The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his chief Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland.
The film was released in Germany on 23 March 2006. At the same time, the screenplay was published by Suhrkamp Verlag. The Lives of Others won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film had earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards – including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor – after having set a new record with 11 nominations. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. The Lives of Others cost 2 million USD and grossed more than 77 million USD worldwide as of November 2007
The movie takes place in the German Democratic Republic in 1984 and 1985. Despite its name, the GDR was a dictatorship that used secret police, the Stasi, to maintain control. The movie's main character is secret police officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe).
Wiesler's superior, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), assigns him to spy on successful playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Shortly before a party at Dreyman's flat, Wiesler and a Stasi team bug the apartment. Wiesler and another agent then set up equipment in attic above Dreyman's unit, and begin alternating shifts of surveilling the writer, then typing up frequent reports about what they hear.
