Bringemovies
← Browse Movies
The Lives of Others
TITLE DETAILS

The Lives of Others

2006-03-23 · 137 min · ★ 8.0

Drama · Thriller

In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.

Open detail page

Trailers are previews, not full movies.

No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.

Production details

Directors
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Production companies
Creado Film, Wiedemann & Berg Film, ARTE, BR
Countries
Germany, France
Status
Released
Budget
USD 2,000,000
Revenue
USD 77,672,685

Top Cast

Martina GedeckMartina GedeckChrista-Maria Sieland
Ulrich MüheUlrich MüheGerd Wiesler
Sebastian KochSebastian KochGeorg Dreyman
Ulrich TukurUlrich TukurAnton Grubitz
Thomas ThiemeThomas ThiemeBruno Hempf
Hans-Uwe BauerHans-Uwe BauerPaul Hauser
Volkmar KleinertVolkmar KleinertAlbert Jerska
Matthias BrennerMatthias BrennerKarl Wallner
Charly HübnerCharly HübnerUdo
Herbert KnaupHerbert KnaupGregor Hessenstein
Bastian TrostBastian TrostHäftling 227
Marie GruberMarie GruberFrau Meineke
Volker MichalowskiVolker MichalowskiSchriftexperte
Werner DaehnWerner DaehnEinsatzleiter in Uniform
Hinnerk SchönemannHinnerk SchönemannAxel Stigler
Thomas ArnoldThomas ArnoldNowack
Ludwig BlochbergerLudwig BlochbergerBenedikt Lehmann
Martin BrambachMartin BrambachEinsatzleiter Meyer
Hubertus HartmannHubertus HartmannEgon Schwalber
Paul FaßnachtPaul FaßnachtOnkel Frank Hauser

Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.

Where to watch

Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.

Rental

Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home, FlixFling

Purchase

Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home

View authorized watch options on TMDb

Recommendations

M
★ 8.1
M1931Drama · Thriller

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

Funeral in Berlin
★ 6.4
Funeral in Berlin1966Thriller

Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.

Two Lives
★ 6.6
Two Lives2012Drama · Thriller

Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?

Alone in Berlin
★ 6.7
Alone in Berlin2016Drama · Thriller

Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.

The Tunnel
★ 7.2
The Tunnel2001Drama · Thriller

Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.

Balloon
★ 7.5
Balloon2018Drama · Thriller

Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape the GDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.

The Quiller Memorandum
★ 5.9
The Quiller Memorandum1966Drama · Thriller

After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.

The Mask of Dimitrios
★ 7.1
The Mask of Dimitrios1944Drama

A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.

The Bourne Supremacy
★ 7.3
The Bourne Supremacy2004Drama · Thriller

A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.

The Last Execution
★ 6.2
The Last Execution2021Drama · Thriller

The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...

Despair
★ 6.5
Despair1978Drama · Thriller

Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.

23
★ 6.8
231998Drama · Thriller

The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.

Retribution
★ 6.5
Retribution2023Thriller

When a mysterious caller plants a bomb under his car seat, a bank executive begins a high-speed chase across the city to complete a specific series of tasks — all with his kids trapped in the back seat.

The Social Reckoning
★ 7.0
The Social Reckoning2026Drama · Thriller

Frances Haugen, a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets.

Ministry of Fear
★ 6.9
Ministry of Fear1944Thriller

Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin
★ 6.8
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin2024Drama

As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.

Phoenix
★ 6.8
Phoenix2014Drama

In the aftermath of WWII, German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly has to undergo facial reconstructive surgery following her survival from Auschwitz. Without recognising Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he's betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelgänger.

The House on Carroll Street
★ 6.0
The House on Carroll Street1988Drama · Thriller

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.

The Amateur
★ 6.9
The Amateur2025Thriller

After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
★ 7.3
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser1974Drama

The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.

Similar titles

The Red Horse
★ 6.2
The Red Horse1981Drama

A joint fight of Macedonian and Greek people against the fascist monarchical government of Greece ended with their defeat in 1949, after many years of bloodshed. Many members of the democratic party DAG, as well as the innocent inhabitants experienced the destiny of political exile.

That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles
★ 7.0
That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles1979Drama

A student of architecture from Zagreb believes that the new model of city can meet the need of its citizens. However, his professors, the corrupt business environment and even the parents of his fiancée stand on his way.

Men in Her Life
★ 6.1
Men in Her Life1931Drama

A wealthy ex-bootlegger comes to the rescue of a formerly rich society girl after her gold-digging fiancé leaves her stranded when he finds out she's broke. The bootlegger proposes a deal: he will settle her debts if she teaches him how to be "a gentleman".

