Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Johann Karthaus, Luis Noah Witte, Nele Ahrensmeier, Lilli Falk, Anastazja Drobniak, Cecylia Pekala, Kalman Wilson, Medusa Knopf, Maximilian Beck, Andrey Isaev, Julia Babiarz, Stephanie Petrowitz, Martyna Poznanski, Zuzanna Kobiela, Benjamin Utzerath, Thomas Neumann, Klaudiusz Kaufmann, Justyna Szklarska
Curator Review
Verdict
A formally daring, devastating Holocaust film that finds horror in routine, domesticity, and what remains offscreen. Its cold precision, sound design, and moral force make it essential viewing for viewers open to austere, unsettling cinema.
Best for
viewers who like challenging, formally rigorous dramas
people interested in Holocaust cinema that avoids conventional depiction
fans of slow-burn psychological dread and precise sound design
audiences drawn to films about complicity, denial, and moral blindness
Skip if
you want a plot-driven historical drama
you prefer emotionally cathartic or inspirational war films
you are sensitive to oppressive soundscapes and sustained bleakness
you dislike minimalist, deliberately detached storytelling
Overview
Jonathan Glazer turns the horror of Auschwitz into something even more unnerving: a portrait of domestic normalcy built beside annihilation. Rather than dramatize the camp directly, the film studies the routines, silences, and self-deceptions of the Höss family, letting the surrounding violence seep in through sound, fragments, and the edges of the frame.
Worth noting
The result is austere, controlled, and deeply disturbing. Its power comes from restraint: the movie refuses easy emotional release and instead forces attention onto complicity, denial, and the banality of evil. The performances are chillingly matter-of-fact, especially in how ordinary they make monstrosity feel.
Bottom line
This is not an easy or comforting watch, and it is not meant to be. But as an act of cinematic form and moral confrontation, it is one of the most striking films of recent years. It lingers less as a story than as an accusation.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Ella Kemp (5★) · 14499 likes
the vines will grow and cover it all
Everything I want to say is in here.
davidehrlich (4.5★) · 13711 likes
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… more 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… more
xiu_shoegaze (5★) · 12739 likes
shaking my head in the theater so ppl know i disagree
esther (5★) · 10505 likes
It turned out to be surprisingly fitting to see this film preceded by the final work by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard once declared the end of cinema, but with The Zone of Interest Jonathan Glazer has built the guillotine.
Michael Haneke once famously criticized Schindler's List for Spielberg's application of his filmmaking talent to scenes of the most horrific inhumanity, particularly the moment where Spielberg creates suspense out of whether or not prisoners are about to be showered with gas or… more
coffee (5★) · 8507 likes
the cut directly at the end of this, from the holocaust museum back to Höss traveling down the stairs, sucks the air right out my lungs. history collapsing in on itself, evil surrendering itself to time, unforgivably vile men becoming stories to the slaughters of the future. the history of Nazism becoming standard, banal history does nothing but dull its genuine impact to the world, ensuring the future of fascism to the next generations and beyond. it makes me want to vomit. a deeply wretched film