Experimenter

2015 • 98 minutes

About this movie

Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) designs a psychology experiment that remains relevant to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger (Jim Gaffigan) strapped into a chair in another room. Disregarding his pleas for mercy, the majority of subjects do not stop the experiment, administering what they think are near-fatal electric shots, simply because they’ve been told to. Milgram’s exploration of authority and conformity strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster. His wife Sasha (Winona Ryder) anchors him through it all.

Ratings and reviews

It's a one liner study. Besides that it's a study that was carried out in the 1970s, news to no one. It showed what still upsets me: 78% of people pushed buttons to the degree of believing they were doing heinous torture to another human being. Only 22% of us were decent enough to have no part of it. Does the movie enlighten anyone as to why humans are such cruel beasts? No. Hello ISIS. Hello Abu Ghraib!

But what is truly fascinating, and ill obviously speak on it witout spoiling it, is that I feel very strongly the true signifigance (these experiments being real) is how the experiment itself and thus the scientist would be so,in a sense, villafied , which speaks volumes in its own right about how so resistant to personally admitting we as a species, would be susceptible to what is depicted ,that we must find fault within the process ie debunking the results. Idki just food for thought ...give her a watch

Reading some of the reviews tells me that many have really missed the point of the film and the study itself. It's not that "human nature" leaves us inherently flawed and capable of great "evil". It's more about revealing how society is deceptive. How one can be shaped by a deceptive society to do just about anything and feel OK about it. This small study was supposed to open our eyes and make us question our routines. Human behavior not human nature.