experiment movie german

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The Experiment

For two weeks, 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a prison. The "prisoners" have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the "guards" are told to retain order without... Read all For two weeks, 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a prison. The "prisoners" have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the "guards" are told to retain order without using physical violence. For two weeks, 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a prison. The "prisoners" have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the "guards" are told to retain order without using physical violence.

• Oliver Hirschbiegel
• Mario Giordano
• Christoph Darnstädt
• Don Bohlinger
• Moritz Bleibtreu
• Christian Berkel
• Oliver Stokowski
• 190 User reviews
• 109 Critic reviews
• 59 Metascore
• 14 wins & 14 nominations total

Top cast 31

• Tarek Fahd Nr. 77

• Robert Steinhoff Nr. 38

• Günther Schütte Nr. 82

• Joe Maier Nr. 69
• Häftling Nr. 53
• Häftling Nr. 40

• Häftling Nr. 21
• Häftling Nr. 15
• Häftling Nr. 74
• Häftling Nr. 11
• Häftling Nr. 86
• (as Thorsten J.H. Dersch)
• Häftling Nr. 94

• (as Justus von Dohnànyi)

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• Trivia Although no one died in the Stanford Prison Experiment on which the movie was based, the experiment was prematurely ended after six days out of a planned two weeks. The college students assigned (randomly) to be prisoners were "withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways" as a result of the degrading treatment they received. Quite a few scenes in the movie actually happened in the original experiment, including the early fire extinguisher scene and the prisoners being forced to clean the toilets by their bare hands.
• Goofs On the film poster Tarek is wearing number 82, but in the film he is number 77.

[last lines]

Nachrichtensprecher : [voiceover - spoiler] The tragic outcome: two dead, three injured, among them project leader Professor Klaus Thon. Clearly, the experiment went out of control after two days. The district attorney is investigating two possible manslaughter charges and several charges of abuse and negligence. One of the test participants has been arrested. The project direction will probably have to answer to a court. According to statements by one of the scientists, the escalation might have been prevented by aborting the experiment earlier.

• Alternate versions The first cinema version had an insert in the beginning of the movie which stated "This is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment". Since Prof. Philip Zimbardo wasn't asked by the filmmakers - and the movie doesn't really show the true experiment, but an exaggeration, the insert was changed to say "This movie is based on the novel Black Box"
• Connections Featured in Visionado obligado: El experimento (2012)
• Soundtracks One Step Closer Chester Bennington / Rob Bourdon / Brad Delson / Joseph Hahn / Mike Shinoda Linkin Park Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Zomba Enterprises Inc. / Zomba Songs Inc. / Rob Bourdon Music Nondisclosure Agreement Music/Big Bad Mr.Hahn Music / Kenji Kobayashi Music (all adm. by Zomba Songs Inc.) und der Wea Records, ein Geschaftsbereich von Warner Music Germany GmbH

User reviews 190

Zee germans.

• Nov 28, 2004
• How long is The Experiment? Powered by Alexa
• March 8, 2001 (Germany)
• Những Kẻ Thí Nghiệm
• University of Cologne, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Senator Film Produktion
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Sep 22, 2002
• $13,782,896
• Runtime 2 hours
• Dolby Digital

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Product Description

The movie is based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The 'prisoners' are locked up and have tofollow seemingly mild rules, and the 'guards' are told simply to retain order without using physical v

With a terrific display of ensemble acting and unforced use of the popular claustrophobic semi-documentary look, Hirschbiegel's movie takes its time to get underway, with apparently irrelevant cutaways to Fahd's outside girlfriend (Maren Eggert), but works up to a powerful second half that delivers a sustained symphony of psychological and physical anguish. --Kim Newman

Product details

• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.85:1
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ R (Restricted)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.44 x 5.35 x 0.59 inches; 3.2 ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ Oliver Hirschbiegel
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ Color, Anamorphic, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, NTSC, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 59 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ July 1, 2003
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
• Producers ‏ : ‎ Fritz Wildfeuer
• Language ‏ : ‎ German (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00009AVA8
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #1,438 in Foreign Films (Movies & TV)
• #6,367 in Mystery & Thrillers (Movies & TV)
• #19,773 in Drama DVDs

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5.0 out of 5 stars Blown away!!!

