Trivia

There is no music, save for the theme on George's show, and background music at Anne's publishing party.

This film was the official submission of Austria for the Academy Awards in the 'Best Foreign-Language Film' category, but was disqualified then because it was not "predominantly shot in the official language of the submitting country," but rather in French. The controversy that ensued over that - as well as the virtually simultaneous disqualification of Italy's submission of the Arabic- and Hebrew-language film Private (2004) - prompted the foreign language committee to enact a rule change the following year that made any language acceptable in a foreign language submission - hence Canada's submission of a Hindi-language film in 2007 (Water (2005)) and Australia's of a German-language film in 2012 (Lore (2012)). Any language, that is, except English.

The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.

Voted "Best Film of the Noughties" by UK newspaper The Times.

To keep her character in the dark about what is going (much like her husband does in the film), Michael Haneke effectively didn't communicate with Juliette Binoche. The actress found this extremely frustrating - which was perfect for her characterization.

Michael Haneke: [character name] Juliette Binoche's character is named Anne Laurent.

Michael Haneke: [character name] Daniel Auteuil's character is named Georges Laurent.