---
name: "Arno Frisch"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/arno-frisch"
fi1m_id: "arno-frisch"
imdb_id: "nm0295823"
tmdb_id: 20449
wikidata_id: "Q79097"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "13 November 1975"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T22:16:17.819729+00:00"
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."
---

# Arno Frisch

## Identity

Arno Frisch

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/arno-frisch
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** arno-frisch
- **IMDb ID:** nm0295823
- **TMDB ID:** 20449
- **Wikidata ID:** Q79097
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Frisch, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79097, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0295823/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20449

Actor. Born 13 November 1975 in Vienna, Austria.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 13 November 1975, Vienna, Austria
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Frisch, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79097, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0295823/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20449

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*Funny Games*](https://film.one/film/funny-games.md) (74)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Arno Frisch

> Arno Frisch makes cruelty frighteningly ordinary. His polite Paul in *Funny Games* is a performance we recommend with caution: the quiet control unsettles us more effectively than Michael Haneke's repeated insistence that we examine why we are watching.

In *Funny Games* (1997), Paul speaks quietly while a family is humiliated. Arno Frisch offers no comforting suggestion that this is a man who has simply lost his temper. Alongside Frank Giering, he makes the menace horribly casual, with courtesy continuing after any pretence of decent behaviour has gone. We were horrified by how little effort either man seemed to need to make that humiliation feel routine. The lack of anger makes it worse.

Frisch made his debut in the lead of Michael Haneke's *Benny's Video* (1992), as a teenager obsessed with video violence. His early roles for Haneke associated him with emotionally detached or violent young men. The move from Benny to Paul kept him within the director's examinations of media and violence. We would not take those two parts as a complete account of what he can do. They do suggest an actor willing to be disliked, and in *Funny Games* he offers no reassuring explanation for Paul's behaviour.

Frisch and Giering are most effective because they leave the family's suffering in view rather than competing with it. Neither needs a display of rage to establish the threat, and the victims remain painfully human. The reservation lies with Haneke, who repeatedly lectures us about why we are watching when the performances have already made watching difficult. We recommend the film for its dread, but the insistence grows tiresome. Frisch's quiet control has made the point, and there are stretches when we wish the director would let it stand.

His subsequent work extends through Austrian and German films and television, including Niko in *Your Name Is Justine* (2005) and a recurring part as Sándor Gosztonyi in *Babylon Berlin* (2017). Those credits are a useful reminder not to reduce an actor to the roles through which we know him best. Start with *Funny Games*, but take its capacity to spoil a comfortable evening seriously.

## Biography

Arno Frisch is an Austrian actor. He was born on 13 November 1975 in Vienna.

He played the lead roles of Benny in Michael Haneke’s *Benny’s Video* (1992) and Paul in Haneke’s *Funny Games* (1997). He has also appeared in the series *Babylon Berlin* (2017) as Sándor Gosztonyi.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, filmportal.de.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Funny Games* (1997), Fi1m 74, as Paul — [page](https://film.one/film/funny-games.md)

## Complete filmography (23)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Investigation* (2024), as Zeuge 3
- *Prélude* (2019), as Prof. Thibault
- *Life Guidance* (2018), as Harter Kollege, Patrick
- *Babylon Berlin* (2017), series, as Sándor Gosztonyi — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/babylon-berlin.md)
- *Metamorphosis* (2015), as Stefan Schmidt
- *October November* (2014), as Rainer
- *Das Geschenk* (2013), as Vater
- *Long Distance Call* (2011), as Henry
- *Bedways* (2010), as Max König
- *Blessed Events* (2010), as Herbert
- *Fetish* (2008), as John Waits
- *Falco: Damn It, We're Still Alive!* (2008), as Alois Hölzel
- *8 x 45* (2006), series, as Marc
- *Vienna Crime Squad* (2005), series, as Ricky Flicker
- *Your Name is Justine* (2005), as Niko
- *Blackout Journey* (2004), as Valentin
- *99€ Films* (2001), Actor
- *Die Neue - Eine Frau mit Kaliber* (1998), series, as Herbert Platt
- *Angel Express* (1998), as Doctor
- *Sentimental Education* (1998), as Mineichmus
- *Funny Games* (1997), as Paul — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/funny-games.md)
- *Benny's Video* (1992), as Benny
- *Scene of the Crime* (1970), series, as Nemetz, Alexander Lohmann

---
© 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/person/arno-frisch