. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-dec-15-et-german15-story.html) - **IndieWire**, Michael Koresky (50/100, inferred): The critic examines the film's stylistic ambitions and clashes between modern and classic approaches in Soderbergh's homage to old Hollywood thrillers. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/review-style-wars-steven-soderberghs-the-good-german-75553/) - **Sight and Sound** (50/100, inferred): Soderbergh's retro noir homage to 1940s classics like Casablanca pushes incompatible styles to breaking point and results in an incoherent script lacking dramatic logic. It remains interesting to watch with occasional beauty and inventive sequences. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49360) - **The Times**, James Christopher (40/100, inferred): The first reel impresses as vintage film noir with authentic visuals and Blanchett's Dietrich-like performance, but the story becomes a poor Casablanca with cold chemistry, sapping Cold War cynicism, and a failure to deliver romance or warmth despite the stylistic ambition. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/europe-travel/germany/berlin/why-clooneys-bogey-is-bogart-pbhqdxndpfj) - **Empire**, Ian Freer (35/100, inferred): Soderbergh's ambitious pastiche of 1940s noir succeeds in its technical recreation of the era's style but results in a lifeless and remote film that lacks character nuance and compelling storytelling. The cast fails to generate star wattage in what becomes an unengaging experiment. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/good-german-review/) - **Evening Standard** (30/100, inferred): Soderbergh's attempt to recreate a 1940s studio thriller in style and substance falls flat, resulting in a stylish but emotionally null exercise rather than a compelling drama. The cast is muted and the modern additions fail to bring the material to life. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-forties-drained-of-drama-7393434.html) - **Screen Daily** (30/100, inferred): Soderbergh's bold homage to wartime noir classics fails to generate suspense or romance despite technical audacity in black-and-white backlot recreation. It is ultimately dreary and an expensive curio. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/the-good-german/4029809.article) - **Slant Magazine**, Nick Schager (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film's meticulous recreation of 1940s Hollywood style technically impressive but ultimately hollow and parodic, with an airless, inconsequential narrative that induces indifference rather than engagement. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-good-german/) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (30/100, inferred): Soderbergh's genre pastiche fails to recapture classical Hollywood energy or pleasure, resulting in a disengaged and tonally off-key film. The critic singles out the feel-bad denouement for transforming the story's central figure into an offensive historical cliché. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/movies/15germ.html) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (25/100, inferred): The film is clever and picturesque but insubstantial, prioritizing stylistic homage over engagement with its 1945 Berlin setting and real historical horrors. The critic singles out the excessive movie-buff approach that glosses over atrocity by treating it as cinematic pastiche. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/12/18/fighting-men) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (20/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a monumentally misjudged and cynical pastiche of 1940s thrillers like Casablanca, with strong technical recreation but no heart, passion or memorable characters. The script is muddled and boring, the performances detached, and modern nastiness clashes with the homage. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/mar/09/thriller1) - **Eye for Film**, The Exile (30/100, inferred): The critic views the film as an artificial, gloomy stylistic exercise that fails as drama, with Soderbergh more interested in technical replication than storytelling, resulting in a picture with no real substance underneath the window dressing. The one thing singled out is the effective but ultimately distancing visual recreation of postwar Berlin through period techniques and high-contrast lighting. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-good-german-film-review-by-the-exile) ## Details - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Director:** Steven Soderbergh - **Screenplay:** Paul Attanasio - **Novel:** Joseph Kanon - **Cinematography:** Steven Soderbergh - **Editor:** Steven Soderbergh - **Music:** Thomas Newman - **Production design:** Philip Messina - **Costume design:** Louise Frogley - **Producer:** Gregory Jacobs, Ben Cosgrove - **Cast:** George Clooney as Jake Geismar; Cate Blanchett as Lena Brandt; Tobey Maguire as Tully; Beau Bridges as Colonel Muller; Tony Curran as Danny; Leland Orser as Bernie Teitel; Jack Thompson as Congressman Breimer; Robin Weigert as Hannelore - **Runtime:** 1h 48m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 19 January 2007 - **Genres:** Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, War - **Budget:** $32 million - **Box office:** $6 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, HR, IN, IT, JP, MX, NL, NO, PL, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2007: Best Original Score (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Third Man* (1949), Fi1m 92: Occupied Vienna, a baffled American and a city that knows more than he does. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-third-man.md) - *A Foreign Affair* (1948): Billy Wilder in ruined Berlin with the real Dietrich, and it is funny. - *Germany Year Zero* (1948): Rossellini shot the actual rubble, with a child in it; no pastiche required. - *Phoenix* (2014), Fi1m 68: Petzold’s postwar Berlin melodrama has the ache this film reaches for. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix.md) - *The Man Who Wasn't There* (2001), Fi1m 81: The Coens’ black-and-white noir imitation, with a heart under the hat. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-man-who-wasnt-there.md) --- © 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/the-good-german