Downfall (2005)

The final days of Hitler and his Reich are meticulously re-created through the eyes of his young stenographer (Alexandra Maria Lara), who knew the mass-murdering anti-Semite as ''the best boss she had ever had.'' Bruno Ganz plays the decaying Führer with such chilling realism that even the actor's on-set interviews send a shiver up your spine. But his Hitler is not a caricaturish demon. ''I cannot hate him completely,'' says Ganz. ''[If I did], I would not be able to play him.'' Instead, he captures both the deranged lunatic who rants that the German people deserve their now-hopeless fate and the charismatic Uncle Adolf who seduced a nation. EXTRAS Portions of five bonus interviews with cast and crew are woven into the 58-minute ''Making of Downfall'' doc, and director Oliver Hirschbiegel's English-language commentary recounts the importance of Magda Goebbels' cold-blooded ''Sleep tight, children'' scene: ''As painful as it is, it has to be in this movie because it stands for that monstrosity of that whole system.''

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