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North Face (Nordwand) (2008)

tomatometer

84

Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 55
Fresh: 46 | Rotten: 9

A tense and gripping spectacular piece of snow-bound historical German film-making.

72

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 5

A tense and gripping spectacular piece of snow-bound historical German film-making.

audience

81

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 3,253

My Rating

Movie Info

A handful of men set aside their differences to conquer one of Europe's tallest mountains in this period drama inspired by a true story. In 1936, Nazi Germany is looking to shore up its reputation in the eyes of the world, and after a pair of German climbers dies in an effort to climb the North face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps, the state is looking to find another group who can succeed where the earlier team failed. Henry Arau (Ulrich Tukur), the publisher of one of Berlin's biggest

May 11, 2010

$0.5M

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All Critics (55) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (9) | DVD (3)

The mountaineers climb for reasons that have little to do with nationalism - reasons the film clumsily attempts to articulate in words. It's far more successful conveying those inspirations with stunning images of them scaling daunting heights.

July 4, 2010 Full Review Source: NPR
NPR
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A straightforward, wickedly suspenseful Man vs. Nature saga of the type that rarely gets made any more.

April 16, 2010 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
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Philipp Stolzl worked in the same dangerous conditions as the original climbers, and we can feel the chill and peril in our bones. It's a shame, then, that the screenwriter, unlike the camera crew and the characters, was afflicted with such timidity.

March 25, 2010 Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Top Critic IconTop Critic

North Face" is something of an old-fashioned epic shot with modern wisdom and technique, a man vs. nature flick that also weighs the importance of the individual vs. the social while exposing the mean cost of vicarious thrills.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Detroit News
Detroit News
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The word "gripping" doesn't do it justice.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Washington Post
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This white-knuckle adventure is a literal and metaphoric cliff-hanger that gets a spectacular foothold on an unforgiving mountain.

February 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer
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Epic, intimate and gripping.

January 20, 2013 Full Review Source: Movie Nation
Movie Nation

Harrowing German drama is a real cliffhanger.

December 29, 2010 Full Review Source: sbs.com.au
sbs.com.au

Very likely the best movie ever made about mountain climbing, with some barbed commentary on life under Nazism.

May 11, 2010 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews
rec.arts.movies.reviews

It's Kolja Brandt's gloriously edge-of-the-seat/seat-of-the-pants cinematography (much of the film was shot on location) that really packs a natural wallop.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle

The images of the Eiger are both majestic and harrowing, and the action is as exciting as in any mountain-climbing movie to date.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Las Vegas Weekly
Las Vegas Weekly

I have no idea if anything beyond the essentials is accurate. A good deal of it feels more like a 1930s movie than a 1930s event

April 28, 2010 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

There's no subtext and not much character development, but those aren't really missed.

March 18, 2010 Full Review Source: Kansas City Star
Kansas City Star

The romantic subplot is underwritten and overwrought. More compelling is ... the impressively harrowing mountain footage.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Harrowing historical yarn mixes Third Reich manliness and white-knuckle mountaineering

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Some of the plotting (credited to four screenwriters) is too conventional and convenient, and the clunky running time is a problem - two-plus hours of this material is too much.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | Comment (1)
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

With knuckles alternately white from suspense and black from frostbite, the alpinists get progressively harder to tell apart. But the most compelling character, for all its brutal enormity, always was the mountain.

March 11, 2010 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Audience Reviews for North Face (Nordwand)

Luise: When you're at the bottom - Toni once told me - at the foot of the wall, and you look up, you ask yourself: How can anyone climb that? Why would anyone even want to? But hours later when you're at the top looking down, you've forgotten everything. Except the one person you promised you would come back to. 

North Face is a mountain climbing film that tries to be a lot more than that. Overall it is a good movie, but I can't help but feel that it could have and should have been a whole lot better. I'm not saying it is bad, but I think the director, Philipp Stolzl, tries to do a little too much; when if he would have just stocked to the basics it could have been a lot more exciting on the ascension and much more suspenseful on the descension. 

North Face is the story of two young Germans who are attempting to be the first to climb North Face. They are racing two Austrians to the top, as many reporters and spectators gather at a hotel to watch and take part in history. Among the reporters is a woman, who knows the two Germans and loves one of them, that being Toni. She is excited to see them be the first to make it and never really shows any concern about them attempting it.

Where the movie goes wrong in my opinion is that it can't just stick with the climbers. It cuts from the mountain to the hotel every five minutes. The action is up on the mountain with the climbers, not down on the ground with people who are just sitting and talking. Also I don't think the love interest really added that much to the movie, except just to add another plot detail. Before the climb, I didn't really see the love being all that strong between the two characters. I'd have liked it a lot more had they cut out a lot of the scenes down below and added a lot more to the actual mountain climbing scenes. The scenes that take place on the mountain are tremendous. The scenery is beautiful at times and scary at times. 

While I don't feel like the movie was completely ruined, I was just kind of put off by some of the plot decisions. I enjoyed the experience though, as it was times an exciting, suspenseful and ultimately sad story.
November 4, 2011
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

The scenery was spectacular, and the events astounding, to say the least. Based on a true story, this portrays how the national socialists used mountaineers as a propaganda tool to demonstrate their ideal Ubermensch..by claiming they could conquer the Eiger, or die heroically in the attempt. Why this film hasn't been more agressively marketed is amazing, as it is as good as any such movie type gets. An interesting side note: People vacationed at the Swiss Alps equipped with telescopes to watch the climbers. Considering everyone failed, and many died during their climbs, that's a really strange way to spend a vacation.
January 4, 2011
itsjustme2004

Super Reviewer

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Latest News on North Face (Nordwand)

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This week at the movies, we've got an angry detective (Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson and Ray...

Foreign Titles

  • Nordwand (DE)
  • Duel au Sommet (FR)
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