User reviews

"The Wave" is based on Ron Jones's experiment in a high school class that he taught. He had been teaching his students about the Third Reich, and the students refused to believe that the people of Germany couldn't have known what the Nazis were doing. So, he started a club called The Wave that called for discipline among the students, and punishment for anyone who stepped out of line. Sure enough, everyone went along with it.

Bruce Davison plays a fictionalized version of Jones, tricking the students into following a totalitarian entity. The point is that people will go along with the evilest acts without realizing that anything bad is happening. And you can't stop the descent into malevolence until it's too late. A lesson for everyone everywhere.

I saw this on Australian TV as a teen in the early 1980s. I just watched it again in 2019 - the second time I have seen it. It was amazing just how much of it I remembered clearly: the characters and various little moments.

I'd say this was a highly effective memorable little movie. It gets the story across economically but it is believable.

The Wave was the first movie I ever made. I pitched the project to ABC and plunged forward. As an After School Special it was done on a very low budget, roughly $250,000 when an average Prime Time hour in those days was done for roughly $1,000,000. All acting and writing was done for scale fees and the number of shooting days were very few to hold down costs, As I remember it shot in 8 days. When ABC saw the final show they took it out of the After School slot and aired it in prime time against 60 Minutes on Sunday night. Needless to say the ratings were very low, but even at that, back in those days about 17 million people saw it in the States. And since then millions more have seen it around the world. I'm proud of the show and the message it delivers. As the years have gone by production styles and social behaviors have shifted, that's just the way it is. So be it, the show still seems to have legs. :>>

I remember learning a world war two unit at school and i saw this movie. over all i thought it was okay. A really good plot outline some okay acting, a pretty low budget film for an after school special.

Now i figure, what if someone took the time to actually make it into a real movie. With famous actors actresses and a good director. Should it be done, will people go out and see it. I think so, if they take the real story and actually make it good. I think that it can be done and it should, just as long as they make it right and not corny like this after school special.

What do you think, should it be done? If so, what actors actresses, directors, produces should do it.

This movie had a great impact on me. Having personally been a victim of peer abuse, it really opened up my eyes as to what kind of effect a 'cult' can play on an individual. This concept not only explains how Hitler managed to be so successful in manipulating the whole country, but also clarifies many other historical events. I would recommend this to anyone who has not seen the movie!

The Wave is a fascinating psychological study brought to life. It manages to successfully humanise the horrors of historic mass-delusion and a frightful mob mentality. However, I would not read the film as 'excusing' the behaviour of Germans caught up in Nazi mass-hysteria, but simply an attempt to explain it. I think The Wave instead serves as a warning against these behaviours.

I have just finished watching this movie on Google video. It was recommended to me by a friend of mine.My friend would not tell me what it was about but he said I should watch it because its a really interesting program. After watching I must say that I was greatly impressed.The Wave is a frightening study of group psychology.It was apparently based on an actual event in a high school in California over a one week period in April 1967.It is about a history teacher who conducts a psychological experiment on his students who are studying Nazi Germany.The movie delivers a very powerful message.It shows how easily people can be brain washed under the right conditions and if the right techniques are used.Nazi Germany was over 60 years ago but what this program shows is how easily the events that took place in Nazi Germany could be repeated.What makes it all the more frightening is that in the real case study the teacher had virtually the whole class brain washed inside of a week.A very thought provoking program that should definitely be shown in schools.

This is a quite astonishing insight into the psychology of fascism and nazism. It's perfectly credible. Where can one buy the book? on Amazon? Can you rent it in a library? I'd like to read it very much. Anyway, I saw it when I was very young. I'm a child of the 80s and this is very much an 80s movie but that does not make it any less brilliant. 10/10.

If I saw it today I would probably laugh at it. But is that not because I have become an "oppressor" myself? Again I cannot begin to emphasize how deeply this short TV-movie has burned into my mind and stays there embodying the truth of our awful (in)human condition. This should be shown in all schools all over the world and taken very seriously in group discussions. It is an antidote for fascism on the level of Nietzsche in so far he is an antidote for suppresive religion. I cannot begin to emphasize how grateful I am for the moral lesson of "The Wave". It is a teaching tool for anyone who wants to avoid violence in schools, sects, political parties or any other group. Amen.

Based on a true story (do a Wiki search on "Ron Jones" & "The Third Wave" experiment), a Palo Alto, CA high school teacher in 1967 decides to give his students a lesson in "mob mentality" and it evolves into a psychological experiment on the evolution of fascism.

The movie was both highly praised for the ground-breaking nature of the subject and widely condemned for glorifying the almost certain devastating emotional distress inflicted upon the unwitting students/subjects.

Either way, the video is still replayed in high school and college sociology classes across the country to this day... and it must be on third and fourth generation video tape by now since (afaik), it is not yet available on tape or DVD.

