Computer scientist Hannon Fuller has discovered something extremely important. He’s about to tell the discovery to his colleague, Douglas Hall, but knowing someone is after him, the old man leaves a letter in his computer generated parallel world that’s just like the 30′s with seemingly real people with real emotions. Fuller is murdered in our real world the same night, and his colleague is suspected. Douglas discovers a bloody shirt in his bathroom and he cannot recall what he was doing the night Fuller was murdered. He logs into the system in order to find the letter, but has to confront the unexpected. The truth is harsher than he could ever imagine…

The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
  • Rating: (26,852 votes)
  • Tagline:Question reality. You can go there even though it doesn't exist. »
  • Runtime:100 minutes
  • Director: Josef Rusnak
  • Countries:Germany, USA
  • Actors:
    Douglas Hall / John Ferguson / David
    Craig Bierko
    Hannon Fuller / Grierson
    Armin Mueller-Stahl
    Jane Fuller / Natasha Molinaro
    Gretchen Mol
    Jason Whitney / Jerry Ashton
    Vincent D'Onofrio
    Detective Larry McBain
    Dennis Haysbert
    Detective Zev Bernstein
    Steven Schub
    Tom Jones
    Jeremy Roberts
    Joe
    Rif Hutton
    Jane's Lawyer
    Leon Rippy
    Ellen
    Janet MacLachlan
  • Genres:Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
  • Producers:
    Helga Ballhaus
    executive producer  
    Michael Ballhaus
    executive producer  
    Roland Emmerich
    producer  
    Ute Emmerich
    producer  
    Kelly Van Horn
    co-producer  
    Marco Weber
    producer  
  • Plot: Computer scientist Hannon Fuller has discovered something extremely important. He's about to tell the discovery to his colleague, Douglas Hall, but knowing someone is after him, the old man leaves a letter in his computer generated parallel world that's just like the 30's with seemingly real people with real emotions. Fuller is murdered in our real world the same night, and his colleague is suspected. Douglas discovers a bloody shirt in his bathroom and he cannot recall what he was doing the night Fuller was murdered. He logs into the system in order to find the letter, but has to confront the unexpected. The truth is harsher than he could ever imagine... Written by Danny Rosenbluth
  • User's comment:Solid Science-Fiction. by refinedsugar

    This movie was both critically and financially panned. Why?

    Two words. The Matrix.

    The Thirteenth Floor is a good movie. No, it's not "The Matrix" all over again, but it wasn't trying to be. Comparing these two movies is like comparing Star Trek with Star Wars. Similar in aspects, but very different in others.

    This is what happens when two movies of similar type are released in close proximity. The first one always has a jump-start on the second by means of box office success and pleasant reviews. That's why I think "The Thirteenth Floor" was branded as a bad movie. People had already seen "The Matrix" with it's knock-out special effects, cast and weren't open-minded for a movie on the same genre branch. So The 13th Floor was said to be 'a bland, pale imitation of the Matrix'.

    Maybe "The Thirteenth Floor" doesn't have a star-studded cast - yes, it's cast is mostly regular supporting players, but they work well with the material. So there's no kung-fu ass kicking scenes, so what!

    There's great atmosphere, a intriguing story and a real nice plot twist. To me that makes up a very fine movie. So I ask what was so very wrong with "The Thirteenth Floor" that made critics turn away and made it tank at the box office? Really it's people's unwillingness to give a similar movie a chance and instead opting to take the easy route and branding it as a "rip-off". Which is their loss unfortunately.


  • Quotes: Jason Whitney/Jerry Ashton: Hey! What'd you do to the world? Douglas Hall: Turned it off. Douglas Hall: Of course, we've improved on this model since then, now the players can beat the shit out of, and try to drown one another.
  • Also known as: 13º Andar (Brazil), 13. emelet (Hungary - imdb display title), 13. kerros (Finland), 13. pietro (Poland - imdb display title), 13:e våningen (Sweden), 13F (Japan), A 13. emelet (Hungary - imdb display title), Abwärts in die Zukunft (Germany - TV title), El piso 13 (Argentina), Etajul 13 (Romania), Il tredicesimo piano (Italy), Le Treizième étage (Canada - French title), Nivel 13 (Spain), Nivell 13 (Spain - Catalan title), O 13º Andar (Portugal - video title), Passé virtuel (France), The 13th Floor (USA - alternative spelling), To dekato trito patoma (Greece - transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title), Trinaesti sprat (Serbia), Trzynaste pietro (Poland - alternative spelling),

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