World on a Wire (1973)
Average Rating: 8.3/10
Reviews Counted: 21
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 8.4/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 2,555
My Rating
Movie Info
A dystopic science-fiction epic, World on a Wire is German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder's gloriously cracked, boundlessly inventive take on future paranoia. With dashes of Kubrick, Vonnegut, and Dick, but a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of reluctant action hero Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate and governmental conspiracy. At risk? Our entire (virtual) reality as we know it. This long unseen
Cast
-
Margit Carstensen
Maya Schmidt-Gentner -
Ingrid Caven
Uschi journalist -
Peter Chatel
Hirse secretary of stat... -
Eddie Constantine
Man in Rolls Royce -
Ivan Desny
Guenther Lause uncle of... -
Liselotte Eder
Data typist -
Joachim Hansen
Hans Edelkern -
Gottfried John
Einstein -
Elma Karlowa
Keeper of Cafeteria -
Christine Kaufmann
Party guest -
Peter Kern
Hospital orderly -
Günter Lamprecht
Fritz Walfang -
Rudolf Lenz
Hartmann -
Klaus Lowitsch
Fred Stiller -
Christiane Maybach
Lady at the bar -
Peter Moland
Employee -
El Hedi ben Salem
Bodyguard -
Karl Scheydt
Inspector Stuhlfahrt -
Barbara Valentin
Gloria Fromm -
Ulli Lommel
Rupp journalist -
Magdalena Montezuma
Party guest -
Kurt Raab
Mark Holm -
Werner Schroeter
Party guest -
Katrin Schaake
Computer lab assistant -
Heinz Meier
Von Weinlaub secretary ... -
Rudolf Waldemar Brem
Hospital orderly -
Bruce Low
Doctor -
Walter Sedlmayr
Janitor -
Karl Heinz Vosgerau
Herbert Siskins
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All Critics (21) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (0) | DVD (3)
If you know Fassbinder, you might want to see this as an exercise of his mind, a demonstration of how one of his stories might be transformed by the detachment of science fiction.
Top CriticIt starts slowly, then develops an irresistible momentum.
Both an astonishing display of precocious cinematic virtuosity and an anguished avowal of its psychic toll.
A mini-masterpiece of the 1970s European design aesthetic and a major addition to the immense and baffling oeuvre of Fassbinder...
Seen now, the movie seems as timely as it is outdated, its themes contemporary even if its clothing and hairdos are anything but.
It's astonishing that such painfully obvious themes can also be so painfully provocative.
Fassbinder could take on any style and make it his own.
Pardon me if I get a little choked up, but this is Rainer Werner Fassbinder we're talking about.
a film of ideas and questions whose prescient take on virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the moral responsibility humans have toward machines made in their likeness presages such millennial films "The Matrix" and "A.I. Artificial Intelligence"
A visually impressive tale full of mysterious characters and a dark sense of humor, Fassbender's film is also a densely plotted, surrealistic film full of plenty of twists.
... a heady, witty, stylistically audacious, highly compelling, and very entertaining science fiction thriller years ahead of its time.
Criterion presents World on a Wire, a rediscovered Fassbinder mindbender, in a luxe Blu-ray transfer, along with some choice extras.
"World on a Wire" is genuinely breathtaking: a long, satisfying encounter with the relatively newly hatched Fassbinder spinning off an epic story with effortless, masterful ease.
A philosophical mystery thriller done with self-conscious camp and insouciant profundity.
Fassbinder, who also co-adapted the film's screenplay, usually makes a point of undermining the affectation of his melodramas with jarring intrusions of camp.
When the action slows down for characters to trade deep insights about the nature of reality, you can just bliss out on the production design and wardrobe.
Fassbinder's film startles as a truly Borgesian, trenchant political vision of order as artificial reality.
This is Fassbinder at the top of his game.
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Foreign Titles
- Welt am Draht (DE)
- World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) (UK)
