--- title: "The Zone of Interest: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-zone-of-interest/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/the-zone-of-interest" critics_score: 89 critics_reviews: 23 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Zone of Interest (2023): what the critics said Critics' score 89 from 23 reviews: 22 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are close to unanimous, and they agree on why. Nearly every critic describes the same film: the Höss family’s sunlit domestic routine beside Auschwitz, the camp never shown, its horror carried by sound. The sound design is the department praised most often and most specifically, with Mica Levi’s score named alongside it as part of what makes this unlike other Holocaust dramas. Glazer’s detachment, the static, surveillance-like camera and the refusal to show violence are read as the point rather than a limitation. Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel are singled out repeatedly for playing functionaries rather than monsters. The reservations are few but pointed. Sight and Sound wonders whether replicating the perpetrators’ perspective so coldly, and choosing this story at all, is the right call. The Guardian is the lone mixed voice, calling it technically brilliant while asking whether it revives arguments about making slick cinema out of historical horror. The spread is otherwise narrow. ## Little White Lies — Hannah Strong Rating 5/5/5. 31 January 2024. Glazer’s stark film about the Höss family’s domestic routine next door to Auschwitz is a colossal, profoundly disturbing achievement. It highlights the banality of evil through mundane family life juxtaposed with the unseen horrors just over the wall. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-zone-of-interest) ## Radio Times — Max Copeman Rating 5/5. The review describes the film as a striking and deeply disturbing depiction of the banality of evil, focusing on the Höss family's life next to Auschwitz without showing the atrocities directly. It singles out Glazer's artful cold remove and Mica Levi's score as making it a unique Holocaust drama. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-6ws4lo/the-zone-of-interest/) ## Time Out — Dave Calhoun Rating 5/5. 20 May 2023. Festival review. Glazer delivers a bold, experimental and provocative take on the Holocaust that honours the facts without treading familiar ground. The film’s power lies in the tension between the family’s crisp, sunlit domestic idyll and the unseen industrial horror next door. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/zone-of-interest-2023) ## Los Angeles Times — Justin Chang Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 14 December 2023. The critic calls it a masterpiece that explores evil without glamorizing it, transmuting the mundane into something mesmerizing. He singles out the sound design for praise, noting how it conveys the horrors next door without showing them. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-12-14/the-zone-of-interest-review-jonathan-glazer-drama-auschwitz-holocaust-wwii) ## The AV Club — Manuel Betancourt Rating A. 15 December 2023. Glazer's Auschwitz-set drama is a staggering cinematic achievement and instant classic, a discomfiting and horrifyingly mundane portrait of the Höss household that forces viewers to confront the banality of evil through its observational style. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/the-zone-of-interest-movie-review-jonathan-glazer-1851098250) ## Empire — Alex Godfrey Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 29 January 2024. Glazer's unique and striking film is a study of moral vacuity and the attitude towards atrocity, made all the more upsetting by its detachment and sound design. It singles out the everyday dismissal of camp noises by the family and the subtle, haunting imagery (such as the mother's nighttime glimpse of the chimney) as what gets under the skin. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-zone-of-interest/) ## Screen Daily — Jonathan Romney Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2023. Festival review. The critic calls it a remarkable, objective portrait of Nazi domesticity executed with chilly control that leaves space for the audience's response, comparing it favorably to Son of Saul as an essential, daring work. It praises the minimalist focus and gradual revelation of the setting. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-zone-of-interest-cannes-review/5182303.article) ## The Hollywood Reporter — David Rooney Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2023. Festival review. The critic calls Glazer's film a devastating Holocaust drama like no other, praising its formal control and tonal storytelling in depicting the Höss family's bucolic life beside Auschwitz as the essence of the banality of evil. [Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-zone-of-interest-review-jonathan-glazer-1235496467/) ## The i Paper — Christina Newland Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 February 2024. Glazer's remarkable and chilling film is an uncompromising vision of evil, observing the banal domestic life of the Höss family while letting the horrors be imagined through sound design. It singles out the flawless contrast between lush visuals and abject audible horror, plus Hüller's terrifying performance, as key to its queasy power. [Read the review](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-zone-of-interest-review-you-will-never-forget-holocaust-nightmare-2880413) ## Evening Standard — Jo-Ann Titmarsh Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 31 January 2024. Festival review. Glazer's visually stunning and intelligent film depicts the banal, systematic horror of Auschwitz from the perpetrators' side of the barbed wire with great craft. It singles out the family's chilling indifference to the camp's sounds and the wife's gleeful domestic bliss as particularly disturbing. [Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-zone-of-interest-movie-review-jonathan-glazer-martin-amis-auschwitz-b1082646.html) ## Film Comment — Beatrice Loayza Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). Festival review. The review highlights the film's quasi-experimental ambient horror style, using sound design and withheld visuals to generate unease from the perpetrators' insulated perspective. It praises the clinical, anthropological distance and moral refusal to aestheticize the Holocaust. [Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/cannes-2023-in-between-days-jonathan-glazer-the-zone-of-interest-todd-haynes-may-december-review/) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 8 September 2023. Festival review. Glazer's haunting and singular work is a challenging exploration of everyday evil and compartmentalisation through the Höss family's perspective next to Auschwitz. It singles out Sandra Hüller's superb, disarmingly human performance and the film's insistence on confronting peripheral atrocities as particularly memorable. