The Tunnel (Der Tunnel) (2001)

84% of critics liked it
(25 reviews)
92% of users liked it
(2,784 ratings)

The true story of Hasso Herschel inspired this epic Cold War drama from Germany. Harry Melchoir (Heino Ferch) was a respected German athlete when the Berlin Wall forcibly divided the nation in 1961. Unwilling to cooperate with the East German authorities, Melchoir escaped to West Berlin, along with… More The true story of Hasso Herschel inspired this epic Cold War drama from Germany. Harry Melchoir (Heino Ferch) was a respected German athlete when the Berlin Wall forcibly divided the nation in 1961. Unwilling to cooperate with the East German authorities, Melchoir escaped to West Berlin, along with his friends Matthis (Sebastian Koch), Vic (Mehmet Kurtulus), and Fred (Felix Eitner). When he fled to West Germany, Melchoir was forced to leave his family behind, and he fears for the fate of his sister Lotte (Alexandra Maria Lara). Eager to free Lotte from East German rule, Melchoir strikes upon the idea of building a tunnel under the wall that will allow her to leave the country undetected; Melchoir recruits Matthis, Vic, and Fred to help him, along with a resourceful woman named Fritzi (Nicolette Krebitz). It isn't long before Melchoir and his compatriots discover that many others want to help their friends and family escape the East German regime, and the simple tunnel turns into a massive building and engineering project that's both ambitious and fraught with danger for all parties concerned. Der Tunnel was produced as a two-part miniseries for German television; an edited feature-length version was prepared for possible theatrical release outside Europe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr. 40 min.
Directed By: Roland Suso Richter
Written By: Johannes W. Betz
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Jan 1, 2001 Wide
On DVD: Oct 4, 2005
Studio: Home Vision Entertainment

Critic Reviews

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
It is the kind of superbly crafted, intelligent entertainment -- a classic suspense thriller -- that nowadays is as welcome as it is rare.
Michael Booth, Denver Post
A true story few people will know, and it's told with a warm, crafty efficiency that makes for wonderful entertainment.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
It's a gripping great-escape yarn of the sort we don't see much anymore.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
Either as history at its most inspiring or moviemaking at its most exciting, The Tunnel is a trip.
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
It's so well told that you'll be biting your nails until the film's final few minutes.
Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle
Based on a true story from the late 1950s, this thrilling drama looks at the extraordinary lengths taken by a group of West Berliners to dig a tunnel under the city's barbed-wire border with East Berlin.
Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile
This true story about one of the many tunnel escape attempts under the Berlin wall in the 60s provides all the excitement of an escape movie, given extra depth and resonance by its real life genesis... a superb film
Tom Keogh, Seattle Times
Richter makes wonderful if obvious use of the wall and the tunnel as built-in metaphors for our struggle for human connection and dread of helplessness and change.
William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Well-cast and sporadically gripping.
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly
Richter gives a raw, frank but sophisticated account of the excruciating logistics of this great escape, and the appalling, inspiring blend of betrayal and courage that attended the group's herculean efforts.
Marty Mapes, Movie Habit
The Tunnel proved to be too exciting for mere broadcast
Marta Barber, Miami Herald
There are few moments when you're not totally absorbed by the film.
Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews
Overlong and a bit overcooked...but it's also properly grueling.
Jules Brenner, Filmcritic.com
riddled with slow pacing, melodrama and viewer fatigue

Read all 14 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cynthia S

Based on true events. A gripping drama about a group of people in the early '60s who try to break out their loved ones living in communist East Berlin..by digging a 145 meter tunnel under the Berlin Wall. I enjoyed this film so much that it didn't feel even close to being 2… More
Based on true events. A gripping drama about a group of people in the early '60s who try to break out their loved ones living in communist East Berlin..by digging a 145 meter tunnel under the Berlin Wall. I enjoyed this film so much that it didn't feel even close to being 2 hours and 47 minutes long. Very tense, and dramatic.
familiar s

