The Experiment
7.4/10
Rating
120 min
Runtime
2001
Release Year
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Director
Cast
Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Justus von Dohnányi, Maren Eggert, Edgar Selge
Quick Synopsis
Twenty volunteers respond to a university advertisement offering good pay to participate in a study on aggressive behavior within a simulated prison environment. Among them, a journalist suspects there is more to the experiment and secretly joins the group to investigate. The participants are randomly assigned roles as either prisoners or guards, and what starts as a controlled role-playing exercise quickly escalates into real and violent conflict as tensions rise.
Detailed Synopsis of The Experiment
20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.
