The 96th Academy Awards ceremony took place earlier this year and saw Oppenheimer take home statues in such major categories as Best Picture, Director, and Actor. However, there was a wide range of other incredible movies bestowed with accolades throughout the prestigious evening, including Poor Things and Anatomy Of A Fall. It was a particularly strong year, and yet, there was only one movie that impacted me so powerfully I was compelled to revisit it in theaters for a second time. That masterpiece is The Zone Of Interest.
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The Zone Of Interest streaming on Max
Released in theaters just last December, The Zone Of Interest is now available to stream on Max (formerly HBO Max) from Friday, April 5th 2024, the only platform you can stream the movie as part of a subscription.
It’s a historical war drama based very loosely on the 2014 Martin Amis novel of the same name and follows the family life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (played by Christian Friedel).
He lives with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) right next to the concentration camp during World War II. It’s a deeply disturbing film, but not in the traditional sense that it shows horrific images. The film plays out like a domestic drama, but the sounds of gunfire and suffering coming from the camp are always present, standing in stark contrast to the regularness of family life.
- PRIME VIDEO: Movie ending had me in tears
The movie won the Oscar for Best Sound, and there’s no other film that came even close to deserving the award more. It also earned a win for Best International Feature Film for the UK, although the dialogue is spoken in German.
I was left speechless after seeing it for the first time, feeling so broken but appreciative that great and important movies like this are being made and made available to wider audiences. It’s impossible not to be affected by the experience, one so unsettling yet still valuable enough that I decided to go and experience it again before the showtimes dried up.
Must-see Jonathan Glazer movies
The Zone Of Interest was directed by English filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, and of his four movies I’d consider three as must-see titles.
His debut feature was the 2000 crime-drama Sexy Beast (it’s on Hulu), which stars Ray Winstone as a retired gangster whose idyllic new life in Spain is shattered when a psychotic ex-colleague (played by Ben Kingsley in a career-best performance) arrives to demand his return to England for one last job.
It marked the arrival of an incredible new voice in cinema, although his second feature Birth starring Nicole Kidman wasn’t quite so great for me personally.
On the other hand, his third film Under The Skin is one of my favorite films of the 2010s and stars Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious stranger seducing a string of unsuspecting men in Scotland. To say any more would ruin its surprises. You can stream it on Max alongside The Zone Of Interest.
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