Experimenter

About the movie

In 1961, social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted the "obedience experiments" at Yale University. The experiments observed the responses of ordinary people asked to send harmful electrical shocks to a stranger. Despite pleadings from the person they were shocking, 65 percent of subjects obeyed commands from a lab-coated authority figure to deliver potentially fatal currents. With Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram’s Kafkaesque results hit a nerve, and he was accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster.
Starring Peter Sarsgaard (Orphan, Jarhead) as Stanley Milgram, and Winona Ryder (Black Swan, Edward Scissorhands) in the role of his wife, multiple award winning director Michael Almereyda’s (Nadja, Hamlet) latest film Experimenter has screened at Sundance and Cannes, where it has gained wide critical praise. In Experimenter, Almereyda uses the whole spectrum of his playful palette when making this self-reflexive character study stand out from the crowd of modern biopics.
“Lingers and haunts, long after the lights have come up.” – Variety
“All social science should be this entertaining!” – GeekNation
“An exploration of human nature, grounded by strong performances from Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder” – The Hollywood Reporter

Participating