It's details like that-too bizarre not to be true-that give "The Counterfeiters" its bitter wallop. It's an astonishing tale of cunning, compromise and survival.

As writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky shows, powerfully, affectingly, in The Counterfeiters, the privileges experienced by this small team of Jews and criminals came at a price.

The winner of this year's Oscar for best foreign-language film puts devils, as well as angels, on the head of the pin.

[The protagonist] illuminates a depth that's lacking in the entertaining class struggle that became the world's most macabre money factory. [Full review in Spanish]