If you have spent any significant amount of time on the internet in the last fifteen years, you have seen Downfall ( Der Untergang ).

The most haunting sequence involves Magda Goebbels. In a scene that is excruciating to watch, she murders her own six children with cyanide capsules because she cannot bear for them to live in a world without National Socialism. It is a stark illustration of the cult-like brainwashing that permeated the regime.

Why does Downfall (2004) endure? Because 2004 gave us the manual for watching leaders self-destruct. Every time a politician loses an election, a CEO is caught in a scandal, or a dictator is toppled, we refer back to the bunker. We look for the tremor in the hand, the denial of reality, the loyalty oath to a dead cause.