Film Review - Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin (2025)

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin is the new film released by Angel Studios and stars Jonas Dassler as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German man who goes to the US in the late 20’s and early 30’s to learn about theology and the church but returns home to see the Nazi’s rise to power and take the world to the brink of war, Bonhoeffer is appalled at the behaviour of his church and vows to do all he can to make things right.

Bonhoeffer was a movie that I was very much looking forward to as I like movies about historical figures and ones about where they fight Nazi’s but regrettably this movie was something of a disappointment for me.

The main issue I have with this movie is that I felt it focused too much at times on Bonhoeffer’s time as a Pastor in the Church, don’t get me wrong those scenes are good and were a big part of who Bonhoeffer was but at times it took too much of a focus on the film.

The parts that did work for me was when it went into how the Nazi’s did come to power (which had some discomforting parallels to events now) and how those in power are at times reluctant to fight back when those around them know in their bones that they have to do so and quickly before it becomes too late.

The film also uses a non-linear narrative and like so many times when others besides Christopher Nolan try to use this device it doesn’t end up working all that well because there were multiple times when I would get into a strand of the film and then it would cut away to another one that was less interesting and because of that my emotional interest in this story began to become scattered after a while.

There are however good performances, first of those Dassler who is good in the title role as is David Jonsson who became known to many after his role in Alien: Romulus last year and I can see why he became a name to watch after that film, Clarke Peters is also good as an American preacher in Harlem while Flula Borg, August Diehl and Moritz Bleibtreu are very good as well in their roles.

And so that was Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin and I would recommend Valkyrie with Tom Cruise instead as that film is a much better one about a similar period of time and has more emotional focus to it, 2 out of 5.