Jane Freebury The Canberra Times (Australia) Aug 18, 2022

A provocative, thoughtful perspective on an arch-criminal guilty of heinous crime.

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James Croot The Post NZ Mar 26, 2021 4.5/5

It is a stunning performance of light and shade, tracing his descent from total denial to despair, disillusionment and defeat.

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Leigh Paatsch Herald Sun (Australia) Apr 3, 2020 5/5

Most impressive of all is how, with the world closing in on the ranting, paranoid monster, Ganz ratchets down his performance from towering to cowering in minute increments.

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Miles Fielder The List Apr 24, 2019 3/5

It asks a great deal of indulgence from its audience, almost as though nothing less than an endurance test would do in dealing with this heavyweight subject. And that, despite admirable aims, doesn't make for great cinema.

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Tracy Moore Common Sense Media May 20, 2014 4/5

Provocative look at Hitler's last days is extremely violent.

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David Keyes Cinemaphile.org Jun 29, 2013 4/4

...an unflinching, hard, relentlessly honest movie that refuses to ask questions that have easy answers. It is also brilliantly acted, written and focused...

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David Ansen Newsweek Jan 22, 2013

Does Downfall "humanize" Hitler and his henchmen, as its critics have complained? Yes, and it should: to pretend these villains were less than human is to let ourselves off the hook, to take the easy and dangerous exit of demonology.

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Nick Rogers Midwest Film Journal Sep 25, 2010 4/4

"Downfall" isn't about commuting history's sentence for the Nazis, but heeding its warning - a gruesome, sustained-tension lesson about informed politics and whether those who left evil to its own devices could arrive at a place of complicit guilt.

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Dan Jardine Cinemania Jul 21, 2009 71/100

It's reach exceeds its grasp; nonetheless, a compelling study of Hitler's last days.

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Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com Apr 18, 2009 A

As the first German-made film about Hitler's ruination since G.W. Pabst's "Der Letzte Akt" ("The Last Act" - 1956) "Downfall" is a stunning cinematic achievement that illuminates minutiae about the last 10 days of the nefarious German leader who won the h

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Brandon Fibbs BrandonFibbs.com Feb 28, 2008 8/10

What an act of bravery it was to make Downfall.

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Lewis Beale Film Journal International Mar 1, 2007

Features a staggeringly creepy performance by Bruno Ganz, whose Hitler is both a raving psychotic and a beaten, melancholic man.

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Peter T. Chattaway Christianity Today Sep 22, 2006 3/4

Downfall is an admirably matter-of-fact history lesson of a movie, but next to real footage of real people with real memories of those days, it pales by comparison.

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Robert Roten Laramie Movie Scope Mar 9, 2006 B+

An important historical movie about the last days of the Third Reich.

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Jorge Avila Andrade Moviola Nov 28, 2005 3/4

Es un atinado recordatorio de que, como humanidad, debimos haber aprendido la lección, pues de otra forma estamos condenados a repetir la historia, para bien o para mal.

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Jeffrey Chen Window to the Movies Nov 3, 2005 7/10

The subject matter itself is the fallback support, which is good enough for its purposes, though it could've benefited from a more steered momentum.

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Enrique Buchichio Uruguay Total Aug 13, 2005 4/5

La película es una nueva y bienvenida mirada hacia eventos históricos que nos han sido contados prácticamente en exclusiva desde el bando ganador.

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Forrest Hartman Reno Gazette-Journal Aug 4, 2005 A-

There have been plenty of World War II films over the years, but none delivers as intimate a portrait of German dictator Adolf Hitler and his comrades.

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