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World on a Wire
World on a Wire
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World on a Wire

World on a Wire

1973
Sci-fi, Crime
TV Mini-Series
3h 32m
Somewhere in the future there is a computer project called Simulacron one of which is able to simulate a full featured reality, when suddenly project leader Henry Vollmer dies. His successor Dr. Fred Stiller experiences odd phenomena. A good friend, Guenther Lause, disappears in the middle of a conversation and a week later nobody has ever heard of him. And those fits of dizzyness - Stiller cannot believe himself to be fool. There has to be an explanation for all this. Could Simulacron have something to do with it? (imdb) Episode List

Directed by:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Screenwriter:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Daniel F. Galouye

Starring:

Gottfried John, Klaus Löwitsch, Barbara Valentin, Günter Lamprecht, Ulli Lommel, Kurt Raab, Ivan Desny, Adrian Hoven, Wolfgang Schenck, Mascha Rabben, Karl Heinz Vosgerau, Joachim Hansen

Franchise:

World on a Wire

Genres:

Sci-fi, Crime

AKA:

Welt am Draht

Country:

West Germany

Languages:

English, German
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World on a Wire

1973
Sci-fi, Crime
TV Mini-Series
3h 32m
Your probable score
Ratings & Reviews Cast Collections Similar Stats Trailer
Avg Percentile 73.14% from 420 total ratings
Ratings & Reviews Cast Collections Similar Stats Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

