Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage 2005

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The Scholls were obviously courageous people. It's a shame this film isn't more of a tribute to their bravery. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days doesn't use any cinematic flourishes and embellishments; it doesn't need to. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: As Sophie, Julia Jentsch is so good, so coolly passionate and unaffectedly moving in her pursuit of justice, the performance transcends the workmanlike trappings of the film itself. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It is powerful, straightforward, utterly without pretense and very, very moving. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The film holds us rapt not through narrative suspense but through the eerie and demanding spectacle of profound moral courage, of a powerless good person in collision with absolute evil. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Sophie Scholl's is a story well worth telling, and this movie is one well worth checking out. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: While the film doesn't dig deep, or hit particularly hard, it neatly achieves its modest goals: presenting a real-life heroine in real-life terms. A film this fictionalized rarely feels this much like fact. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Rothemund gives us his sophisticated filmmaking only in the finale, which is devastating in its briskness and fury. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: As befits a film about a woman who took much of her strength from religious conviction, Jentsch's performance seems to be lit from within. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Through it all, Jentsch is a beacon of bravery and resolve in the darkness of a totalitarian machine. If any actor in an English-language film has given a better performance in the past year, I'd like to see it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The realization that we are, in many instances, listening in on actual proceedings gives the film an immediacy that no dramatist could hope to match. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A disturbing film about courage, idealism, youth and the grim mechanics of mankind gone mad. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: Sophie Scholl has a certain quiet dignity that wins its audience popularity honestly. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Frank and frightening. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: There is little sense of what sets this seemingly ordinary girl apart and gives her her steely resolve. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Sophie Scholl perpetuates the celluloid mythologizing of the second World War, filtering the banality out of real events and people, replacing them with heroic posturing. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days does a good job of catching the heady optimism of youth, and the fearless dedication to a lost cause that only the true believer can muster. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Jentsch is a mesmerizing presence in the role of this incredibly strong young woman, as is Mohr playing a man whose humanity and political beliefs are at odds. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: This seeming psychological incongruity made Sophie more human and more heroic to me, as well as more worthy of the deep respect that George Bernard Shaw and Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer expressed for Saint Joan. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: There's a resonance to Sophie Scholl that crosses borders and approaches the timeless. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The sentence against her is carried out with startling promptness; because of the movie's title, we are not surprised, but we are jolted. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: With the exception of a melodramatic musical score, director Marc Rothemund never missteps, filming the remarkable true story with restraint and skill. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Highly personal and wrenching story. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Offers the rousingly cathartic spectacle of a young woman who stood up and did what the country has been accused for 70 years of failing to do: to its face, she told Hitler's Third Reich to shove it. Read more

Jessica Winter, Time Out: The film holds few surprises, though it builds a remarkable level of suspense during the fait-accompli interrogation scenes, and is a well-intended commemoration of a courageous young woman. Read more

Leslie Camhi, Village Voice: Julia Jentsch gives a brilliantly nuanced performance as Sophie, a fun-loving girl who likes marmalade and Schubert but also happens to be a rare beacon of conscience in totalitarianism's dark night. Read more