The most memorable ABC After School Special ever made.

The dedicated teacher Mr. Ross was right about such statement? How far would he go to teach high school kids an important History lesson about the most horrendous crime of the 20th Century? Watch it and judge for yourself while being part of an interesting experiment about how dictatorships are made without people realizing their dangers.

The story is basically the same as "The Wave", German film released in 2008, both films were accounts of an real experiment that took place in California in 1967, but the approach of both movies have their own differences. In what they're equal? In their greatness and the message they give to us. History teacher Ben Ross (Bruce Davison) tells his students about the genocide of millions of people during the WW2 intriguing them while demonstrating facts of how things worked at the time. But he's asked an difficult question: "How come no one among the German citizens did nothing to stop the Nazists of such atrocity? Ross doesn't answer this question but instead takes his students to be involved in something that might take these interrogations marks off their heads: he starts an experiment where all in the classroom must follow, being an united group who uses the quote "Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action" as their motto. Here it starts "The Wave", an united and disciplined group about to change hearts and minds of their school, and who knows more they can do.

It's all fun and new, until they take this experiment too seriously. Ross pushes them too far, forgetting that waves always return to the same place, always dying on the shore. His project makes the students blind of things, they've become unaware of how dangerous this could be outside of school's doors. He finds some resistance from his wife and from some of his students, but people will listen to this minority? Will Ross prove a point with this project or he'll be seduced by the power in his hands and make more of it?

This special presentation in more of an educational film rather than a thriller like the German film; the ending was absolutely great for giving the lesson in the best possible way while the other film teached the lesson in the darkest possible way (great and exciting as well). Davison gives an extraordinary show in the main role; some of the kids are really good (the solitary Robert, played by Johnny Doran, was incredible), others not so much, near of a bad acting. But the lesson was effectively presented but by the teacher and by the movie: lousy and irresponsible dictatorships can reborn at any time. You only need downtrodden people in need of a rescuer, of preference a popular leader to follow; victims to be blamed for the lack of progress of the country who'll must exterminated later; and make sure people won't realize what they're doing is really terrible quoting that it will be good of the nation. When I hear that most of 60% of kids in school age don't know what the Holocaust was it makes me wonder why films like this are not well-known for them to really learn something (you can even find it at Google). We, as audience, must never forget this lesson. 10/10

It's a shame this is a TV movie, so melodramatic and short. If someone had spent time and money trying to recreate a truer picture it's impact could have been immense. It's not even so much the physical production value that bothers me, but the glancing over of issues and plot reasoning along with completely unnecessary 'artistic license'. This is already an incredible story without throwing in your own bits.

It also gave me the impression in places of hinting towards anti-Communism rather than the tyrannical dictatorship of Hitler's Germany. A sign of the times perchance in an early 80's U.S.?

All in all though, for a short TV movie, I quite enjoyed it. But Jesus, poor Robert. I guess this gives an insight into attitudes towards the 'class creep' around the times. He was overtly considered worthless by everyone before the experiment that may just have broken him... but he was a bloody good Nazi while it lasted.

I watched this movie when I was studying psychology at high school. The film does have an important message behind it, but I'm having trouble understanding why so many people rated it so highly. The acting is at best ordinary, and the teenage characters are very stereotyped. I found it unbelievable that the entire class of characters willingly embraced their teacher's experiment with a complete lack of cynicism. Even though I understand that 'The Wave' was based on a real-life incident, it just didn't ring true for me, or the other members of the psych class that I watched it with. While it might be appropriate for younger students, I'm sure that there are other films that would be far more effective and believable in conveying this valuable message to teenagers.

I have so many fond memories of those great Afterschool Specials that ABC used to make. I think they did such a great service to kids becuase they dealt realistically with social issues in a tasteful manner. The Wave is the best special they ever made because it is one of those few tv shows that really required you to think about the message. I think that it is such a shame that people remember Bruce Davidson as the star of Willard because he is outstanding, not to mention chilling, here as a social studies teacher who, to put it mildly, gets carried away when he encourages his students to act like Nazis. It is even more chilling when you think about the Germans during WWII who so blindly ignored what Hitler was doing. We need to remember the Holocaust for this reason and this brilliantly written and superbly acted film should be seen by every decent person who prays that the terrors of Nazi Germany may never happen again!

I watched this movie only once and it has stuck with me since. I have three boys and each one was either told about the movie or watched it. The message this movie sends should be seen by all that attend a High School through-out this World. It should be part of the Social Studies curriculum. The performances by ALL of the actors and actresses was fantastic. I will always tell people about this movie. I have had a chance in the last few months to tell the summary of the story to several people and they said they'd like to see the movie. I can't praise this movie enough and the people who were involved in the production of this film. Letting people know of things like this help all of us to understand how things can happen even without our knowledge.

