Popular reviews

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½

  Holocaust cinema has so implicitly existed in the shadow of a single question that it would no longer seem worth asking if not for the fact that it’s never been answered: How do you depict an atrocity? The most urgent and indelible examples of the form offer equally simple yet perfectly contradictory responses. Documentaries like “Shoah” and Alain Resnais’ “Night and Fog” suggest that you don’t, while historical epics like “Schindler’s List” insist that you must. If the latter argues that seeing is believing, the former maintains that seeing wouldn’t help — that some things are too unfathomable for the human eye to comprehend from a distance, and can only hope to be understood by their absence. A tsunami might…

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  Review by Ella Kemp ★★★★★

  I’ve never seen anything like this - horrifying

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  Review by Matt Neglia ★★★★½ 6

  Jonathan Glazer depicts a happy life for a German Nazi family based in Auschwitz while the horrors of the Holocaust are heard off-screen beyond the walls of their idyllic home in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. A powerfully disturbing & cerebral message backed by Mica Levi’s haunting score, its chilling & wholly unique vision will satisfy arthouse cinema fans. Just when you thought you’ve seen it all in this sub-genre, along comes a singular & breathtaking work of art such as this. Will not be leaving my mind any time soon.

  My full review

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  Review by The Oscar Expert ★★★★★ 5

  This movie asks the most terrifying questions to its audience. How do we know when we see evil? How can we know that we are not evil?

  Full Review

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  Review by David Sims ★★★★★ 2

  steeped in evil

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  Review by the film drunk ★★★★ 2

  Starting off TIFF pretty strong!! Don’t think I want to see it again!

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  Review by AmandaTheJedi ★★★★½

  The horrors of Aushwitz heard and seen from inside a families perceived 'perfect home'. The ease and comfort in which these atrocities are committed from the perspective of a man not only committing them, but making them more efficient.

  Pacing may not be for everyone but effective in its messaging

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 1

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  I understand anyone suspicious of Glazer's (and by very loose extension, Amis') concept of the banal horror machinery of Auschwitz as viewed through the monotonous ambiance of Nazi domesticity right next door—Glazer even takes it a step further by funneling it through the artful austerity of Hanake and compartmentalized architecture of Roy Andersson—but if that doesn't sound like a totally worthless/evil exercise in formal construction to you I think this is about as restrained and carefully, masterfully calibrated as that idea could possibly be executed. There are a number of scenes in here I would imagine are going to be among (if not) the most upsetting of the year: the contractor process of installing a new oven as if they…

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  Review by iana ★★★★½

  worth the wait

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★★ 2

  funny to see what the "serious" A24 production logo looks like... what else, what else...

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  Review by Robert Daniels ★★★★½ 2

  Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST is revelatory and chilling in its precision and specify rendering the cogs and mechanisms required to normalize mass murder. I don’t want to see another movie after it.

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  Review by KYK ★ 2

  Why must I watch the inner lives of Nazis? I was hoping Glazer would answer that question but this film does not go into any enlightening or thought-provoking territory beyond, like, "here it is, the banality of evil! Also here are some random 'experimental' shots in between." What a hack of an ending too.

  Like, what is new or interesting or moving here? I'm not sure. Plus, seeing this shortly after Anatomy of a Fall really made me think wow, such misuse of the wonderful Sandra Huller (who, here, refers to herself as "The Queen of Auschwitz"). Also, question: Did the movie look like shit on purpose?