Movie · 2015 · War, Drama, Thriller · 1h 47m · R · HU
Curator score: 9.1/10 (116.9K ratings)
Overview
In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son, seeking to give him a proper Jewish burial.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.1/10
IMDb: 7.4/10
Letterboxd: 4.10/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Metacritic: 91
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
László Nemes
Production
Laokoon Filmgroup
Cast
Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak, Balázs Farkas, Gergö Farkas, Sándor Zsótér, Marcin Czarnik, Levente Orbán, Kamil Dobrowolski, Uwe Lauer, Christian Harting, Attila Fritz, Mihály Kormos, Márton Ágh, Amitai Kedar, István Pion, Juli Jakab, Polgár Tamás
Curator Review
Verdict
A punishing but extraordinary Holocaust film that uses radical formal restraint to make atrocity feel immediate, intimate, and unbearable. Its sound design, immersive camera work, and morally fraught central performance make it one of the most distinctive war dramas of the 2010s.
Best for
Viewers who want formally daring, uncompromising cinema
Audiences interested in Holocaust films that avoid conventional melodrama
Fans of intense, immersive sound-and-image storytelling
People drawn to moral ambiguity and psychological survival narratives
Skip if
You want an uplifting or cathartic war movie
You are sensitive to graphic Holocaust imagery and sustained distress
You prefer clear exposition, broad historical context, or conventional plotting
You dislike films that deliberately withhold visual information and emotional relief
Overview
Son of Saul is not a Holocaust film that explains itself; it traps you inside a single day of moral ruin and impossible duty. By keeping the camera close and the world half-seen, it turns the camp into a nightmare of sound, motion, and peripheral horror, forcing the viewer to experience confusion and dread rather than distance.
Worth noting
What makes it so devastating is the film’s refusal to turn suffering into spectacle even as it brushes against the edge of one. The central quest is small, almost absurd in the face of mass death, yet it becomes a fierce act of spiritual resistance: a demand for dignity where none should exist.
Bottom line
This is rigorous, severe filmmaking, and it can feel punishing. But for viewers willing to endure its intensity, it is a major work of cinema—formally audacious, emotionally crushing, and unforgettable long after it ends.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Eli Hayes (5★) · 554 likes
Not only the best film that I saw at the Cannes Film Festival, but one of the greatest films ever made... and I've been trying to cut down on my hyperbole lately, so trust me when I say that Son of Saul is truly a contemporary masterwork, from it's lead performance to it's immense tracking shots to it's impeccable sound design.
And it's a goddamn directorial debut...
how
maria (5★) · 554 likes
now i need a nice, happy, stupid rom-com
CinemaVoid 🏴☠️ (5★) · 427 likes
Like a first-person shooter through hell with no bullets.
Lucy (4★) · 271 likes
this was so heavy i feel like i'm being crushed by the weight of it
cinemasauron (4.5★) · 188 likes
The latest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Son of Saul (Saul fia) is an incredibly powerful, relentlessly grim & downright disturbing cinema that takes a leaflet out of mankind's darkest period and weaves an original, absorbing & deeply affecting story around it, all depicted in a manner that only magnifies the haunting horrors of the Holocaust.
The story takes place inside the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II and covers a day or two in the… more
2013 · Drama · 1h 22m · PG-13 · Curator 9.0/10 (154.6K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Philo, MUBI, OVID, Chai Flicks, Klassiki, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Austere, contemplative, and morally searching, with a strong sense of historical shadow and spiritual burden.