May 14, 2026 12:19pm PT

‘Fatherland’ Review: Thomas Mann and His Daughter Travel Across Germany in 1949 in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Meticulous Time Machine of a Drama

Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller costar in a movie that meditates on the Cold War and the Holocaust and on whether a lost society can heal itself.

Owen Gleiberman

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Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

@OwenGleiberman

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Courtesy of Agata Grzybowska

In the elegant, silvery, and fascinating “Fatherland,” the Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski presents the latest chapter in what feels like a trilogy (though maybe it will be a quartet; his last feature, “Cold War,” was released eight years ago, and he’s the furthest thing possible from a predictable filmmaker).

The movies in this unofficial series are quite different from one another, though they’re linked in striking ways. Each one is set in Europe during the Cold War; each takes on political and historical themes of unabashed momentousness; each is told in meticulously framed, lustrous black-and-white images that Pawlikowski, who started out as a documentary filmmaker, cuts together with the stark precision of a cinematic coffee-table photography book; and each, in its monochromatically austere way, falls into the category of art-object-as-awards-bait (“Ida” won the 2013 Academy Award for best foreign language film; “Cold War” was nominated for three Oscars in 2018, including best director).

'Fatherland' Review: Thomas Mann and His Daughter Travel Across Germany in 1949 in Pawel Pawlikowski's Meticulous Time Machine of a Drama