IMAGINE WHAT A FILM about the fall of Berlin would look like if it were produced by Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) and directed by Michael Bay (Armageddon). Maybe Liv Tyler could play the secretary, Traudl Junge. Ben Affleck could be SS doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck, trying to save the lives of hundreds of men and boys in a makeshift hospital without breaking a sweat. And of course who else could play Hitler but Jon Voight?

In other words, the fall of Berlin was bad enough. But a movie about it poorly done–albeit with amazing special effects–could be much worse. Which is why the German film Downfall is all the more remarkable. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring actors most Americans haven’t heard of, Downfall follows Hitler and several other bunker “inmates” during the final days of the Third Reich. The movie has received kudos (including an Oscar nomination for best foreign film) because of its historical accuracy–at least in its adherence to the details in both Traudl Junge’s Until the Final Hour and historian Joachim Fest’s Inside Hitler’s Bunker.