Hungarian Mike Laszlo is charged with having given false information on his arrival in the USA 37 years earlier. Recently uncovered documents incriminate him with serious war crimes that he supposedly committed as a member of a special police unit in Hungary during World War II. Laszlo asks his daughter, defense attorney Ann Talbot, to defend him in court. He pledges his innocent and she consents. But soon she realizes that the evidence against her father is overwhelming. Several witnesses identify him as the man known as "Mishka", who tortured them and killed many others. But Laszlo remains silent ... "Music Box" received the Golden Bear at the 1990 Berlinale, not least because of the differenciated portrayal of a "Täter", of an offender, by the lead actor: "Armin Mueller-Stahl, who turns completely inwards, can in doing so, in turning to the self, render visible a long since executed drying up of the soul. A man who holds onto his obstinacy to the very end." (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 11.9.1990)