The Reader

Cast

• 
  Stephen Daldry Director
• 
  Kate Winslet Hanna Schmitz
• 
  Ralph Fiennes Michael Berg
• 
  Bruno Ganz Professor Rohl
• 
  Jeanette Hain Brigitte
• 
  David Kross Young Michael Berg
• 
  Susanne Lothar Carla Berg
• 
  Alissa Wilms Emily Berg
• F
  Florian Bartholomäi Thomas Berg
• 
  Friederike Becht Angela Berg
• 
  Matthias Habich Peter Berg
• F
  Frieder Venus Doctor

Available Subtitles

English,Filipino,Français,Indonesian,Português,Русский,اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ,اُردُو,हिन्दी,বাংলা,ਪੰਜਾਬੀ

Viewer comments

• Mikee 2026-07-25

  excellent

• Shourov Islam 2025-07-24

  plz add Hindi dubbed

• Obanobi Tolu 2025-05-14

  just want to give it a trial

• Naveed Khan 2025-02-12

  awosum

• Ali Haider Cheema 2024-12-24

  This is a very strange movie in that there are MANY moral dilemmas and situations that clearly are unsavory--yet the film takes a completely neutral stance in presenting the plot. I am sure this offended some but it did make for a very memorable film. As for me, I am still not sure what I think about this strange style of film making. The movie begins with a 16 year-old boy being seduced by a much older woman. The morality of this and their subsequent affair never seems to matter---it just is. During this time, the older woman (Kate Winslet) was often quite moody and the boy's welfare really didn't seem that important. Also, she would force him to read to him before they had sex. Why is an important part of the film--and frankly, though it was apparently supposed to be a twist, I figure this out immediately. However, this didn't spoil the film. One day, Winslet disappears. Exactly why you really don't know. The boy grows and is now in law school. As part of one of his seminar classes, he and the class go to court to observe. The case involves some Nazi war criminals--and it turns out Winslet is among the defendants. And, the fact that she had other 'readers' finally makes the young man realize why. Winslet (this is NOT much of a spoiler) is illiterate. Yet, she is so ashamed of this, she is willing to accept a much longer sentence to hide her illiteracy. And, during her long incarceration, the ex-lover (now played by Ralph Fiennes) makes it his life duty to record book after

• Sanya 2024-12-24

  The first half of this movie, which focuses on the relationship between a young man (16 or so) and a middle-aged woman, is beautifully shot but pretty empty. It is as if the talent behind something like a Merchant-Ivory film (minus the script writer) had grabbed the first story that came to hand and filmed it just to keep busy. It's beautifully done, but apparently pointless. Then, once the trial starts, the movie gets MUCH more interesting. Kate Winslet gives a truly first-rate performance as a very difficult character whom we only come to understand over time. This second half held me. Yet, after it was over and I discussed it with the person with whom I had seen it, I found weaknesses as well as strengths. Michael, the young man who has an affair with Hanna, is studying law and guilt, but he really never has interesting things to say on Hanna's involvement. His conversations with his professor could have been much more interesting and better written. In the same sense, Hanna's preoccupation with order and fear of chaos, which play so important a role in the second half of the film, could have been developed in the first half. As could have been her shame over her "deficiency." Not the great movie some critics seem to be hailing it as, therefore, but still worth a viewing, especially for Winslet's truly impressive performance.

• Kouki✨🌚 2024-12-24

  Former Nazi SS officer learns that reading is fundamental. That should be the tag line for The Weinstein Brothers Oscar nominated film: The Reader, featuring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. It is the story of an emotionally constipated man, Michael Berg (Fiennes), who cannot open up to anyone and it is all because of an affair he had with an older woman, Hannah Schmitz (Winslet) when he was 15 and she broke his heart. The affair was torrid and in between sex romps, the boy would read to the woman and it acted as a kind of aphrodisiac for her. The affair lasted one summer in the late 1950's in W. Germany. The film than moves on to the meat of the story, when several years later, the young man goes to law school and he is taken on a field trip to see a trial of former SS guards from Auschwitz who are on trial and it turns out Hannah is one of the guards on trial and he is shocked. With Hannah's fate in the balance, will she make a decision to protect her pride rather than her life. Michael has information that could affect the outcome of the trial and will he use it to protect his long lost love. These are the supposed harrowing questions that we should be made to care about. But I for one did not. I was bored watching this film. There's no guts to it. The courtroom scenes were slow and contrived. Too much talking. I can only say Director Stephen Daldrey is to blame. Film is a visual medium afterall. I can go on but I'll just finish the review discussing the acting. I was unins

• Tik Toker 2024-12-24

  After having seen The Reader, I found myself in a state of shock, amazement, and disbelief that the same film I had just wasted 2 hours of my life on had been recipient of so many awards, as well as having the seemingly unanimous admiration of film critics lavished upon it. The lovely and talented Kate Winslet stars as a secretary for a high-ranking Nazi Officer who years later will end up on trial for her role as an accomplice for many of the heinous crimes committed by her despicable low-life employer. What ensues is an odd mix to be sure: a statement on Pro-literacy, an art house period piece, soft-core titillation, and a Holocaust/WW II epic. It unfortunately fails with all four. In the film, Winslet's character carries on a torrid affair with a young man. Capitalizing on the well-known fact that Winslet is not shy in front of the camera, there are several explicit sex scenes featuring a fully * Winslet - as is the case with countless previously released films in which she stars. I am no prude, but Winslet appears to be long past the point of being typecast in this type of role. Nothing wrong with that, but it has now reached a point where if she appears in a film in which her breasts are not bared, people in the audience may be asking for their money back. Winslet is most certainly a fine actress, but the abundance of praise she has received for her turn in "The Reader" is mind-boggling to say the least. She has given far better performances in just about everything else

• Mirinda 2024-12-24

  We don't know. We think we do but we don't. We make decisions or sometimes decisions are made for us but we think we've made them. Then suddenly, there we are. We can't be certain how we got there or where we will be when everything settles but we do know that we are alive. Some experiences are life altering and we can run from them or embrace them. Staying to see them through though can bring incredible bliss but also tormented turmoil. We just never know. One such experience was had by a young Michael Berg (David Kross) and is chronicled in Stephen Daldry's THE READER. How could he know that when he pulled into an alley to be sick that he would meet the woman who would shape his entire life? How could he know that getting close to her would pull him the furthest he's ever been from himself? Of course, when you're a sixteen-year-old boy and a woman who looks like Kate Winslet disrobes in front of you in the privacy of her bathroom, how much thought really goes into the decision that has presented itself? However little it is, it is certainly less than is warranted. This is especially true in West Germany of 1958. This is a Germany that is uncertain how to proceed, how to be its new self in the eyes of the world and the eyes of its very own future generations. Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a compassionate woman but also abrasive and stern. Winslet strikes the perfect balance between directness and desire in Schmitz, making her complexities part of her appeal. She is a good fif