Yella

2007

1 hr. 29 min.

Drama

Romance

Mystery & Thriller

List

82%

56 Reviews

Tomatometer

54%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A near-death experience causes a woman to relive someone else's final moments.

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Critics Consensus

Chilly and haunting, Yella's atmosphere gets under the skin.

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Xav N

Brilliant. For me on the same level as Hagazussa and the Noonday Witch. All absolute must-watches

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

07/21/23

Full Review

dave s

In an effort to escape abuse from her estranged husband, a young woman relocates and finds dubious employment in a distant city working for a larcenous corporate schemer. It all sounds fairly straightforward until a series of mildly surreal events cause her to doubt her own state of mind. Yella is a sparse and intriguing German film from director Christian Petzold, whose films feel eerily similar in style and substance to the movies of Michael Haneke. Over its brief running time, the subtle twists and puzzling events keep you invested in the story…until the final scene, which feels like a horrible cop-out and, sadly, diminishes much of what came before.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

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william k

Coolly atmospheric reimagination of Carnival of Souls in a contemporary German setting shifts its focus onto a world of surreal business dealings and ambiguous personal relationships; Nina Hoss is excellent in the title role as a woman torn between escape and new entanglements.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

Another film from the Berlin School's Christian Petzold, Yella is an often interesting drama that showcases a performance by Nina Hoss. This film may easily bore American audiences but that does not make it any less impactful.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/29/23

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Audience Member

I grew up in Germany and always refused to give up on German film although t just keeps disappointing me. Nina Hoss has starred in some interesting productions, so I was very interested to see this critically acclaimed feature film. The story follows Yella, a young accountant accepting a job in a big city in GDR. She leaves behind her broke husband who is obsessing over her. The film shows Yella working with a businessman as an advisor (it was not perfectly clear what they actaully do) and develop as she is faced with the capitalistic business world. Nina Hoss gives an intense performance and carries the whole movie effortlesly. It's a study of the lead person's character but also the world at that time. "Yella" is a mellow thriller without bombastic effects but emotion-based suspense and anticipation. The ending is unexpected and invites you to think about the what ifs. It's probably not the movie that will find a place in your DVD favorites but it's well worth to fill an evening of entertained watching and deep thinking.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

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Audience Member

An interesting and well shot film, but with messy and odd story telling. Better movies with similar plot paths are Swimming Pool (2003), and Stay (2005)among others.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

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Christian Petzold

Director

Nina Hoss

Yella

Devid Striesow

Philipp

Hinnerk Schönemann

Ben

Burghart Klaußner

Dr. Gunthen

Barbara Auer

Barbara Gunthen

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Chris Darke

Film Comment Magazine

Petzold, a leading light of the current generation of young German filmmakers, succeeds in making the modern world strange again.

Nov 14, 2013

Full Review

Hank Sartin

Time Out

Rated: 3/5

Nov 18, 2011

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Kenneth Turan

Los Angeles Times

This unusual film has all the appearance of simply being a well-done drama, but there is considerably more on writer-director Christian Petzold's mind.

Rated: 4/5

Sep 19, 2008

Full Review

Martin Tsai

New York Sun

The film serves as an allegory about former East Germans yearning to attain capitalist success, only to find disillusionment in an economic climate of mergers and layoffs.

Apr 21, 2023

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Brian Eggert

Deep Focus Review

Christian Petzold's Yella is an unassuming story with a powerful metaphor about the complexities of German reunification

Rated: 3.5/4

Feb 18, 2022

Full Review

Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

2007's cool psychological suspense piece Yella, with Hoss as a woman who can't quite escape her troubled past, was one of the first films that made the international reputations of both its star and her frequent director Christoph Petzold.

May 27, 2021

Full Review

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Synopsis

A near-death experience causes a woman to relive someone else's final moments.

Director: Christian Petzold
Executive Producer: Michael Weber
Screenwriter: Simone Bär, Christian Petzold
Production Co: Schramm Film Koerner & Weber, Arte, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
Genre: Drama, Romance, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: German
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 18, 2010

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