Back to trending
Berlin Syndrome

Berlin Syndrome

Drama · Horror · Mystery · 2017

A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in an abandoned Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.

Movie details

Berlin Syndrome

“When passion becomes possession.”

2017 Drama · Horror · Mystery 1h 56m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.3 / 10

28.9K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

74 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

70 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.0 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in an abandoned Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Berlin Syndrome?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

The Vanishing

The Vanishing

Thriller · 1993

The boyfriend of an abducted woman never gives up the search as the abductor looks on.

Flowers in the Attic

Flowers in the Attic

Drama · 1987

After the death of her husband, a mother takes her kids off to live with their grandparents in a huge, decrepit old mansion. However, the kids are kept hidden in a room just below the attic, visited only by their mother who becomes less and less concerned about them and their failing health, and more concerned about herself and the inheritence she plans to win back from her dying father.

Blackwater Lane

Blackwater Lane

Thriller · 2024

An American school teacher in England drives past an abandoned car late one night, unaware that the driver was the victim of a murder. As she comes to terms with the realization, seemingly supernatural events start to affect the gothic manor she lives in with her husband.

The Return

The Return

Horror · 2006

Joanna Mills has a successful career but feels her personal life is spinning out of control. She has few friends, an estranged father, and a crazy ex-boyfriend who is stalking her. Joanna begins having terrifying visions of a woman's murder, and it seems that she is the killer's next target. Determined to solve the mystery and escape her apparent fate, Joanna follows her visions to the victim's hometown and finds that some secrets just do not stay buried.

Watcher

Watcher

Horror · 2022

As a serial killer stalks the city, Julia — a young actress who just moved to town with her husband — notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.

Nocebo

Nocebo

Mystery · 2022

A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that puzzles her doctors and frustrates her husband until help arrives in the form of a Filipino caregiver who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

Suspiria

Suspiria

Horror · 2018

A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train

Horror · 2008

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways.

Triage

Triage

Drama · 2009

The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.

Black Butterfly

Black Butterfly

Thriller · 2017

Paul is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who picks up a drifter and offers him a place to stay. However, when the deranged stranger takes Paul hostage and forces him to write, their unhinged relationship brings buried secrets to light.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Cate Shortland

Written by

Shaun Grant

Teresa Palmer

Teresa Palmer

Clare Havel

Max Riemelt

Max Riemelt

Andi Werner

Matthias Habich

Matthias Habich

Erich Werner

Emma Bading

Emma Bading

Franka Hummels

Elmira Bahrami

Elmira Bahrami

Jana

Christoph Franken

Christoph Franken

Peter

Lucie Aron

Lucie Aron

Elodie Zadikan

Court is in session

Put Berlin Syndrome on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.