1974–1988: Early work in television Haneke started his career directing numerous television projects. He made his debut as a writer and director with the 1974 television movie
After Liverpool starring and . The project originally started as a radio play. He then directed two more television films,
Three Paths to the Lake (1976), about a war photo journalist who faces a moral crisis when she is forced to examine the implications of her work, and another telefilm
Sperrmüll (1976). In 1979 he directed two episodes of
Lemminge followed by
Variation – oder Daß es Utopien gibt, weiß ich selber! (1983). In 1986 he directed
Fraulein: A German Melodrama which was described as Haneke's answer to
Fassbinder's
The Marriage of Maria Braun. Haneke wanted to make a film about German history that doesn't drown in self-pity and yet still attracts the public". A few years later he would make the experimental tele-documentary film
Nachruf für einen Mörder about a young Austrian who provoked a hideous bloodbath in Vienna.
1989–1997: Rise to prominence Haneke's feature film debut was 1989's
The Seventh Continent, which served to trace out the violent and bold style that would bloom in later years. The film chronicles the last years of an Austrian family played by
Birgit Doll and Dieter Berner.
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian described the film as a "masterpiece". Despite being shortlisted for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film it wasn't nominated. Three years later he directed the controversial
psychological horror film ''
Benny's Video (1992). The film premiered at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews. It later won the FIPRESCI Award at the European Film Awards. The film showed at the New York Film Festival where Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the performances and Haneke writing, "The film makes strong, if heavy-handed, points about the confusing effects of television violence". His third film in the trilogy is entitled, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance'' (1994),
Manohla Dargis's
The New York Times called it an "icy-cool study of violence both mediated and horribly real", adding "For Mr. Haneke, the point seems less that evil is commonplace than that we don't engage with it as thinking, actively moral beings. We slurp our soup while
Sarajevo burns on the boob tube." In 1997 he directed the television film
The Castle (1997). The project is based on the
Franz Kafka's
novel of the same name. The film starred
Ulrich Mühe and
Susanne Lothar. It premiered at the
Berlin International Film Festival. Also that year he directed the feature film
Funny Games (1997). The plot involves two young men who hold a family hostage and
torture them with
sadistic games in their vacation home. The film premiered at the
1997 Cannes Film Festival. David Rooney of
Variety wrote about his continuation of the examination of violence writing, "Haneke is clearly more interested in the implications of violence than the acts themselves, and the psychological wallop they pack is strengthened by having most of the physical and emotional carnage played off-camera".
2000–2009: Breakthrough and acclaim acted in Haneke's
Code Unknown (2000) and
Caché (2005) He directed the French film
Code Unknown (2000) starring
Juliette Binoche. The film revolves around separate storylines which weave and intersect with each other. The film is inspired by the life of the French novelist and
war reporter Olivier Weber. The film screened at the
2000 Cannes Film Festival.
The New York Times praised Haneke "as a skillful, minutely observant filmmaker who trusts his audience to be able to put two and two together" but adds "Unfortunately, he's often too cryptic, which leaves viewers still trying to make connections when they should already be reacting to the moral lessons implied by them." Haneke has directed a number of stage productions in German, which include works by
Strindberg,
Goethe, and
Heinrich von Kleist in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. Haneke achieved great success with the critically acclaimed French film
The Piano Teacher (2001). The film starred
Isabelle Huppert as a sexually repressed piano teacher who soon becomes involved with a younger man. The film tackles subjects such as
masochism,
rape,
incest,
sexual repression,
sexual violence, and the relationships between men and women. It premiered at the
2001 Cannes Film Festival where it received rapturous reviews. It won the prestigious
Grand Prize at the festival and also won its stars,
Benoît Magimel and Huppert the
Best Actor and
Actress awards.