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-zone-of-interest-review/) ## Vulture — Bilge Ebiri Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 22 May 2023. Festival review. The film is psychologically searing in its focus on what it doesn't show, contrasting mundane domestic routines with the horrors beyond the wall and pulling viewers into the circle of evil in a sly, devastating way. [Read the review](https://www.vulture.com/article/jonathan-glazers-auschwitz-movie-borders-on-the-unwatchable.html) ## Sight and Sound Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 21 May 2023. Festival review. The critic highlights Glazer's focus on the Höss family's mundane domestic life against the distant sounds and glimpses of Auschwitz, using detached camerawork and innovative sound design to underscore the banality of evil. Some reservations are noted about the cold replication of the perpetrators' perspective and the choice of this particular story. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/zone-interest-jonathan-glazer-returns-with-haunting-adaptation-martin-amiss-holocaust-novel) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 65/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2023. Festival review. The critic describes the film as technically brilliant and uneasy, praising its focus on the banality of evil through the everyday domestic life of the Auschwitz commandant's family. It notes the power of the sound design and indirect portrayal but questions whether it revives debates about creating slick cinematic effects from historical horrors. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/19/the-zone-of-interest-review-jonathan-glazer-adapts-martin-amiss-chilling-holocaust-drama) ## Financial Times — Danny Leigh 1 February 2024. Glazer’s film about the humdrum life of commandant Rudolf Höss and his family is full of restless invention and masterful in its evocation of horrors ignored. The evocation of horror ignored is masterful, with inventive elements like thermal imaging and remote-camera vérité. [Read the review](https://www.ft.com/content/80b94629-13f6-49e9-afd7-1cb957d7902a) ## RogerEbert.com — Robert Daniels 14 December 2023. Glazer's film chillingly depicts the Höss family's mundane domestic life next to Auschwitz, emphasizing sound design and the sanitization of evil over direct horror. The performances by Friedel and Hüller underscore the banality and intimacy of complicity in genocide. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-zone-of-interest-film-review-2023) ## The New York Times — Kyle Buchanan 20 May 2023. Festival review. Glazer's disorienting drama uses static wide shots to observe the commandant and his family living adjacent to Auschwitz, creating an eerie surveillance-like effect. The film highlights the contrast between their bucolic routines and the implied atrocities nearby. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/movies/zone-of-interest-jonathan-glazer-cannes.html) ## Digital Spy — Mireia Mullor Rating 5/5. 2 February 2024. The review deems it a devastating masterpiece and one of the best films of 2024, a harrowing but necessary watch for its focus on the perpetrators' moral detachment. It singles out the constant, unseen horror conveyed through sound and small details like confiscated clothes. [Read the review](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a46567886/the-zone-of-interest-review/) ## /Film — Lex Briscuso Rating 10/10. 21 May 2023. Festival review. The critic calls the film a vital, bleak reimagining of the Holocaust drama that effectively uses constant sound design of camp horrors to underscore the family's oblivious domestic life. The reviewer singles out the sound design and the subtle ending revealing the physical toll of unacknowledged evil. [Read the review](https://www.slashfilm.com/1292036/the-zone-of-interest-review/) ## Deadline — Pete Hammond Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2023. Festival review. The critic praises Jonathan Glazer's unique perspective on the Holocaust, focusing on the domestic life of the Auschwitz commandant's family next to the camp without showing violence, making it harrowing and haunting. He singles out the sound design and the authentic recreation of the home life as particularly effective. [Read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/05/the-zone-of-interest-review-jonathan-glazer-holocaust-movie-cannes-1235372935/) ## Den of Geek — David Crow Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 11 December 2023. The critic calls it the scariest and most thought-provoking film of the year for its portrayal of the Höss family's mundane domestic life right next to Auschwitz. It singles out the deceptively disinterested, documentary-like gaze that reveals the banality of evil. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-zone-of-interest-is-the-scariest-movie-of-the-year/) ## The Playlist — Gregory Ellwood Rating A-. 19 May 2023. Festival review. The critic praises Glazer's fresh approach to depicting the Holocaust through the everyday complicity of the Höss family living next to Auschwitz, highlighted by omnipresent sound design of atrocities and intimate domestic scenes. The reviewer singles out the film's ability to make viewers reflect on modern parallels to authoritarianism and complicity. [Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/zone-of-interest-cannes-review-jonathan-glazer-20230519/) ## The Ringer — Adam Nayman Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 25 January 2024. Glazer’s film is unsettling and radical in form, a triumph of soundscaping and negative space that weaponizes what is not shown to convey the banality of evil. The performances, especially by Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel, vibrate with ambient malevolence amid the compartmentalized domesticity. [Read the review](https://www.theringer.com/2024/01/25/movies/the-zone-of-interest-movie-review-explained-oscars-jonathan-glazer) ## Collider — Ross Bonaime Rating 8/10. 7 September 2023. Festival review. The film takes a unique approach to the Holocaust by focusing on the mundane lives of the Höss family next to Auschwitz, building terror through sound and what is not shown. Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller deliver unnerving performances in their restrained, everyday evil. [Read the review](https://collider.com/the-zone-of-interest-review/) ## HeyUGuys — Jack Hawkins Rating 4/5. 6 December 2023. Glazer presents the Höss family as banal functionaries living next to Auschwitz, using a slow cinema style with eerie acoustics to infer the horrors off-screen. The film echoes the banality of evil by showing the camp as a bureaucratic operation run by careerists rather than monsters. [Read the review](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-zone-of-interest-review/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/the-zone-of-interest.md