Slavoj Žižek, reviewing the film for "In These Times", criticized the film's perceived softpedaling of the oppressiveness of the German Democratic Republic, as well as the structure of the playwright's character, which he thought was not very likely under a hard communist regime. Anna Funder, the author of the book "Stasiland", in a review for "The Guardian" called "The Lives of Others" a "superb film" despite not being true to reality. She claims that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and almost always operated in teams.