Experimenter

A social psychologist devises an experiment in which subjects are told to administer electric shocks to another person. The shocks are not real and the person in pain is an actor; what is measured is how far the subject will go. Having laid out the experiment, the film moves to its real subject: the ethical argument that followed publication and how the scientist's own life came to be defined by it. The narrative plays formally as well; he turns to camera constantly, and the artificiality of the sets is not hidden. Michael Almereyda wrote and directed. Peter Sarsgaard plays Stanley Milgram and Winona Ryder his wife. Who it's for: those who like the history of science and formal experiment. Who it's not for: viewers who want the experiment itself explained in depth; the film leaves the method behind early.