The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

A WWII movie... with swearing? Too far.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III April 30, 2025

A handful of noted American directors have been getting lots of love on UHD as of late, with recent waves of domestic and import releases celebrating the diverse back catalogs of David Cronenberg, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, and more. You can certainly add Steven Soderbergh's name to that list -- he's not only perhaps the biggest outsider of the bunch, but his body of work has jumped between almost every genre imaginable. In fact, all of Soderbergh's pre-2020 output for WB has been issued to 4K during the past year, with the likes of Magic Mike, the Ocean's Trilogy, Contagion and, as of this week, The Informant! and 2006's The Good German. The latter stands shoulder-high as a particularly noteworthy outlier, a visually and thematically ambitious film that flopped hard at the box office, didn't do so well with the critics, and never even earned a Blu-ray release despite being released on home video a year after the then-new format's launch. Warner Bros. has finally prepped The Good German for re-evaluation on 4K and Blu-ray almost 20 years later, making it the rare big-studio title to execute two full format jumps in a single bound.

But is it any good? Sadly, at best The Good German seems like only a half-step above what its lukewarm reputation suggests. On the surface it's at least an interesting experiment, a kind of bizarro-world WWII drama -- and no, not the fun kind -- that feels like a long-lost remnant from Hollywood's Golden Age if the Hays Code never existed. (In other words, this is Soderbergh's attempt to mimic the appearance and atmosphere of an 1940s studio picture, but one that features sex and swearing.) The Good German reportedly used dramas like Jean Negulesco's Humoresque as a visual template: it was filmed with wide-angle lenses and deep-focus cinematography, shot mostly on studio backlots and in color (a necessary "evil" to make use of faster films stocks and green screens) at 1.33:1 before a conversion to black-and-white during post-production. From that perspective, The Good German at least earns a few points for originality, as Soderbergh (undoubtedly riding a tidal wave of creative control after the rousing success of Ocean's Eleven and Twelve) made the admirable attempt to revive an entire era of filmmaking with a roster of A-list stars.

Unfortunately, The Good German's story comes in a fairly distant second, far behind even the successful silliness of another genre revival attempt in 2009: Black Dynamite, a comedy that successfully skewered Blaxploitation tropes and was shot on authentic film stock from the 1970s. In The Good German, everything's played straight and that's fine, but its story is told in such a way that the film's visual approach and flow consistently seems to work against it. Based on the 2001 novel by Joseph Kanon, it follows the exploits of war correspondent Jacob "Jake" Geismer (George Clooney), who's just flown in to Berlin after Europe's involvement in WWII has come to an end but weeks before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jake's been to Germany before; in fact, he even managed a news bureau there years ago and had a sweetheart in Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), who's now married to a German man named Emil (Christian Oliver), but has returned to cover the ongoing Potsdam Peace Conference. Things get tangled quickly when Jake's seemingly milquetoast driver, Corporal Patrick Tully (Tobey Maguire), is revealed to be in a relationship with Lena and he's doing whatever he can to survive, including black market dealings. An American murder complicates matters even further, especially since the bullet-riddled body is found with 50,000 reichsmarks... and Emil is now missing too.

The Good German is a film that I want to like a lot more than I actually do, but it can at least be appreciated for its stubborn commitment to visual gimmickry. It really does feel like the product of another time -- except for all that sex and swearing, which ultimately works against it as much as all those murky narrative detours and back roads -- and for that should at least be enjoyed by Golden Age enthusiasts and die-hard disciples of Soderbergh's particular approach to filmmaking. The good news about Warner Bros.' new UHD (which surprisingly also comes with a new Blu-ray that's also available separately) is that it bolsters the film's inarguable technical achievements, which of course mostly extend to the visuals -- The Good German isn't era-authentic in regards to its sound design. The extras are unfortunately almost nil, which means that the film has to stand on its own two feet. For most newcomers, that's basically a toss-up.

The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the Blu-ray disc, included here and also available separately.

As outlined above, The Good German made use of equipment commonly used during Hollywood's Golden Age to mimic an era-specific visual design -- this even extends to compositions, screen wipes, and other editing techniques, and real archival historical footage has been inserted as well. (Other elements such as "rear projection" accomplished via green screens, tweaked film grain levels, and the classic "Academy" 1.33:1 aspect ratio* are also employed to seal the deal.) The good news is that The Good German plays well enough on UHD despite being a 2K upscale: there obviously isn't much perceivable detail gained over the linked Blu-ray, but its wildly fluctuating black/white levels are at least given a better chance to shine here whether you opt for HDR10 or Dolby Vision playback. Not surprisingly, the higher encoding here also tightens up the picture somewhat, but not to a degree that will be all that perceptible unless you're watching on a larger screen or display. It's the winner by default if we're talking direct comparisons, but the limitations of its 2K source -- not to mention The Good German's frequently diffused light levels and soft, velvety appearance -- don't make it the most immediately eye-catching UHD disc around. Even so, I'm extremely glad that WB put in the effort here, which was no doubt at least partially prompted by its Blu-ray omission almost two full decades ago.

* - It's been reported that The Good German was actually shown theatrically at 1.66:1, a common European format, but this is not the first time that director Steven Soderbergh changed a film's aspect ratio for home video.

The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Good German might play by most of the visual rules of Golden Age Hollywood, but its DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is a decidedly more modern effort. Truth be told, though, it's not too far off several of Soderbergh's other non-flashy films such as Traffic (which I'd love to see get the UHD treatment) in that most of the dialogue and on-screen action is strictly confined to the front center channel only. The Good German doesn't sound quite that confined since light atmospheric ambient elements -- vehicle drive-bys, crowd noise, etc. -- occasionally drift into the left/right and rear channels, whereas the majority of rear channel activity is reserved (à la Traffic) for Thomas Newman's Oscar-nominated original score, which really is quite good and suits the material nicely. Even with the lossless upgrade this still isn't a revelatory sonic experience since it's so dialogue-driven, but it's pleasingly full with musical weight and otherwise gets the job done within those self-imposed boundaries.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are offered during the main feature only.

The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover art, but oddly enough no slipcover or Digital Copy are included... which probably isn't all that unusual since this seems to be an MOD (pressed) release. The extras are unfortunately minimal; it's a real shame, since a Soderbergh audio commentary or brand-new featurette/interview might have gone a long way to lightly nudge audiences stuck on the fence.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:25) - This black-and-white promotional piece can also be seen here.

The Good German 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Steven Soderbergh's box-office bomb The Good German was one of the director's most polarizing big-studio efforts, a lukewarm WWII noir/drama whose admittedly great visual gimmick is both its most interesting element and its biggest curse. (Perhaps the director saw Sin City a year earlier and assumed that audiences were still hungry for edgy black-and-white entertainment?) Even so, it's a film that has at least some merit besides for the visuals, as its performances are uniformly good and the original score by Thomas Newman fits like a glove. It's still a tough one to recommend to newcomers, but anyone intrigued by the subject matter or fans of Soderbergh may want to seek out this UHD combo pack or long-overdue Blu-ray: the A/V merits are are at least solid enough to outweigh its lacking extras.