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Set in the grey-and-beige era of the German Democratic Republic, THE LIVES OF OTHERS chronicles the epiphany of Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), a member of East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret-police force. The year is 1984, and Wiesler, a nondescript but enthusiastic investigator, is assigned to the "monitoring" of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Dreyman has watched his director friend Albert Jurska (Volkmar Kleinert) fall into the limbo of the "banned"--that non-place inhabited by suspected enemies of the state--but is still a supporter of the socialist regime. His girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) is a respected actress, and Dreyman's career is flourishing. But Wiesler is prepared to ignore all that. He's an instrument of the state, and is well aware that sedition can be found in the least-likely places. He sets to his task with icy earnestness; Dreyman's apartment is bugged, and Wiesler takes up his post in a decrepit warehouse, eavesdropping on the playwright's activities and issuing detailed written reports to his boss, Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur). But despite his best efforts and the urgings of the callow career-climbing Grubitz, he can't unearth any real evidence against Dreyman. And on top of that, he finds himself increasingly attracted to his guileless subject's world. He also becomes aware that an ulterior motive lies behind Grubitz's zeal: the powerful minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) wants Christa Maria for himself, and is pressuring Grubitz to find a means by which Dreyman, his rival, might be destroyed. Faced with his superiors' machinations and his growing sympathy for Dreyman, Wiesler comes to the crossroads that will determine his future--both in the regime and beyond it.