FILM

Experimenter (2015)

Film · 2015 · 97 min · PG-13 · Drama · History

Illusion sets the stage. Deception reveals the truth.

Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.

Directed by Michael Almereyda

Starring Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Jim Gaffigan, Edoardo Ballerini, John Palladino, Kellan Lutz, Dennis Haysbert, Danny A. Abeckaser