The German Doctor

PG-13

2013

1h 33m

Mystery & Thriller

Drama

List

75%

64 Reviews

Tomatometer

63%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

An Argentine family unknowingly lives with Josef Mengele, and a young woman falls in love with him.

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Premiered Dec 01

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Critics Consensus

The German Doctor applies a refreshing level of restraint to its intriguing premise, and boasts solid performances from a talented cast.

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Mary M

Gripping despite it being obvious who the German doctor was. I don't know if this story was true or not, but either way, watching the doctor manipulate people to his ends was chillingly fascinating. Scenery was gorgeous. Now I would like to find out more about the postwar Nazi presence in Argentina.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/19/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Una película que está muy bien dirigida y tiene una trama sólida.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/16/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A very interesting take on Mengele although it seems to consider him as a compassionate, nice guy - which surely cannot be right. A great film though.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

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Audience Member

The beautiful scenery of Patagonia is captured in this film. The storyline is very interesting without diluting the horror of the Second World War which is left out. It concentrates on the present [1960] and Mengelaâ(TM)s ability to live a relatively good life albeit wanted as a war criminal. Very atmospheric drama well acted and directed with a convincing storyline and period setting.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

Frances H

This is a film of many layers with a true portrait of a monster who is inhuman--like the dolls that the father in the story makes, he is without a heart, and so feels nothing. Unlike the monster in the horror film the children watch, his monstrosity is not seen outwardly, but comes from a lack of conscience. Like Dr. Frankenstein, his goal is perfection, but like the Goya print, The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters. As in the book Frankenstein (how ironic that the name seems Jewish) the creation looks perfect without life, like the dolls, but when they live, the unnatural force that gave them life makes others shun them. The mother and father who seem good parents ultimately fail their children, the mother from the desire that her children be perfect, be like other children without difference. The German Doctor also trades on the trust that patients have in doctors and science to do what is best for the patient, when the scientist is coldly concerned only with his experiments. The father gives in to his dream and so accepts the doctor's money, but also accepts the idea that his dolls (who emerge from ovens in pieces of body parts) be perfect in their sameness (just as Menegle is trying to do to humans) and "spotless," instead of individually created as he had done before. Their hearts that beat are just clockwork machines that feel nothing and can not make the perfect dolls alive. I remember when Eichmann was caught and his trial in Israel, where he was kept separated from normal humans in a bullet-proof glass witness box, like Snow White's coffin (which was prophetic of his coming death, a foregone conclusion) standing upright, or like someone in quarantine like the disease of Nazism that he was. What a pity they were unable to put Mengele into a similar death trap! He certainly deserved it! Because he was a doctor and had taken a Hippocratic oath to "Do no harm" perhaps he deserved it even more!,

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/26/19

Full Review

Audience Member

Slightly insubstantial but not unwatchable imagining of post war episode in Mengele's life which rather ends in bathos.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

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Lucía Puenzo

Director

Natalia Oreiro

Eva

Alex Brendemühl

Josef Mengele

Diego Peretti

Enzo

Elena Roger

Nora Edloc

Guillermo Pfening

Klaus

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Bill Stamets

Chicago Sun-Times

Puenzo's initial premise is more promising, though, than her sensational tone.

Rated: 2.5/4

Aug 15, 2014

Full Review

Ben Sachs

Chicago Reader

Quietly unnerving.

Aug 14, 2014

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Jonathan Romney

Observer (UK)

Wakolda lies somewhere between a suspense thriller and a delicately atmospheric art film, but is properly effective as neither ...

Rated: 2/5

Aug 10, 2014

Full Review

Lisa Wright

NME (New Musical Express)

...gruesome nature is drawn out at a gradual, subtle pace and the result is more glacial thriller than shield-your-eyes horror...

Rated: 3.5/5

Jun 16, 2021

Full Review

Julian Lytle

Punch Drunk Critics

Overall this film is really solid and good. It's worth seeing especially if you're looking for something to see that isn't all loud, CGI-heavy, and full of cartoon characters. The German Doctor is really good, just not great.

Rated: 3.5/5

Jan 11, 2020

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

A simple and straightforward tale that manages to build a sinister simmer.

Aug 30, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

An Argentine family unknowingly lives with Josef Mengele, and a young woman falls in love with him.

Director: Lucía Puenzo
Producer: Nicolás Batlle
Screenwriter: Lucía Puenzo
Production Co: Historias Cinematograficas Cinemania
Rating: PG-13 (Thematic Material|Brief Nudity)
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language: Spanish
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 1, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $414.9K
Runtime: 1h 33m

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