Night World
★ 6.8
Night World1932Drama

"Happy" MacDonald and his unfaithful wife own a Prohibition era night club. On this eventful night, he is threatened by bootleggers, and the club's star dancer falls in love with a young socialite who drinks to forget a personal tragedy, among other incidents.

The Salvation
★ 6.5
The Salvation2014Drama

In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family's murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone.

The Secret Call
★ 7.7
The Secret Call1931Drama

The Secret Call is adapted from The Woman, a play by William C. DeMille (brother of Cecil B.) Peggy Shannon plays Wanda Kelly, the daughter of a disgraced politician. Reduced to working as a switchboard operator, Wanda is privy to the many secrets and indiscretions of the clients of a big-city hotel. She also finds romance in the form of handsome Tom Blake (Richard Arlen). The huge cast of characters comes in handy for the film's multitude of subplots, none of which ever get their wires crossed. Peggy Shannon acquits herself nicely in her first major role, but by the end of the decade her career was in decline.

Breach
★ 6.6
Breach2007Drama · Thriller

Eric O'Neill, a low-level surveillance expert with the FBI, believes he is accomplishing his dream of becoming a full-fledged agent, with his unexpected promotion and assignment to clerk for Robert Hanssen, a renowned senior agent with 25 years in the FBI. However, he soon learns the reason for his promotion is to gain Hanssen's trust and find proof that he is a traitor to the country. Determined to draw the suspected double-agent out of deep cover, O'Neill finds himself in a lethal game of spy vs. spy, where nothing is as it seems.

On Distant Shores
★ 6.0
On Distant Shores1958Drama

The film portrays the life of the legendary Azerbaijani guerrilla of the Second World War Mehdi Huseynzadeh, who fought the Nazi forces in the present-day Italy and Slovenia, hence the film's name On distant shores referring to the Adriatic Sea.

Bordertown
★ 6.3
Bordertown2007Drama · Thriller

American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products. Lauren Adrian, an impassioned American news reporter for the Chicago Sentinel wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.

Les Misérables
★ 7.2
Les Misérables1998Drama

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

The Brothers Grimm
★ 5.9
The Brothers Grimm2005Thriller

Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.

The Idiot
★ 6.6
The Idiot1946Drama

Muichkine, a young Russian prince, returns home to St. Petersburg from a mental institution, determined to spread decency and kindness in the harsh and cruel world. He becomes betrothed to an innocent young girl while trying to save a less-innocent woman from her own travail, but jealousy and his own naivete conjoin to bring about unimaginable tragedy.

Gone Baby Gone
★ 7.3
Gone Baby Gone2007Drama

When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons—they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live.

Enigma
★ 5.6
Enigma1982Drama · Thriller

Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.

Snipers Valley
★ 4.6
Snipers Valley2007Drama

Young Bundeswehr soldiers Tom and Charly are stationed in Kosovo with the KFOR peacekeeping force. Their mission is to secure peace. Although the brutal war between the enemy Serbs and Albanians is officially over, the hatred between people continues to smoulder. When Tom and Charly rescue the young Serbian Mirjana from the fatal shot of the young sniper Durcan, they get caught between all fronts. They lose their professional distance due to the resulting closeness to Mirjana - who has to learn that her father was a war criminal - but also to Durcan - whose entire family was wiped out. Soon they are entangled in a conflict about guilt, manipulation, love and revenge...

Two Men in Town
★ 7.1
Two Men in Town1973Drama

A former bank robber is released after 10 years in prison. He gets help from a social-worker, but gets harassed by an old cop from his past.

Gummadi Narsaiah
Not rated
Gummadi Narsaiah2024Drama

Lust, Caution
★ 7.3
Lust, Caution2007Drama · Thriller

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

The Sum of All Fears
★ 6.4
The Sum of All Fears2002Drama · Thriller

When the president of Russia suddenly dies, a man whose politics are virtually unknown succeeds him. The change in political leaders sparks paranoia among American CIA officials, so CIA director Bill Cabot recruits a young analyst to supply insight and advice on the situation. Then the unthinkable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in a U.S. city, and America is quick to blame the Russians.

Dark Blue
★ 6.2
Dark Blue2002Drama · Thriller

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Your favorites

Recently viewed

Watch

Choose an authorized server.

Full video from an operator-configured authorized source. Official trailers use a separate player. If a server fails, retry or select another authorized server.

Legal watch options

Official trailer

Trailer preview only. Press Play to start.

Privacy choices

Favorites stay in your browser. Movie images load from TMDb. YouTube trailers contact YouTube only after you allow external media and choose a trailer. Advertising consent, if ads are enabled, is managed separately by the operator’s certified CMP.

Privacy policy

After allowing external media, choose the trailer button to load its player.