This thriller should go down as a classic. It has a convincing story a rare thing in movies that try to blend historical fact and fiction. It's tense from beginning to end and doesn't have annoying red herrings or plot twists.

The casting is perfect. Maximillian Schell is ideal as the Nazi war criminal. Jon Voight is surprisingly convincing as a German accent and all. Good use of European supporting cast to avoid a fake feel.

Good on location feel to it. Liked the evocative score too.

It's one of the best thrillers about WWII subject matter even though it is set after the war.

Jon Voight does an excellent job in this intriguing film about a reporter searching for a war criminal who escaped Germany after World War II with the help of an organization called Odessa. His investigation leads him to Simon Wiesenthal and to a group of Israelis who train him to infiltrate Odessa. The historical setting is 1963 Germany, at the time of the Kennedy assassination This is a very suspenseful film with wonderful performances from the supporting cast as well: Mary Tamm, Maximillian Schell, Maria Schell, and Derek Jacoby.

For me, The Odessa File has always had an old-fashioned feeling to it -it was made in 1974, set in 1963, and almost seems like it could have been made in the '40s. Truly an excellent film.

As a bit of trivia no doubt already mentioned, Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music for the film, which I frankly found rather intrusive.

The premise for the movie is excellent--there is an organization called "ODESSA" that helps ex-Nazis change their identities to avoid prosecution. Jon Voight is a reporter who stumbles upon this organization and infiltrates it with the help of the Mossad (Isreali secret service). Eventually, he unravels the key to destroying Odessa (about 80% into the movie) and from that point on, the movie takes a bit of a wrong turn. Instead of going to the proper authorities to get help, he goes off on his own to confront one particular Nazi. This didn't make sense until he explains WHY he did this. The explanation made some sense but seemed so incredibly improbable that it helped undermine an otherwise excellent movie. I hate plot holes or amazingly improbable coincidences in movies.