Roeper, Chicago Sun Times 5th: Liam Lacey and Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail 5th: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly 7th: Christy Lemire, Associated Press 7th: Tasha Robinson, The A.V. Club 8th: A.O. Scott, The New York Times (tied with Michael Clayton) 8th: Kyle Smith, New York Post Acclaim The Europe List, the largest survey on European culture established that the top three films in European culture are: Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden had the film at number 1. Proposed remake In February 2007, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella announced a deal with The Weinstein Company to produce and direct an English-language remake of The Lives of Others. Minghella died in March 2008 and Pollack died less than three months later. Influence Israeli intelligence controversy In September 2014, 43 members of the Israeli elite clandestine Unit 8200 wrote a letter to Israel's prime minister and army chief, refusing further service and claiming Israel made "no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence" and that information collected "harms innocent people." One of these people named a viewing of The Lives of Others as "the transformational moment". 2013 mass surveillance disclosures The Lives of Others has been referred to in political protests following the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures. Daniel Ellsberg in an interview with Brad Friedman on KPFK/Pacifica Radio republished on salon.com stressed the importance of The Lives of Others in light of Edward Snowden's revelations: Film critic and historian Carrie Rickey believes that The Lives of Others was one of two movies that influenced Snowden's actions, the other being the 1974 Francis Ford Coppola film The Conversation, both being about wiretappers troubled by guilt. On 25 June 2013, after revelations of collaboration between the NSA and GCHQ, British journalist and documentary maker Sarfraz Manzoor tweeted that "Now would be a good time to pitch a British remake of The Lives of Others." On 16 July 2013, American novelist and frequent cable news commentator Brad Thor stated: "At what point did the Obama administration acquire the rights to reenact The Lives of Others?" French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave an interview in Le Figaro expressing his outrage over being the target of surveillance himself. He drew a direct comparison to the film: "This is not a scene from that marvellous film The Lives of