I found out today that this existed. I have not read the book/novel this is based on, but I did watch the German movie that was made over a decade ago. Which makes it I guess a remake in some peoples eyes? Can you say that, if both movies are based on the same book? Also this is only half as long as the other version ... something I was curious about - and I think I know the answer to that at least.

It fills up a school hour. I reckon school hours are the same in America too - 45 minutes long. At least they are in Germany - and that's how that would be fitting in one class/hour. Which apparently was something some schools did as a friend of mine confirmed.

This still feels a bit rushed overall, has the right beats of course, but also has aged quite a bit. I reckon if you have seen that as a young pupil/person, you may have some romantic notion and rememberance of it. It's not bad - not trying to make that argument as you can also see from my rating. I just think that the German version/movie in this case is way better, because it takes its time to delve into the characters of the students more ... yes the emotions are clear here too - but they seem forced in a couple of instances ... or at least not as nuanced and smooth as they could be.

For years after the movie I would think about how wonderful this movie was. The concept was smart and innovative. The message of this movie was simple and so powerful. It really gave you an incredible inside how mass consciousness can be influenced so easily. How hierarchy can create a safety net but also a very interesting dynamics of peoples inside feeling of having power. How that power can turn into "power over" instead of "empowering". And how threatening it can be for those people who think they have some power, to loose it and then be nothing again. The thought of power being so powerful that if you loose it you are a nothing. And how important it is to have those few people that see through it all and speak up. I thougth that all the children of the world should watch this movie and learn from it. It made a big impression on me.

This may be the second worst TV movie ever made, only Overdrawn at the Memory Bank maybe worse but that at least had Raul Julia. But this is one bad, predictable and cheesy movie that I was forced to watch in school. Firstly it is incredibly overacted and all the performers were way over the top it became funny. Secondly you knew that it was going to be some moral lesson about Nazism since that's how it started and once they went to meet "the leader", it would turn out to be Hitler. Finally, it was incredibly cheesy, they were completely oblivious that it was exactly like the Nazi party. Even with the armbands, symbol, salute, creed, signs, followers only two people were able to figure out that it was like the Nazis. Hell if they started killing Jewish people I don't think they would have figured it out. Someone behind me kept commenting 'this doesn't happen in the real world' and she was damn sure right. Back in the early eighties this movie may have worked but today it's so incredibly dated it becomes pretty bad but laughably funny like a Plan 9 from Outer Space. The whole entire class ridiculed the movie but not very well. The movie would only be good with a guy named Mike or Joel and two robots in the bottom right corner.

Based on a real incident at an American high school in 1967, this short TV movie shows the horror of mob psychology and group pressure. The high school teacher gives his students a lesson in the history of Nazi Germany, not by having them read a chapter in a book but by turning them into Nazis -- without their even being aware that it is happening.

The film should be part of every school's curriculum. The tendency toward in-groups and gangs is strong amongst teens, and the tragic consequences can be seen periodically in the news headlines. This film is a warning of the potential that lurks within us all.

OMG I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Okay, now that I've got that out of my system I just want to say that I keep on doing The Wave "fist punch to the chest then in the air making a "wave" with the hand" thing. Even to people I don't know. I don't follow "The Wave" group, I do this in a satirical manner. And the Ending, wow. I won't give it away or anything but it was SO great. Geez, I loved this movie. We watched it in German class, even though its in English. I liked this a million times better than "Findet Nemo." WATCH THE WAVE! YOU'LL LOVE IT!

Brief Summary: A teacher is teaching his students about Hitler and the Nazis when a student asks how the German people let millions of innocent people die without doing anything. The teacher (Mr. Ross) is stumped and is "saved by the bell" but must deal with her in class the next day. He starts a group called "The Wave" in class whose motto is "Strength through Discipline." The motto grows to become "Strength through discipline. Strength through community. Strength through action." The girl who posed the original question about the Germans starts to oppose the Wave and write articles for the newspaper bashing The Wave. Her boyfriend confronts her about her behavior because he supports The Wave and gets in a physical argument with her. He realizes what The Wave is doing to them, and starts to oppose it with her. They confront their teacher about this, who had just been in a meeting with the principal. I won't give away the ending but it pwnz!

We're always criticizing the Germans for following Adolph Hitler's ideals. What is frequently forgotten is that he had so much charisma that it was hard to resist him. And this movie shows how those things work. The Wave leaves you thinking how would you react to Hitler's ideas if you were there. The people didn't have much education, so they really believed their leader, and that happens in the Wave. The teacher tries to explain that to his students with a representation and ends up being carried away, almost recreating the III reich in a classroom! They hadn't thought their rules and ideals were excluding people just like Hitler's. We should see it as an intent to call people's attention to something that could really happen again, in any other country in the world.