A landmark miniseries that dramatized the Nazi genocide with unusual reach for American television, combining family tragedy, bureaucratic evil, and historical sweep. It is emotionally severe and sometimes melodramatic, but its cultural importance, performances, and directness still make it worth seeing.
39% ★★☆☆☆ (6,109)
Holocaust
Where to watch: Buy
TV Show · Drama · War & Politics
1978 · ★ 39% (6.1K)
A story of hope in a time of despair
Starring: Tom Bell, Joseph Bottoms, Tovah Feldshuh
Overview
Berlin, Germany, 1935. The day Karl Weiss, a Jewish painter, and Inga Helms, a Christian woman, marry, is the one in which both of them and the entire Weiss family are caught up in the maelstrom of the Nazi regime, the storms of World War II and the horrors of the criminal Final Solution, the Holocaust, the Shoah; while Erik Dorf, an ambitious lawyer, undertakes his fall into hell at the hands of the sinister Reinhard Heydrich.
Production
Titus Productions
Cast
Tom Bell, Joseph Bottoms, Tovah Feldshuh, Rosemary Harris, Tony Haygarth, Michael Moriarty, Deborah Norton, George Rose, Robert Stephens, Meryl Streep, Sam Wanamaker, David Warner, Fritz Weaver, James Woods
Curator Review
Verdict
A landmark miniseries that dramatized the Nazi genocide with unusual reach for American television, combining family tragedy, bureaucratic evil, and historical sweep. It is emotionally severe and sometimes melodramatic, but its cultural importance, performances, and directness still make it worth seeing.
Best for
viewers interested in historical miniseries and prestige TV roots
audiences who can handle devastating Holocaust material
fans of sweeping family sagas set against real events
people curious about influential, conversation-starting television
Skip if
you want light or escapist viewing
you prefer subtle, modern pacing over 1970s TV melodrama
you are looking for a compact, emotionally manageable watch
you are sensitive to graphic depictions of genocide and wartime atrocity
Overview
Holocaust is one of the defining television miniseries of the late 1970s: a broad, earnest, and often harrowing dramatization of the Nazi destruction of European Jewish life. It follows both victims and perpetrators, which gives it a large historical canvas and a grim sense of inevitability. The production is very much of its era, but the seriousness of purpose is unmistakable.
Worth noting
What still lands is the scale of the storytelling and the way it made a mass audience confront events that television had rarely treated so directly. The family-drama framework can feel melodramatic by modern standards, yet it helps the series move through years of history with clarity. The performances are strong across the board, especially in the central roles that anchor the moral contrast between ordinary life and bureaucratic evil.
Bottom line
It is not an easy recommendation in the emotional sense, and it is not the most nuanced Holocaust drama ever made. But as a landmark piece of television history, and as a stark, accessible entry point into a devastating subject, it remains important and effective.