Critics reviews

Gradually, a story of bittersweet beauty and unexpected tenderness emerges... [Georg] Friedrich’s complex, contradictory performance is a marvel, second only to that of Rogowski, who brings his characteristic passion and soulfulness to the role.

Throughout, [the film] remains resistant to melodrama or stylistic showiness, so the poignancy sneaks up on you. Meise, like his star, prefers to communicate in lower case rather than screaming headlines.

Great Freedom is spare and deliberate and focused on the strength required to soldier on in a hopeless place. What Meise and Rogowski accomplish here is deeply moving and ultimately shattering.

One of those films that want to remind us how terrible things were in the not too distant past, Sebastian Meise’s prison drama makes its points through a believable and potent story.

What comes through most forcefully [in "Great Freedom"] is the warmth and tenderness of Hoffmann’s search for love... This is an important film, and a distinctive – if essentially dark – addition to the canon of movies set in prisons.

The power of Sebastian Meise’s subdued prison drama comes not from big, brash moments but from subtle details... [as well as] Franz Rogowski’s remarkable, contained performance.

If at times the storytelling functions as a way to negate itself, restricted to the confines of the prison as if to metaphorically suggest restraint crystallizes itself into meaningful experience, Franz Rogowski consistently elevates this somber procedure with empathetic aplomb.

Great Freedom is conceived as a reorganized history of homosexual consciousness. That makes it a fascinating corrective to contemporary gay politics... Meise goes back to the character of gay experience before it was a sanitized political tool.

A poignant queer love story... Great Freedom [is] a portrait of a political journey, as well as that of a quietly fascinating hero.

A sensitive prison drama that eschews the traditional brutality of the genre... [Great Freedom] is a quiet and carefully constructed story about the sheer absurdity of the criminalisation of homosexuality, and about the denial of humanity that criminalisation required.

Hard-hitting yet devastatingly tender... [Great Freedom] is a memorable love story.

Remarkable... A celebration of unquenchable tenacity and the sustaining power of love.