Berlin, 1945: American journalist Jake Geisner (George Clooney, pictured) is in town to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference when the body of his crooked driver Corporal Tully (Tobey Maguire) is pulled from the river. As a murder investigation gets under way, Jake searches for the connection between Tully's death and German Jew Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett, pictured), an old flame whose husband has disappeared. SS Officer Emil Brandt worked with Nazi engineer Franz Bettmann on a V2 rocket programme using slave labour at Camp Dora.
The Americans now want Bettmann in the US to further their own weapons programme, but they can't do that if he's accused of war crimes - and the only witness is Emil Brandt. So Emil's disappearance is explained, but can Geisner find him before the Americans do, and what will become of Lena?
Released in 2006, director Steven Soderbergh celebrated the glories of 1940s cinema with a beautifully crafted film noir, shot using only the technology available to the likes of Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and Carol Reed (The Third Man).
A perfectly pitched homage to those great films, The Good German particularly honours Casablanca, with its closing scene (at the airport) and the film poster inspired by Curtiz's 1942 classic.
The Good German is a Film programme that first aired in 2006 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
