The Third Man

"Hunted by men ... Sought by WOMEN!"

1949 1h 45m EN

🙌

7.9

BANGER

★7.9TMDB · 2,190

ThrillerMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.

“Hunted by men ... Sought by WOMEN!”

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Cast

Joseph Cotten
Holly Martins
Alida Valli
Anna Schmidt
Trevor Howard
Major Calloway
Orson Welles
Harry Lime
Paul Hörbiger
Karl the Porter
Ernst Deutsch
'Baron' Kurtz
Erich Ponto
Dr. Winkel
Siegfried Breuer
Popescu

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Carol Reed
Writers: Graham Greene
Languages: English, Russian, German
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

77 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Russian, German.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Carol Reed, shot by Robert Krasker. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Anton Karas. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Oswald Hafenrichter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli and Trevor Howard carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Hunted by men ... Sought by WOMEN!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0041959 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Carol Reed directs. Robert Krasker behind the camera. Anton Karas scores. Oswald Hafenrichter cuts. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English, Russian, German.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

177 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Russian, German.
3Directed by Carol Reed, shot by Robert Krasker. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Anton Karas. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Oswald Hafenrichter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli and Trevor Howard carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "Hunted by men ... Sought by WOMEN!".
8IMDB entry: tt0041959 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 22 themes, including "staged death", "black market", "cemetery", "investigation".
10Released under 25 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Robert Krasker
Original score: Anton Karas
Editing: Oswald Hafenrichter
Makeup / hair: George Frost
Runtime: 105 min · 1h 45m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Box office: $1,226,098
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: The Third Man (1949)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
BAFTA Award for Best British Film
Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Carol Reed

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CharlesTheBold2017-02-18
Holly Martens (Joseph Cotten) receives a job offer from his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in postwar occupied Vienna. He arrives there only to find that Lime is dead and every witness has a different story. Being a pulp writer, Holly thinks he can solve the mystery. But this is a Graham Greene story, and the mystery is not just a whodunit but an exploration of evil. Tangling with a nihilistic band of black marketers exploiting the corruption and ruin of a great city after the war, Holly is told that he is in way over his head. The movie has many unusual touches. Expressionist camerawork increases the feeling of dread. The traditional orchestral accompaniment is eliminated, replaced by a single folk musician playing an eerie tune on a zither. Several scenes of the movie are in un-subtitled Austrian-German, leaving the audience feeling as bewildered as Holly as he tries to communicate with the locals. Holly's amateur sleuthing is frequently comic, in a story that is deadly serious. One of the masterpieces of noir cinema.
John Chard2019-08-02
Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? The Third Man is directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene. It stars Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles. Music is by Anton Karas and cinematography by Robert Krasker. When writer Holly Martins (Cotton) travels to Vienna to hook up with his childhood friend Harry Lime (Welles), he is distressed to find that Harry has been killed in a road accident. After attending the funeral, Holly comes to believe that Harry's death was no accident and begins to try and clear his friend's name. But nothing is as it first seems..... It's well over 60 years since it was released and Carol Reed's film noir thriller continues to feel fresh and hold up under the closest of critical scrutiny. A haunting tale as it is anyway, the black market racketeers and penicillin tampering bastards leaving an unsavoury taste in the mouth, but the film is still further boosted by the director's ability to craft unnerving atmosphere by way of style and clinically paced passages of play. Performances are superlative across the board, with the film producing equal amounts of iconography and mischievous myth-making. It stuns with the narrative structure unfolding amongst a post war ravaged Vienna that dovetails with the fractured nature of the human characters. A maze of moist cobbled streets host chases involving man and long shadows, there's a fairground scene that is now steeped in folklore, which in turn is a witness to the banality of evil, and of course those cavernous sewers, home to such sullen tones. Reed brings the canted angles, with moral decay the order of the day and a side order of confusion to finally fill your noir hungry bellies. Krasker deals in expressionistic chiaroscuro as Karas plucks away at his Zither to land in your ears for eternity. A murder mystery, a pained romance and a suspense laden film noir, The Third Man is enduring in its qualities. Cuckoo clock and cat, shadowed doorway and the lone sombre walk of a female, it's still today entertaining the film purist masses and still being pored over by film makers home and abroad. The Third Man, it's a masterpiece by jove. 10/10
John Chard2019-08-02
Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? The Third Man is directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene. It stars Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles. Music is by Anton Karas and cinematography by Robert Krasker. When writer Holly Martins (Cotton) travels to Vienna to hook up with his childhood friend Harry Lime (Welles), he is distressed to find that Harry has been killed in a road accident. After attending the funeral, Holly comes to believe that Harry's death was no accident and begins to try and clear his friend's name. But nothing is as it first seems... It's well over 60 years since it was released and Carol Reed's film noir thriller continues to feel fresh and hold up under the closest of critical scrutiny. A haunting tale as it is anyway, the black market racketeers and penicillin tampering bastards leaving an unsavoury taste in the mouth, but the film is still further boosted by the director's ability to craft unnerving atmosphere by way of style and clinically paced passages of play. Performances are superlative across the board, with the film producing equal amounts of iconography and mischievous myth-making. It stuns with the narrative structure unfolding amongst a post war ravaged Vienna that dovetails with the fractured nature of the human characters. A maze of moist cobbled streets do host foot chases involving man and long shadows, there's a fairground scene that is now steeped in folklore, which in turn is a witness to the banality of evil, and of course those cavernous sewers, home to such sullen tones. Reed brings the canted angles, with moral decay the order of the day and a side order of confusion to finally fill your noir hungry bellies. Krasker deals in expressionistic chiaroscuro as Karas plucks away at his Zither to land in your ears for eternity. A murder mystery, a pained romance and a suspense laden film noir, The Third Man is enduring in its qualities. Cuckoo clock and cat, shadowed doorway and the lone sombre walk of a female, it's still today entertaining the film purist masses and still being pored over by film makers home and abroad. The Third Man, it's a masterpiece by jove. 10/10

Production companies