Rotten Tomatoes Logo Do you want to see ‘Fateless’?

Fateless (2005)

tomatometer

92

Average Rating: 7.9/10
Reviews Counted: 63
Fresh: 58 | Rotten: 5

Beautifully photographed and majestically scored, Fateless is a haunting account of one boy's experiences during the Holocaust and his journey to pick up the pieces in the war's aftermath.

95

Average Rating: 8.4/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 1

Beautifully photographed and majestically scored, Fateless is a haunting account of one boy's experiences during the Holocaust and his journey to pick up the pieces in the war's aftermath.

audience

64

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 13,604

My Rating

Movie Info

One young man's devastating voyage through the Holocaust sets the stage for this powerful drama. Gyorgy "Gyurka" Koves (Marcell Nagy) is a 14-year-old Jewish boy living in Hungary when the Nazi pogroms begin sweeping through the country. Gyura's father (Janos Ban) has his business taken away from him not long before he's taken away to a concentration camp, and as he's led away, Gyura agrees to his father's request to look after his stepmother while he's gone. However, Gyurka takes a bus rather

R, 2 hr. 16 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Imre Kertesz

May 9, 2006

ThinkFilm

Cast

All Critics (67) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (60) | Rotten (5) | DVD (7)

Fateless looks man's inhumanity to man square in the eye and pronounces it standard operating procedure, and that may be the greater horror.

June 2, 2006 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A reflection of how its main character comes to experience reality, as one small moment between what came before and whatever horror or happiness is yet to come.

April 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Many of the images in Fateless are familiar, but they're presented so unsparingly, so uncloaked by emotion, they become freshly potent.

March 25, 2006 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Epic in scope and imagery, the film is a haunting look at mankind's capacity for inhumanity, as well as survival.

March 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film is on a level just slightly below Schindler's List and The Pianist, and only because Koltai is a less powerful, practiced director than either Steven Spielberg or Roman Polanski.

March 18, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

With its first-person approach, Fateless joins other classic films about the Holocaust (Shoah, Schindler's List) by vividly portraying an event that can seem remote as the number of eyewitnesses shrinks each year.

March 10, 2006 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | Comment
Detroit Free Press
Top Critic IconTop Critic

"Fateless" is an essential film in the canon of holocaust film because it vividly tracks the specific brand of hatred that torture and genocidal murder inures.

April 20, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
ColeSmithey.com

In cutting through the conventional cliches of Holocaust presentation to a more singular truth, Gyuri defies viewers to refuse him the license to tell his own story as he himself saw and felt it, rather than as others might prefer him to tell it.

July 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film | Comment
Eye for Film

Una película de sobrecogedora belleza que se las arregla para arrojar nueva luz sobre un tema trillado y recurrente.

March 25, 2007 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | Comment
Uruguay Total

Masterfully directed, acted and shot, this is world cinema at its absolute finest.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

Haunting, affecting and beautiful in its own way, although slow-moving and overlong.

January 19, 2007 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope | Comment
Laramie Movie Scope

In a long list of Holocaust films, this sublime one is well-worth seeking out.

December 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Plays out as a constant tug-of-war between what makes it trite and what makes it unique, although what makes it unique has the better chance of sticking with you.

May 27, 2006 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

Is the survivor entitled to ordinary human happiness -- or is this human emotion an act of disloyalty and diminution? These questions are a vital part of this outstanding film's dark and sombre power.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

Perhaps the fault lies more with Ennio Morricone's lavish, emotionally bullying music, which cancels out all the reticence and nuance of the script.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Independent

We're meant to see the camps with a naive adolescent eye, but director Koltai misjudges his material, and his fastidious paletting and highly orchestrated set-pieces are curiously low-impact; beautiful where they should be beastly.

May 5, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Fiercely unsentimental and surprisingly beautiful, Hungarian drama Fateless does the seemingly impossible: it succeeds in portraying the subject of the Holocaust in a new and devastating light.

May 5, 2006 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

Relatively few films touching on the Holocaust are worthy of their subject; this one is.

May 4, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Unconventional Holocaust film sees its image possibly stripped of its lucidity for video, but it's an appealing presentation nonetheless.

May 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Fateless

This film is hard to watch, but the performances are profound and the cinematography is breath taking. The depths of suffering seem to be limitless, and thiis film portrays that brilliantly. I do not recommend this film for children. It is a mature work that is completely disturbing. While similar films capitalize on

October 31, 2010
itsjustme2004

Super Reviewer

There can be beauty anywhere - even in the Nazi death camps. This film is filled with touching moments, some of the rawest I've seen in film, and is an interesting take on the coming-of-age story: what if you spent your teens in a concentration camp? How would you look back on it?

May 14, 2007
danperry17

Super Reviewer

Fateless Quotes

No quotes approved yet for Fateless. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Latest News for Fateless

October 5, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Departed" Is Best Reviewed Wide Release of 2006
This week at the movies, we've got cops and robbers in Boston ("The Departed," starring...

What's Hot On RT

Critics Consensus
Critics Consensus

Journey 2 Not Worth the Trip

Luis Guzman
Luis Guzman

What are his 10 best movies ever?

<em>Amazing Spider-Man</em>
Amazing Spider-Man

See the all-new action-packed trailer!

The Avengers!
The Avengers!

Five new Marvelous pictures

Top Movie Quizzes

LEGO Mania: 2011 Best Picture Nominees
by natalie - 18,549 taken
created 12 months ago
How Much Do You Know About Leonardo DiCaprio?
by natalie - 44,401 taken
created 15 months ago
Pixar Movies!
by jdikwlzviv - 27,133 taken
created 15 months ago
The Wizards of Harry Potter
by jdikwlzviv - 27,633 taken
created 15 months ago

Foreign Titles

  • Fateless (Sorstalansag) (DE)
  • Fateless (Sorstalansag) (UK)
Help | About | Jobs | Newsletter | Critics Submission | API | Licensing | Blog | Developers | Mobile