The Wave (German: Die Welle) is a 2008 German socio-political thriller film directed by Dennis Gansel and starring Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Jennifer Ulrich and Max Riemelt in the leads. It is based on Ron Jones' social experiment The Third Wave and Todd Strasser's novel, The Wave. The film was produced by Christian Becker for Rat Pack Filmproduktion. The movie was successful in German cinemas, and 2.3 million people watched it during the first ten weeks of its release.