Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "The Wave" is a 45-minute short film from 35 years ago directed by Alexander Grasshoff. Grasshoff was a 3-time Academy Award nominee at this point already for his documentary works and even if he was only in his early 50s when he made this one here, he was already close to retirement. "The Wave" won a Primetime Emmy in the children's category, although "children" is not exactly the right word to describe the target audience for this one. Teenage audiences can watch it, just like adults. It is about a group of students who take part in an experiment conducted by their teacher. Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Bruce Davison plays the main character here. He brings up strict rules for behavior during his class in a similar manner it was done decades ago by the Nazi party. However, I must say, the whole classroom restrictions etc. looked more like in some weird sect to me. Anyway, love relationships suffer under these new developments and this includes the students and the teacher as well. There are some slightly cringeworthy moments, like the ending is certainly over the top or it was obvious the first student would forget standing up and addressing the teacher correctly. A bit on the predictable side sometimes. Nonetheless, this is as good as it gets for an 80s television short film and I recommend the watch. Also check out the German full feature adaptation starring Jürgen Vogel. It is a bit more in-your-face and a good watch as well if you enjoyed this one here. What is maybe the most interesting aspect is that it is actually based on real events. Thumbs up, I recommend it.

Frederik Fisker Wæhrens 1 out of 10 says it all... I cannot believe that anyone can take this movie serious. It is so lame that an entire class and their lives can be turned around because of a stupid school project. It hurts me when I see this. In my opinion, it is the worst movie ever made (sure there are worse, but I have only been blessed with The Wave, as the lowest point in film history).The acting in the movie is fine. Bruce Davison does an excellent job playing Ben Ross. But the entire plot is unrealistic. I don't know if this could happen in any other country, but in Denmark, this is highly unlikely. It is unlikely that any students in Danish schools would embrace The Wave as they do in the movie. Therefore I deem this movie to be unrealistic, and that is why it annoys me to see the people in the movie freak-out over a school project. I mean, come on... !!!!!!

bacs-1 I watched this movie only once and it has stuck with me since. I have three boys and each one was either told about the movie or watched it. The message this movie sends should be seen by all that attend a High School through-out this World. It should be part of the Social Studies curriculum. The performances by ALL of the actors and actresses was fantastic. I will always tell people about this movie. I have had a chance in the last few months to tell the summary of the story to several people and they said they'd like to see the movie. I can't praise this movie enough and the people who were involved in the production of this film. Letting people know of things like this help all of us to understand how things can happen even without our knowledge.

Ramauras The Wave was the first movie I ever made. I pitched the project to ABC and plunged forward. As an After School Special it was done on a very low budget, roughly $250,000 when an average Prime Time hour in those days was done for roughly $1,000,000. All acting and writing was done for scale fees and the number of shooting days were very few to hold down costs, As I remember it shot in 8 days. When ABC saw the final show they took it out of the After School slot and aired it in prime time against 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Needless to say the ratings were very low, but even at that, back in those days about 17 million people saw it in the States. And since then millions more have seen it around the world. I'm proud of the show and the message it delivers. As the years have gone by production styles and social behaviors have shifted, that's just the way it is. So be it, the show still seems to have legs. :>>