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carsonwidCarsonWid
Rated 13 Jun 2010
86
96th
I think more could have been done with Part two, but it's an excellent set-up and puts some intriguing ideas into a world of their own. I just wished that Part two discussed the implications of the awareness they try to present.
Rated 13 Jun 2010
nathan_sNathan S
Rated 10 Oct 2018
4
74th
Nascent cyberpunk, a little difficult to speak of in terms that aren't cliche, but credit where it is due to originators. Paranoid and noir-tinged. The fragile mise-en-scene is obvious, full of glass and mirrors, simulacra and microcosms, but it sure is beautiful.
Rated 10 Oct 2018
kasperlKasperL
Rated 03 Jan 2014
90
97th
A must-see for those fascinated by ontology. To claim that 'Simulacron-3', the novel on which this and 'The Thirteenth Floor' were based, was ahead of its time seems clearly true. But Descartes, of course, dealt with similar subject matter in Meditations more than 300 years before. Still, it's interesting that Galouye's take wasn't more known until the resurgence of these types of stories with the likes of 'Dark City' and 'The Matrix'. Btw, Fassbinder's idiosyncratic stylization is really cool.
Rated 03 Jan 2014
suture_selfSuture Self
Rated 18 Nov 2013
10
96th
Combining the acute paranoia of a Pynchon novel and the plot of a pulpy sci-fi short story, World on a Wire is kind of an oddity, in that, even though the story is familiar and hokey, it manages to keep its ever-changing intrigue to the very end, which is impressive considering the run time. I loved it, it flew by, the photography is a formalist's dream, and unlike a lot of other sci-fi, it ends in a very satisfying and clever manner. Is Fassbinder some kind of wunderkid? It appears so.
Rated 18 Nov 2013
dorkovskyDorkovsky
Rated 31 Jul 2010
8
89th
Fassbinder makes really good movies that I will never want to watch a second time.
Rated 31 Jul 2010
seethruskinSeethruskin
Rated 28 Jun 2021
4
51st
Bleep bloop
Rated 28 Jun 2021
djrossdjross
Rated 24 Jul 2014
30
12th
Occasional interesting moments, and sometimes nicely photographed, but this is mostly dreadfully inept television nonsense, with shot after shot after shot after shot after shot filmed through a screen, or a mirror, or from behind some obstacle. Most scenes are laughable, some hilariously so. Nice to see Ulli Lommel acting. SLEEPER, released the same year, probably works better as serious sci-fi and as vision of the future, but it can't compete in terms of synchronised chair spinarounds.
Rated 24 Jul 2014
ratedarghratedargh
Rated 08 Jul 2014
90
85th
Mind bending science fiction that looks amazing. It was a smart move to keep it set in the 70s so to prevent it from feeling dated, it simply exists in an alternate version of that present, which is very appropriate. While many plot points may feel telegraphed, they never lack logic. What it lacks in outright surprises, it makes up for in a tense and fascinating unraveling. The use of mirrors, which could feel silly, works very well to visualize the idea of the layers at work.
Rated 08 Jul 2014
desertpunkDesertPunk
Rated 08 Dec 2013
76
63rd
Beautiful cinematography and a story that was ridiculously before its time. However, that story is now terribly predictable by modern standards, and the running time drags terribly. I have nothing at all against long running times, but I need to be entertained enough to justify it.
Rated 08 Dec 2013
vinegarbobVinegarBob
Rated 04 Apr 2012
80
80th
Visually arresting and intellectually interesting oddity from Fassbinder. If you're looking for something a bit different you'd do well to give this a look because there's nothing else quite like it out there.
Rated 04 Apr 2012
mentaculusMentaculus
Rated 22 Aug 2011
78
67th
An odd hybrid of a film. The style is momentarily abrasive until the cadence sweeps over you, around the end of Part 1, then it works. It takes the central, fearful hypothesis from Alphaville (see Eddie Constantine in a bizarre cameo here as the "Man in Car") and elevates it to theory. So despite its made-for-TV flaws, and trying length, it's extremely memorable - so memorable, you lose count of how many films lifted from it.
Rated 22 Aug 2011
nathanbatesNathanBates
Rated 15 Oct 2023
80
79th
A pretty intellectual dive into what we would now call cyberspace; it has ripples that would become The Matrix and Inception years later. It strikes me as beyond belief that something like this would be shown on TV, while all we have now are reality shows. The story is fascinating, if a bit convoluted, but it does have a bit too much filler to make it truly enjoyable.
Rated 15 Oct 2023
adam_p_dAdam P-D
Rated 15 Jun 2022
70
85th
Very difficult to rate this one. As if I was in 1973? Or as if it were released today? Neither feel honest. Somewhere in between?
Rated 15 Jun 2022
darrenDarren
Rated 04 Jul 2021
77
69th
Doesn't feel it's length. Probably because it was more designed for TV but ya good stuff. Love the way a lot of it is framed adds to the paranoia. A nice mix of like Videodrome and the Matrix
Rated 04 Jul 2021
capodelnullacapodelnulla
Rated 15 May 2020
90
95th
yalnızca hikayenin üzerine kurulduğu kavramlara odaklanıp spektaküler aksiyona, numaralara girmeyişi en başta değerini yükseltiyor. her ne kadar hikaye iki part halinde biraz sünüyor olsa da fassbinder öyle açılardan, mefhumları ön plana çıkartarak öyle güzel bir işçilikle anlatıyor ki hikayeyi, sünmesi dahi anlamlı olmuyor bi süre sonra. fakat en önemlisi, "kahramanın" alışılmış bilim kurgu sineması aksine çaresiz ve "kaderini kabullenmiş" olması.
Rated 15 May 2020
elmakebabielmakebabi
Rated 17 May 2018
90
97th
Mesmerising cinematography, though it feels longer than it should.
Rated 17 May 2018
syntheseizurSyntheseizur
Rated 19 Feb 2018
82
70th