Based on true events, this movie uses loads of general rules of fictionalization. While that surely made it look somewhat unauthentic, nevertheless, it also helped to keep me hooked to the movie. The project was almost always on the brink of destruction, but they manage to escape… More
Based on true events, this movie uses loads of general rules of fictionalization. While that surely made it look somewhat unauthentic, nevertheless, it also helped to keep me hooked to the movie. The project was almost always on the brink of destruction, but they manage to escape somehow. The story was nicely weaved, and I kept wondering what's next. Because the movie is based on real events, it made me care more for its characters. Although it doesn't reflect the events as they actually occurred, the movie succeeds in dramatizing the events so as to make it more intriguing. I don't know if I'd have liked the simple filming of the events without fictionalization. Probably, I may know it some day if at all I can get to see that 1962 movie "Tunnel 28" (aka "Escape from East Berlin") which displays some real footage of the events. However, the probability for that is almost negligible. One of the best escape movies which had escaped from my attention till date. I can't recall how I exactly stumbled upon it. Seems like it isn't that popular, even though IMHO, it's far better than "The Great Escape".
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]"The Tunnel" starts in 1961 as the Berlin Wall is being built by East German authorities to stem the flow of emigration to the West. Engineer Matthis Hiller(Sebastian Koch) succeeds in escaping via the sewers but is separated in the confusion from his… More
[font=Century Gothic]"The Tunnel" starts in 1961 as the Berlin Wall is being built by East German authorities to stem the flow of emigration to the West. Engineer Matthis Hiller(Sebastian Koch) succeeds in escaping via the sewers but is separated in the confusion from his wife, Carola(Claudia Michelsen). From West Berlin, he manages to get a fake passport back to his friend, Harry Melchior(Heino Ferch), a champion swimmer, who strolls to freedom. But Harry cannot arrange for his sister Lotte's(Alexandra Maria Lara) family to be brought over to the West, and cannot abide being separated from her. So, he cooks up a plan with Matthis, Vittorio(Mehmet Kurtulus), an American expatriate, and Fred(Felix Eitner), a West German native, to dig a tunnel 145 meters into East Berlin from an abandoned factory on the west side of the wall.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]Incredibly based on a true story, "The Tunnel" gets off to a horrendous start as it seems at first to be only concerned with making political points instead of telling a story. But once it gets going, the movie develops into a taut thriller with more than its share of heartrending moments, any politics subtly pushed into the background. In the end, it is about ordinary people turned into real-life heroes caught between two conflicting ideologies, watching their country being torn apart and no longer able to trust each other.[/font]
Daisy M

Based on a true story Der Tunnel was the story of a champion swimmer Harry who managed to escape from East Berlin to the West. Some of his friends made it also but some of their families are left behind. I was aware of the history of German situation after the WWII, when Berlin was… More
Based on a true story Der Tunnel was the story of a champion swimmer Harry who managed to escape from East Berlin to the West. Some of his friends made it also but some of their families are left behind. I was aware of the history of German situation after the WWII, when Berlin was separated in two through a wall. But this movie showed the real life stories of the people in the DDR, what they had to endure and their urge to escape to West Germany. In the beginning it showed more about making of the tunnel but even so it maintained the tension for almost three hours.The cast was well chosen and the acting was excellent. A heartbreaking story that will have you on the edge of your seat. Worth watching. I highly recommend this movie. Don't miss it.
Grifty G

Based on a true story about a group of Germans who hatch a plan to tunnel under the Berlin Wall to free friends and relatives trapped on the East side. I realized as I was watching this that although I had seen films about East Berlin, I hadn't really seen anything about the… More
Based on a true story about a group of Germans who hatch a plan to tunnel under the Berlin Wall to free friends and relatives trapped on the East side. I realized as I was watching this that although I had seen films about East Berlin, I hadn't really seen anything about the Wall itself being built, and what life was like during that transitional period in Berlin. A fascinating story, although a few plot points make you wonder whether "artistic license" trumped true events. The director uses old fashioned, no-frills film making, and the almost 3 hour running time means character development doesn't get tossed aside for plot and suspense. And speaking of suspense, it was nice to watch a historical story that I didn't already know the outcome.
Jason S

Great gripping exciting Berlin Wall story!