Hangmen Also Die!

Skip the prestige-TV noise — Hangmen Also Die!, in Australia on Amazon Prime Video and Hoopla, and in the US on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube TV, is quietly one of the better ones. It knows exactly what kind of film it is from the opening scene, and never loses that thread. A 7/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Brian Donlevy sets the tone, and the rest of the cast matches it scene for scene. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Amazon Prime Video.

Whatever else is competing for your attention this week, Hangmen Also Die! Is worth clearing space for. Hangmen Also Die! Trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha. Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan lead a cast that treats the material with real seriousness. Hangmen Also Die! Came out in 1943. The performances in Hangmen Also Die! Do a lot of work in the silences between the dialogue. It knows exactly what it is, and does not try to be anything else.

Hangmen Also Die! Is what you recommend to people who say they do not really watch much. It does not lean on comparisons to make its case. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Brian Donlevy's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.

Hangmen Also Die! was released in 1943, directed by Fritz Lang. The full 134-minute film is available to watch now. Find exactly where it's streaming below, and TV Butler Pro makes it effortless to track your progress as you go. Just search the name, and Butler finds it instantly, tells you which service has it, and remembers exactly where you left off.