The Wave

At a high school in present-day Germany, political science teacher Rainer Wenger is given an uncomfortable assignment. He must teach a week of projects on autocracy, even though he is an anarchist and would rather teach anarchy. His students, the third generation born after World War II, are convinced that a dictatorship could never take hold in their country again. Wenger does not share that certainty. When the classroom debate gets stuck on that belief, he decides to test the idea with an experiment his students don't see coming. Dennis Gansel directs the film, and Jürgen Vogel plays the teacher, a man who starts with a simple question and a confidence that will soon be put to the test.