5.0 out of 5 stars german language, english subtitles, get it anyway.

4.0 out of 5 stars Some reservations, but interesting...

5.0 out of 5 stars ... thought at that time it was one of the best foreign films i had ever seen, 3.0 out of 5 stars message film with great performances.

5.0 out of 5 stars The movie is required viewing for all corrections personnel

5.0 out of 5 stars power and relationships, top reviews from other countries, 5.0 out of 5 stars schnell geliefer, güntiger preis gute qualirät, gern wieder., 4.0 out of 5 stars the experiment - new edition, 5.0 out of 5 stars i recommend it, 5.0 out of 5 stars big brother meets guantanamo bay, 5.0 out of 5 stars das experiment.

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The Experiment

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• Timo Dierkes

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• #53 Best German Movies of all time
• #102 Best Movies Based on a True Story
• "It's hypnotic, a slick and well-told story that's all the more haunting because it's finally empty."  Elvis Mitchell : The New York Times
• "A harrowing study of the corrosive effects of absolute power." The Washington Post
• "An R-rated version of Survivor, Big Brother or any number of reality-TV shows that present voyeurism as entertainment and exploitation as insight." Loren King : Chicago Tribune
• "This deftly crafted film provokes the kind of creeping horror that Lord of the Flies memorably nailed." Megan Turner : New York Post
• "A disturbing film that forces moviegoers to ask: 'What would I do in a similar situation?'"  Jonathan Curiel : SFGATE
• "Rigid, airless, and browbeatingly repetitive, Das Experiment is an overly didactic piece of thesis hectoring"  Owen Gleiberman : Entertainment Weekly
• 16 My Favorite German Movies (72)
• 25 My Top 10 Movies from 2001 (112)
• 38 Little Gems: Little Known Movies I've Discovered (67)
• 68 My Favorite Movies from Europe & Latin America (35)

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User history

Das Experiment

Human behavior is determined to some degree by the uniforms we wear. An army might march more easily in sweat pants, but it wouldn’t have the same sense of purpose. School uniforms enlist kids in the “student body.” Catholic nuns saw recruitment fall off when they modernized their habits. If you want to figure out what someone thinks of himself, examine the uniform he is wearing. Gene Siskel amused himself by looking at people on the street and thinking: When they left home this morning, they thought they looked good in that.

“Das Experiment,” a new film from Germany, suggests that uniforms and the roles they assign amplify underlying psychological tendencies. In the experiment, 20 men are recruited to spend two weeks in a prison environment. Eight are made into guards and given quasi-military uniforms. Twelve become prisoners and wear nightshirts with numbers sewn on them. All 20 know they are merely volunteers working for a $1,700 paycheck.

The movie is based on a novel, Black Box, by Mario Giordano . The novel was probably inspired by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a classic of role-playing. On that experiment’s Web site, its director, Philip G. Zimbardo, writes: “How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.” So there, I’ve given away the plot. Some critics of “Das Experiment” question the fact that the guards become cruel so quickly, but the real-life experiment bears that out. What is fascinating is how most of the members of both groups tend to follow charismatic leaders. None of the other guards is as sadistic as Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi) and none of the other prisoners is as rebellious as Tarek Fahd ( Mortiz Bleibtreu ), who remembers, “My father would say, ‘Don’t do this,’ and I’d do it.” Perhaps uniforms turn us into packs, led by the top dog. There are a few strays. One prisoner seems custom-made to be a victim, but another, a man with military experience, holds back and tries to analyze the situation and provide cool guidance. But he’s more or less powerless because–well, the guards are in charge. One of the guards has misgivings about what is happening, but it takes a lot of nerve to defy the pack.

