Winner of the 2009 Palme d'Or, The White Ribbon is an examination of the dry rot at the heart of authoritarian society and the cyclical nature of harm. The pastoral calm of a pre-war German farming town has been unsettled by a series of fires, animal deaths and unexplained injuries. The town leaders, clergy and the landowning Baron attempt to uncover the culprit but the "accidents" only become more severe and shocking. As paranoia grows the villagers cling to the foundations of their community—faith, discipline and the family— in an attempt to protect themselves and drive out the evil in their midst.

Audience note: This film contains a depiction of sexual assault

The White Ribbon is a far colder and more detached work than Haneke's prior Funny Games or Time of the Wolf, viewing the corruption from a distance that makes interiority difficult to read. The frames of stark, searing monochrome contrast a film that resists an easy black and white depiction of good and evil, picking apart the layers of a society on the verge of violently coming undone. There's a hint of Clouzot’s paranoid 1943 classic Le Corbeau, but in typically Haneke style goes far further and darker in charting the cruelty that people with a little power are capable of.