The Reader poster

The Reader (2008)

Film · 2h 4m · Rated R

Drama, Romance

A young man’s illicit affair with an older woman becomes a gritty, intimate drama years later during a war crimes trial.

Melancholy and earnest. A full-attention watch at a measured pace. Emotionally it is devastating.

Streaming on Kanopy (free), Hoopla (free) and Tubi (free).

The Reader parents guide

For an R, this one goes further: strong sex and nudity. Beyond that, some violence and mild language.

Scare
Not scary
Jump scares
None noted
Gore
Light gore
Some blood or injury, briefly.
Violence
Some violence
Some fighting or peril.
Sex and nudity
Strong
Strong means explicit or repeated sex, extended nudity, or sexual assault shown on screen, attempted or completed, even partly off screen. Any one of these is enough.
Language
Mild
Mild words like damn, hell or crap.

How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.

Three questions

How gory is The Reader?
Light gore and some violence.
What is The Reader rated, and is it OK for kids?
Rated R, and it earns it: strong sex and nudity. Not one for kids.

What is The Reader about?

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)

Bittersweet. It earns its ending, but not everyone gets what they want.

Cast and crew

Directed byStephen Daldry
StarringRalph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, David Kross, Lena Olin, Bruno Ganz, Jeanette Hain

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The Reader is on our Courtroom, Drama on Tubi, Romance on Tubi, Drama on Kanopy and Romance on Kanopy lists.

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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.