Rating 4.1 out of 5: “This is the best Holocaust film” in 30 years according to Spielberg

Hitting theaters on January 31st, The Zone of Interest is a surprise early-year success. This powerful work by Jonathan Glazer has received nearly 700,000 hits to date.

A demanding art-house film, the film managed to attract audiences despite its sensitive subject matter. The story tells about the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höss. Together with his wife, Hedwig, they try to build their dream family life in a garden house near the camp.

The most important film of the century?

A 5-time nominee for the Grand Prix at Cannes and the 2024 Oscar, Zone of Interest is considered Steven Spielberg’s seminal film. When asked about this topic, the director of the very famous Schindler’s List answered:

“Zone of Interest is the best Holocaust film since my own“, he reports The Hollywood Reporter. He adds: “This is a film that raises awareness, especially of the banality of evil.“

For reference, Schindler’s List, released in 1993, is the war years of Oskar Schindler, the son of an Austrian-born industrialist who returned to Krakow in 1939 with German troops.

Throughout the conflict, Schindler kept Jews to work in his factory. In 1944, he saved eight hundred men and three hundred women from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

recognized worldwide Schindler’s list It received twelve Academy Award nominations in 1994, winning seven statues, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Music.

This powerful work, bordering on perfection, achieved great public success in French cinemas with almost 2.7 million viewers. If you’ve never seen it, or want to see it again, it’s available on VOD and DVD.

Recently, Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican filmmaker to whom we owe such important works as Gravity, Roma and The Sons of Man, also raved about the Zone of Interest.

Rated 4.2 out of 5 by the French press, Zone of Interest is rated “testing, exceptional and astonishing, a masterpiece of incredible power”. For JDD, there is a movie “Incredible narrative and formal power and evokes wonder.”

Zone of Interest opens in French cinemas from January 31.