It would make perfect sense for the guards to say, “Look, we’re all in this together and we all want the $1,700 at the end of the two weeks. So let’s make it easy on ourselves.” But at Stanford as in this movie (and in life), that is not human nature. The outcome of the experiment is clear from the setup. We would be astonished if the guards became humane.

What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is a foregone conclusion. That’s a tribute to the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel , and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of typecasting that perhaps occurs in life. The sadist looks mean. The rebel looks like a trouble-maker. The military guy looks competent. The victim looks submissive. We see them and read them. Is it the same in life? By halfway through, I was surprised how involved I was, and I see that I stopped taking notes at about that point–stopped thinking objectively and began to identify. Of course I identified with the trouble-maker. But give me a uniform and who knows what I would have done. The fact that the movie is German inspires thoughts about the Holocaust: The Nazi command structure needed only strong leaders at the top for Hitler to find, as one book called them, willing executioners in the ranks. But is the syndrome limited to Nazi Germany? This movie argues not.

Thinking of World War II, we’re reminded not only of the Nazi uniforms, which were fetishistic, but of the genial sloppiness of the average American G.I., as unforgettably portrayed by the great Bill Mauldin. His Willie and Joe, unshaven, their helmets askew, cigarettes dangling from their lips, resented authority, but they won the war.

The Stanford Prison Experiment can be found on the Web at www.prisonexp.org.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Maren Eggert as Dora
• Justus Von Dohnanyi as Berus
• Christoph Darnstadt
• Don Bohlinger
• Mario Giordano

Directed by

• Oliver Hirschbiegel

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The Experiment (2001)

Directed by oliver hirschbiegel.

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Description by Wikipedia

Das Experiment (English: The Experiment) is a 2001 German thriller film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. It is based on Mario Giordano's novel Black Box and deals with a social experiment which resembles Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment of 1971.

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Big Brother with a body count would be one way of describing Oliver Hirschbiegel's taut thriller, set in a mock prison where volunteers adopt the roles of prisoners and guards in a controlled experiment into human behaviour .

Inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a notorious real-life study of power dynamics in social situations, what begins as an innocent exercise in role-playing soon turns nasty as the 'guards' employ increasingly questionable methods to stamp their bogus authority on their rebellious charges.

The spanner in the works is Tarek (Bleibtreu), a cab driver who becomes a 'prisoner' with the intention of writing an undercover exposé. Deliberately exacerbating tensions in the bogus jailhouse, he unwittingly arouses his captors' latent sadism . Ritual humiliation and retribution leads to shocking violence, with claustrophobia and paranoia bringing out the worst in everyone.

Far-fetched it may be but "The Experiment" makes for uncomfortable viewing - not least for its implication that the same impulses that fuelled the Nazi movement still lurk in the darkest recesses of the German psyche. Such inflammatory ambiguities make it easier to forgive the hysterical excesses of the latter stages, though not a brutal rape scene that is far too lurid for comfort.

While Bleibtreu ("Run Lola Run") makes a charismatic lead , the other cast members hardly distinguish themselves with a range of largely two-dimensional stereotypes. Interestingly, though, it's Uli Hanisch's prison design that emerges as the film's real star, its antiseptic confines subtly heightening the prevailing mood of desperation and malevolence.

In German with English subtitles.

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The Experiment

What to know.

Das Experiment 's knotty plot may not prove as revelatory as it promises, but it succeeds as an action film with a lot on its addled mind.

