The Confession

PG

1970

2h 20m

Mystery & Thriller

List

100%

8 Reviews

Tomatometer

84%

250+ Ratings

Audience Score

In 1950s communist Czechoslovakia, a government minister, a war veteran who has long been a loyal party man, leads a relatively comfortable life with wife Lise. However, he soon finds himself under surveillance, then under arrest. He has no idea what his offense is, but agents for the totalitarian regime interrogate and torture him, aiming to use their unending power to gain a false confession for supposed crimes against the state.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

The structure becomes complex but never confusing, and Costa-Gavras always seems to be urgently on the move, wanting to tell us more than can be told.

Rated: 4/4

Jul 7, 2018

Full Review

Noel Murray

The Dissolve

The Confession exhibits signs of post-masterpiece fatigue, though it makes up for some of it with sheer gutsiness.

Rated: 3.5/5

Jun 2, 2015

Full Review

David Elliott

Chicago Daily News

It is a trenchant, harrowing movie, all bone and muscle, that seems not so much a drama or even a document as a replica, a cast lifted directly from the face of history.

Oct 3, 2023

Full Review

Armond White

National Review

Costa-Gavras and screenwriter Jorge Semprún’s approach doesn’t allow Kafkaesque sentiment, so the film stays tough and brilliant.

Jun 17, 2022

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Though less invigorating than the iconic Z, it remains a compelling depiction of a harrowing experience rarely caught so astutely in narrative filmmaking as it is here.

Rated: 3.5/5

Oct 27, 2020

Full Review

Tony Mastroianni

Cleveland Press

The movie is perfect in its attention to detail, in its casting of Montand as the political prisoner. Confession fails as entertainment while it succeeds as a statement.

Nov 16, 2018

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Nicolas M

A well acted and compelling lens on the Stalinist show trials, but it fails morally by disconnecting the trials from the barbaric history of global communism. That is a remarkable failing given the events in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany (among others) decades after Stalin's death and not unknown to the director and cast.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The split between Tito and Stalin (1948), in the late 1940s and early 1950s, was followed by show trials of prominent Communists all over Eastern Europe and the wave of Stalinist purges in which tens of thousands suffered or lost their lives. This movie is about the 1952 process in Prague, conducted against Rudolf Slánský and 13 other leading members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). The main protagonist - Anton Ludvik, aka Gerard, is based on Arthur London, veteran of the Spanish Civil War and the French resistance movement, who, at the time of the arrest, was vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia and a senior official of KSČ. Display of Stalinist torture and interrogation process in preparation for rigged political trial is very realistic. Based on actual events.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

andres s

A very tough subject material to watch but a very important one at that. Seeing how conniving and evil parties can be just to get the information they want to hear out of someone, even if it isn't true, is a very frustrating but interesting thing to watch. And what's even more noteworthy, is that this really happens is still happening. Torture tactics and secret confession trials. The only problem I have is tat the movie could have been reasonably shorter. It felt like the confessions and the talking went on and on with no end. And being that this is a Costa-Gavras film, he probably did it intentionally to make the viewer uneasy. Well, it worked. Overall, very powerful political movie about construing the truth through confessions. Remarkable and pretty important film.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A set of counter-truth emerged from their historical contexts. Not a word about McChartism that raged in the United States at the same time. Costa Gavras, convincing when he denounces fascism and racism, deceives in a doubtful film of American propaganda. Pity.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The Confession is an exquisitely crafted dissection of political disintegration and anti-Semitism, using brilliant Gavras-style editing, a great Yves Montana and Simone Sigornet, and dark, murky sets to their fullest emotional potential and ultimately unsettle, thrill, and frustrate the audience.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The master of the 1970s political thriller, director Costa-Gravis, followed up Z with this film. Set during the Soviet-orchestrated show trials in Prague Czechoslovakia in 1952 but with the shadow of the recent (1968) crushing of the Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, Costa-Gravas criticizes the imperial machinations of Soviet Russia and the immense human cost of empire-building. Yves Montand, Costa-Gravas' favorite leading man, plays a minister in Czechoslovakia's postwar Communist government, a man who fought against Franco in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and against the Nazis aiding the French Resistance in World War II. He is arrested, tortured, has his spirit broken and is accused of being a Troskyist, Titoist, Anarchist, and ultimately an agent of the United States undermining socialism in Czechoslovakia. He and others who served in the International Brigades are suspect by the Soviet "advisers," sent in to purge Czechoslovakia of reactionary elements. Montand plays a more sympathetic character here than the American CIA operative he plays in Costa-Gravas's State of Siege. Simone Signoret plays his wife. The film is suspenseful and well-photographed with postwar Czechoslovakia recreated in early 1970s France.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

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Costa-Gavras

Director

Yves Montand

Anton Ludvik

Simone Signoret

Lise

Gabriele Ferzetti

Kohoutek

Michel Vitold

Smola

Jean Bouise

Chef der Fabrik

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Synopsis

In 1950s communist Czechoslovakia, a government minister, a war veteran who has long been a loyal party man, leads a relatively comfortable life with wife Lise. However, he soon finds himself under surveillance, then under arrest. He has no idea what his offense is, but agents for the totalitarian regime interrogate and torture him, aiming to use their unending power to gain a false confession for supposed crimes against the state.

Director: Costa-Gavras
Screenwriter: Jorge Semprún
Production Co: Fono Roma, Les Films Corona, Produzione Intercontinentale Cinematografica, Les Films Pomereu, Selenia Cinematografica
Rating: PG
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 5, 2014
Runtime: 2h 20m

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