David Denby of
The New Yorker wrote, "Haneke avoids the
sensationalism of movie shockers, even high-class shockers like
Hitchcock's
Psycho and
Polanski's
Repulsion. There are no expressionist moments in
The Piano Teacher—no scenes of longing, no soft-focus dreams or cinematic dreck". Denby concluded, "[the film] is a seriously scandalous work, beautifully made, and it deserves a sizable audience that might argue over it, appreciate it—even hate it." has acted in four of Haneke's films, including
The Piano Teacher. A few years later he directed the
dystopian drama
Time of the Wolf (2003) starring Huppert. The film revolves around a family trying to find their way after a global cataclysm. The film received positive reviews with Scott Foundas of
Variety Magazine writing, "Haneke demonstrates profound insight into the essence of human behavior when all humility is pared away, raw panic and despair are the order of the day, and man becomes more like wolf than man." In 2005 Haneke reunited with
Juliette Binoche in the
psychological thriller Caché after she expressed interest in working with him. The film opened the
2005 Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews. The film involves themes of
collective guilt,
collective memory and
colonialism. He incorporated stories of the
Paris massacre of 1961 into the film. Haneke won the
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director for the film. It was also included in the
BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century. Haneke frequently worked with real-life couple
Ulrich Mühe and
Susanne Lothar – thrice each. In 2006 he gave his debut as an
opera director, staging
Mozart's Don Giovanni for the
Opéra National de Paris at
Palais Garnier when the theater's general manager was
Gerard Mortier. With his next film
The White Ribbon (2009) Haneke chose to shoot in
black-and-white and in Germany. The film is set in 1913 and deals with strange incidents in a small town in
Northern Germany, depicting an
authoritarian,
fascist-like atmosphere, where children are subjected to rigid rules and suffer harsh punishments, and where strange deaths occur. The film premiered at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival and won his first . It later won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and earned two
Academy Award nominations for
Best International Feature Film and
Best Cinematography losing to
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) from
Argentina and
Avatar (2009). Critic
Roger Ebert described the film as "visual[ly] masterful" adding, "His films are like parables, teaching that bad things sometimes happen simply because they...happen. The universe laughs at man's laws and does what it will."
2012–present In 2012, Haneke directed
Amour starring
Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert. The film revolves around an elderly couple aging together. The film premiered at the
2012 Cannes Film Festival and received the , Haneke's second. Ella Tayor of
NPR praised the film describing it as "Touching and tragic" adding "Haneke implicates us in the full range of human capacity". The film also earned the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film with Haneke earning
Academy Award nominations for
Best Director and
Best Original Screenplay, the later nominations being the first of his career. In 2012, he was to direct
Così fan tutte for the
New York City Opera. This production had originally been commissioned by
Jürgen Flimm for the
Salzburg Festival 2009, but Haneke had to resign due to an illness preventing him from preparing the work. Haneke realized this production at Madrid's
Teatro Real in 2013. In 2013, he was the subject of the documentary film
Michael H – Profession: Director. That year, Haneke won the
Prince of Asturias Award for the arts. In 2017, for his twelfth film,
Happy End Haneke reunited with Trintignant and Huppert. The film also starred
Mathieu Kassovitz and
Toby Jones. The film centers around a
bourgeois French family dealing with a series of setbacks and crises. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the
70th Cannes Film Festival. The film received respectable reviews. Alissa Wilkinson of
Vox described it as a commentary on "the
European refugee crisis and the pitfalls of
privilege". Wilkinson added, " challenges its audience to pay attention to put together the story, then, is as much an aesthetic statement about how to watch a movie as a political one. We have to observe and see what's in the background. And that's just what the family at the center of the movie doesn't do, and what makes them civilized monsters — a proclivity they pass on through generations." Haneke says that films should offer viewers more space for imagination and self-reflection. Films that have too much detail and moral clarity, Haneke says, are used for mindless consumption by their viewers. Haneke teaches film direction at the
Film Academy Vienna. One of his students there was director
Katharina Mückstein. == Style and reception ==