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Oliver Hirschbiegel

Moritz Bleibtreu

Maren Eggert

Christian Berkel

Justus von Dohnányi

Berus - Strafvollzugsbeamter

Oliver Stokowski

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INTERVIEW: Behind the Bars of “Das Experiment”; Oliver Hirschbiegel on the Universal Appeal of Priso

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INTERVIEW: Behind the Bars of "Das Experiment"; Oliver Hirschbiegel on the Universal Appeal of Prison Psychiatry

by Wendy Mitchell/indieWIRE

(indieWIRE: 09.19.02) — The German film “ Das Experiment ” is one of the most intense films of the year: it’s two hours of barely-clothed German men running around a pseudo prison facing mental manipulation and physical torture. The film, the directorial debut of Oliver Hirschbiegel , is adapted from Mario Giordano ‘s novel “ Black Box ,” about a modern-day psychological experiment similar to Philip Zimbardo ‘s famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. In “Das Experiment,” cabdriver and former journalist Tarek ( Moritz Bleibtreu ) sees an ad seeking volunteers for a psychology experiment that will set up a mock prison. Intrigued by the cash payoff as well as the potential for a great newspaper story, Tarek signs up. On the inside of the “prison,” the volunteers are divided into prisoners and guards. Under the not-so-watchful eyes of the experiment’s scientists, Tarek starts provoking the guards, and violence follows.

“Das Experiment” was already a box-office smash at home in Germany, thanks in part to the star power of Bleibtreu (“ Run Lola Run “). Samuel Goldwyn released “Das Experiment” in the U.S. today. indieWIRE managing editor Wendy Mitchell spoke to Hirschbiegel about German pride, on-set improvisations, and locking the cells on his actors.

indieWIRE : I wanted to start by talking about your background in television. What kind of programs did you work on?

Oliver Hirschbiegel : I did TV movies of various kinds: a mystery, a thriller, a cop thriller, and two dramas. I also directed a TV series [“ Kommissar Rex “] that became very popular. It’s about a cop and his partner, who is a dog. It’s all set in Vienna. For me it was a nice excursion into the commercial television world. I learned a lot.

iW : Why did you choose the story of “Das Experiment” for your directorial debut?

Hirschbiegel : I started reading [Mario Giordano’s “Black Box”] and couldn’t put it down. I just had to read that novel. I read it the whole night through and finished it in the morning. I knew that this would be it. It just sat right. It reads a bit a like a Shakespeare play and it was convincing right from the beginning. All the characters are so believable in their situations.

I wanted to do this as a German film. I had a couple of offers to do English-speaking movies set in Germany, but I thought that was a little bit silly. I was really looking for something German. And this was a great opportunity.

iW : Why was it so important for you to do a German-language film?

Hirschbiegel : Because German film… t’s changing, but it had a bad reputation then. We had never shown in international festivals except for the really arty films. And that crossover of being responsible and dealing with real subjects that matter and still being entertaining and suspenseful, that’s not a typical thing for German films, but it’s very typical for me. It’s kind of my style. Also, it had to do with pride or something. I wanted it to be German.

iW : “Das Experiment” did very well in the box office in Germany. Why do you think Germans were so attracted to this film?

Hirschbiegel : I think it is a pretty universal story. It seems to work all over the world because it deals with universal emotions. I think anyone in the world can imagine how it might feel to be in that situation. The film’s prison situation is just a copy of what you would find in any prison in any country in the world these days. People seem to be able to relate to that.

The Germans also love Moritz Bleibtreu . He’s practically our number-one star here. Still, I was surprised. My hopes were to get half a million people into the cinema, and it turned out to be nearly two million. I don’t know.

iW : Were you ever concerned that your film might perpetuate negative stereotypes about German violence or intensity?

Hirschbiegel : No, I wasn’t worried about that because I think it’s a universal scene we’re dealing with.

iW : Right. It could’ve happened anywhere. The Stanford Prison Experiment [Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 experiment] happened in sunny California.

Hirschbiegel : Exactly. I later found out that all the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment were students. In our story the participants came from various backgrounds. Some were unemployed, others were students, one guy was a manager in a very good insurance company. At Stanford, they were all educated young men, yet they behaved in the same manner.

iW : I want to talk a little about the process the long process you had in adapting the book into the screenplay. How many cooks were in the kitchen?

