The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
Acting
Winslet's iceberg performance—every emotion buried under shame.
Writing
The screenplay refuses easy moral answers; that's the point.
Score
Nico Muhly's piano haunts like memory itself.
Director
Stephen Daldry
Ralph Fiennes
Michael Berg
Kate Winslet
Hanna Schmitz
David Kross
Young Michael Berg
Lena Olin
Rose Mather
Bruno Ganz
Professor Rohl
Jeanette Hain
Brigitte
Hannah Herzsprung
Julia
Karoline Herfurth
Marthe
Volker Bruch
Dieter Spenz
Alexandra Maria Lara
Young Ilana Mather
Fabian Busch
Hanna's Defense Council
Vijessna Ferkic
Sophie
Susanne Lothar
Carla Berg
Matthias Habich
Peter Berg
Burghart Klaußner
Judge
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kate Winslet learned to read with a German accent for the trial scenes, then 'forgot' how for later footage.
The film sparked debate about whether it 'humanizes' a Nazi guard; the novel's author called that the wrong question entirely.
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