A maverick sci-fi film both of its time and spectacularly visionary. It carries elements of spy movies, noir, and arthouse abstractions alongside a cerebral, reality-altering narrative that belongs beside Inception and Black Mirror. From corporate conspiracies to the ethical considerations of artificial intelligence, the film preempts themes that would come into style decades later. It's also fearlessly stylish in a way that dates it but gives it a campy singularity. A hidden sci-fi classic.
Rated 19 Feb 2018
yoohooyoohoo
Rated 10 Nov 2017
75
52nd
It is certainly dated, which doesn't help this film at all, but it is a thought-provoking experiment on reality and what it means when things begin to unravel. The filmmaking was fascinating to watch - the camera is constantly on the move, as are characters, and the mirrors added another layer of ambiguity. That or they were for all the cocaine Fassbinder was doing. Either way, an intriguing watch.
Rated 10 Nov 2017
karamazovkaramazov.
Rated 20 Oct 2015
60
80th
Very amusing and exquisitely photographed pulp-SF, with all of the Fassbinder regulars [or just about: the only people missing that I can think of are, of the cast, Hanna Schygulla, Brigitte Mira, and Günther Kaufmann, and, of the crew, Juliane Lorenz and Peer Raben], and, yes, synchronized swivel-chair spins! All these moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain.
Rated 20 Oct 2015
xacviantxacviant
Rated 27 Aug 2015
71
27th
After the creator of computer simulation which perfectly replicates human life and consciousness dies mysteriously, his assistant takes over the project, but soon finds reasons to question the nature of his own reality. In the wake of THE MATRIX and other such what-is-really-real SF, one can see the big twist a mile away, and there's not really enough story to sustain 210 minutes. But Fassbender revels in the 70s kitsch and the cinematography is superb. The ending is also surprisingly touching.
Rated 27 Aug 2015
dawolfeyDaWolfey
Rated 11 Jul 2015
67
83rd
Watching this, I couldn't decide if it was a crappy TV movie on which a good premise was wasted, or an understated clever sci-fi movie where the audience has to do some work too. The themes are well-trodden first year existential philosophy, but it felt like they weren't being explored deeply enough and instead it tiptoes around giving any meaningful insights and lumbers on with too much filler.
Rated 11 Jul 2015
jakeaestheteJakeAesthete
Rated 18 Mar 2015
43
39th
Definitely an outlier and oddity among Fassbinder's work (which considering his already eclectic filmography is saying quite a lot), clearly based on source material pretty far removed from his typical overbearing thematic concerns, which makes it both less heavy-handedly didactic than some of his more overtly "personal" work, but also less engagingly "his", despite the intermittently intriguing and admittedly prescient subject matter (shades of everything from Blade Runner to eXistenZ abound).
Rated 18 Mar 2015
driscarpindriscarpin
Rated 03 Jan 2015
91
89th
Coisa linda.
Rated 03 Jan 2015
staryarabbistaryarabbi
Rated 16 Nov 2014
75
68th
a some kind of German "Alphaville". it's a movie with dull acting and a repetitive futuristic atmosphere but in spite of that dullness I reached a some kind of ecstasy and emancipation at the end like in the movies of Bresson. that's why it reminded me of "A Man Escaped" though in a distopian world.
Rated 16 Nov 2014
barraocBarraoc
Rated 14 Apr 2014
80
85th
A story that's leagues ahead of its time, and once I got over the oddness of style I thoroughly enjoy it.
Rated 14 Apr 2014
sirrobbieSirRobbie
Rated 14 Aug 2013
60
24th
This is like the perfect material for a mini-series. So my question is, why make one fuckin long movie?! I watched this in the very end of a 10 day festval (5 films a day) and I've started this one at 9:00pm....I wanted to die right there. My fuckin ass!!!
Rated 14 Aug 2013
domahdomah
Rated 08 Feb 2013
50
26th
Impressive storyline, if a bit predictable to us 21st century viewers. The filmmaking was horrible, though. B movie schlock.
Rated 08 Feb 2013
rickickerrickicker
Rated 07 Dec 2012
82
58th
Starts off great, but a modern audience already knows this twist, which makes the exposition-filled second-half even more interminable.
Rated 07 Dec 2012
murrayMurray
Rated 05 Sep 2012
80
61st
Quality scifi, but unnecessarily long.
Rated 05 Sep 2012
cpreviewcpreview
Rated 12 Aug 2012
9
87th
From the country that gave the world cruise and ballistic missiles, Fahrvergnügen, and Kraftwerk, Germany shows that they can come up with some inventive... and scary... technology. Welt am Draht is one of those rare pre-cyberpunk cyberpunk movies that needs to be seen to be believed. Especially when more recent films have aped the idea of VR with high-end graphic trickery, this one is enough proof that high-end does not mean high-quality.
Rated 12 Aug 2012
gnalkhereGnalkhere
Rated 18 May 2012
90
91st
At times it got slow, but it was still 2001 meets The Matrix.
Rated 18 May 2012
perrystroikaPerryStroika
Rated 18 Apr 2012
63
53rd
I was impressed without being involved; impressed because of how far ahead of its time the story and themes were, with the costumes and design, and the virtuosity of the film making; but not involved, because of the colorlessness of the main character, the presence of a great deal of narrative padding, and a general lack of urgency. Very interesting. Was made as a TV miniseries, so it doesn't play as a movie.
Rated 18 Apr 2012
slantmagSlantMag
Rated 13 Oct 2011
25
61st
"Fassbinder, who also co-adapted the film's screenplay, usually makes a point of undermining the affectation of his melodramas with jarring intrusions of camp." - Simon Abrams
Rated 13 Oct 2011
joojooJooJoo
Rated 02 Jul 2009
5
81st
It's a mad, mad, mad world.
Rated 02 Jul 2009

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