Hirschbiegel : All together there were four cooks. The first cook was the writer of the novel [Mario Giordano]. We teamed up, sat down and brainstormed. He was to write the screenplay. After a while we both realized that it didn’t really work out the way we wanted because he didn’t have a lot of experience in screenplay writing. After six months and four or five drafts, we decided to stop it and get someone new involved. I called Don Bohlinger , an American writer I had collaborated with on a TV movie. He was a great help, especially with structure. He wrote six drafts, yet I wasn’t really happy with any of them either. The drafts had very good elements, great ideas like, “Take him out and shave his head and pee on him!” But that’s not a German idea…

iW : That’s an American’s idea!

Hirschbiegel : I wasn’t entirely happy with his drafts, and then something funny happened. Christoph Darnstadt , another writer who was working on a pilot script for TV, had just read our screenplay and was intrigued by the project. He wrote his own version on spec and sent it to us. It wasn’t bad, a lot of things didn’t work — but then he had great ideas on the other side. When it was really close to shooting, like three months prior to the first day, I teamed up with Don and Christoph. We locked ourselves in a hotel suite for two and a half weeks and took elements from all the drafts and nailed them together. It was a real collaboration

iW : How is the book is different from what ended up on screen?

Hirschbiegel : I did some research on the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments, and found two or three things that I loved and wanted to get onto the screen. For instance, the scene where they use fire extinguishers to calm the prisoners during the riot is not in the novel. That, and the manipulating of the scientist, actually happened. The cat-and-mouse play is something Milgram did with his volunteers. I wanted to include that in the film, too.

I must not forget to give credit to all the actors. A third of the stuff in the film came up during the shooting, it was stuff the actors suggested, or we developed together. There are whole scenes that Christian Berkel , or Moritz, developed in the morning and then shot later. So it was very much a work in progress.

The interviews were never in the script. I started doing the interviews when I realized that it was unclear as to what the characters were really about, or what their background was. The interviews always took place after long days of shooting. I just set the actors in front of a camera. They were in character, so they had no idea what I was going to ask. I pretended to be Professor Thon before receiving a briefing from the psychologists. I tried to imagine what kinds of questions a scientist would ask. It was weird because the border between fiction and reality became very thin.

iW : Were there any other instances of this slippery slope between the film and reality? It was a movie set, but it looked like a prison, and you were confined to the space for a month or so. Did it take its toll on anyone?

Hirschbiegel : We all got along pretty well. There weren’t any great fights or quarrels. I made sure that the prison was solid and real. When the doors were locked, they were really locked — there was no way of getting out. It was even true for the crew. When they locked the big fence in the back we were locked in, too.

iW : You’re a tough director!

Hirschbiegel : Well, you have to be as a director. Nice and tough. The rooms had very intense energy. Sometimes it was positive, sometimes it was negative. In this case it was very intense energy, because the set was the former basement of a factory. The walls and ceilings were solid concrete, and the floor was made of steel plates. A lot of people who came down to visit and watch just couldn’t stand it for more than a half hour. They had to go back up to see the sunlight. We had gotten used to it, so to us it was more of a normal thing.

iW : I read that you have background in visual art. How do you think that influenced the look of “Das Experiment”?

Hirschbiegel : Before I start to shoot a film, it’s hard to get any information out of me, such as how the visual style will turn out. It’s rather a feeling I have in my belly, and the more I get into the process of shooting, the clearer that feeling becomes.

I told my production designer, “I don’t want this to be a chic movie set. I want this to be a realistic as possible, so think about how a group of scientists would set up a prison. Don’t exaggerate, and make it within a reasonable budget.”

iW : Overall, do you think there are other films or directors that directly influenced “Das Experiment”?

Hirschbiegel : I think my biggest influences were Japanese directors such as Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano . They stick to their story, and never use spectacular tricks or cliche elements to get things moving. That is something that has impressed me for as long as I can remember.

In general, it’s the three American directors: Hitchcock , Hawks , and Huston , because they were straightforward storytellers. From them I learned the most.

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