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The spirit of Claude Lanzmann , whose monumental “ Shoah ” remains a nonpareil cinematic text on the Holocaust, lingers over and around “Final Account,” a film assembled by Luke Holland around interviews he conducted beginning in 2008. His aim, it says in a title card, was to track down and interrogate the last surviving “witnesses to the crimes of the Third Reich.” He found more than witnesses, but arguable perpetrators.

The movie begins with a familiar quote from Primo Levi: “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” And soon, on the soundtrack, an old man singing a song, translated from the German in subtitles: “Sharpen the long knives ... so they go better in the Jewish belly.” This interview subject is shocked and appalled that he was taught to sing this as a kid. Other older former Hitler Youth and such are hardly so abashed.

Holland nods to Lanzmann with shots of train tracks, some of which are almost identical to what we see in “Shoah.” But in other respects his approach is, while not quite antithetical to Lanzmann’s, at least different. For the first part of the movie, Holland introduces his interview subjects in an almost breakneck style and alternates their reminiscences with archival footage. One interviewee talks of his mother and father voting for Hitler, and cites “unemployment and inflation”; an old woman, Marianne Chantelau, begins on a defensive note: “We were eleven years old, what do you want?”

The quick introductions to these figures is almost head-spinning, a marked contrast to the slow-burn interviews in Lanzmann’s films. At first I felt a little put-upon, but the aggregation of multiple details forms a terrifying and hideous picture. Holland at a certain point introduces specific locales, ranging from a little-known psychiatric hospital turned death chamber and eventually opening up to more notorious sites such as Bergen-Belsen. To hear one interviewee discuss the economic benefits of having a concentration camp in the neighborhood is chilling. So too are the various “we thought they were political prisoners” rationalizations of several others.

Worse than those who rationalize are those who, to this day, or until 2008 at least, stand by their Fuhrer. “I will not blame the Hitler. The idea was correct,” sniffs one man. But the Holocaust, too, Holland asks. This gives the fellow slight pause.

Hermann Noth, a former Waffen SS officer, strenuously protests at the very idea that his kind were responsible for any of that Final Solution business. No way! “We were frontline soldiers, we had nothing to do with the camps,” one former soldier says, puffing with pride. He rhapsodizes about the very special camaraderie of he and his fellows, conveniently skipping the atrocities committed by the self-same Waffen SS in Russia. “There was nothing that could go wrong,” Noth asserts. Well, except losing the war, which they did, thank God.

Conscience does prick at other subjects though. “They were the perpetrators,” one man reflects, and on reflecting further, says “I feel like a perpetrator.” For all that, though, his observation that “Nobody walked away” remains a shudder-inducing last word.

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Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Final Account (2021)

Rated PG-13

• Luke Holland

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‘Final Account’: An Oral History of a Broken, Brainwashed Nation

By David Fear

In 2008, filmmaker Luke Holland began hunting Nazis. He was not attempting to capture them, or bring them before a war-crimes tribunal, or put a bullet in their head. Holland merely wanted them to talk. The elderly men and women he sought out in the big cities and small burgs of Germany and Austria were the last living generation to have experienced the Third Reich firsthand. They had been members of the Hitler Youth, served as Waffen S.S. stormtroopers, guarded concentration camps. Others had simply watched as their neighbors were rounded up and shipped away, never to be seen again. They were witnesses, and they were participants.

For close to 10 years, Holland interviewed dozens of these “ordinary” Germans on camera, with the goal of getting them to reflect on their country under a monster’s rule and life during wartime. Some were ashamed. Some had no regrets. Some claimed ignorance regarding the extent of the Reich’s campaign of genocide, or were in deep, decades-longs states of denial about how bad things had been. And some said they had no choice but to go along, because the penalty of not following orders would have been death.

An oral history of a once-broken, brainwashed nation, Final Account is the end result of Holland’s efforts to collect testimonies on the unthinkable before those who were there are gone. It begins with a Primo Levi quote about the dangers of “functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions,” though it’s another, oft-misquoted statement that comes to mind as you observe these old folks describing Hitler’s Germany: John Stuart Mills’ declaration that “bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” To hear these men and women recount a collective madness in terms of personal memories is to remember that those who followed a madman, who printed propaganda, who burned synagogues, and who turned away when others were sent to death camps were not ogres out of fairy tales. They were human beings. And while Final Account is far the first work to state this fact, it is a potent reminder of why the statement needs to continue being made again, and again, and again.

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Every one of the geriatric interviewees have their reasons for adopting the National Socialist cause as children and young adults, ranging from Fatherland pride to enjoying the feeling of belonging. You see how the indoctrination started with songs (a nursery rhyme about “sticking a blade into a Jew’s belly” plays over the soundtrack) and group activities; home movies of smiling kids swimming and frollicking outdoors accompany stories of being attracted to the uniforms, the camaraderie, the summer-camp atmosphere of Nazi youth brigades. Recruiters for the S.S. target young, athletic men wishing to test their mettle. One person talks about an alphabet book filled with contemptible Jewish caricatures. Another mentions how traveling troupes would show anti-Semitic movies to small villages, with attendance being mandatory.

What comes next are the almost offhanded details of mass atrocities happening on the periphery of “polite” society. Numerous “Jews not welcome” signs appear in the backgrounds of photographs. A soldier happens to notice a fire off in the distance one night while on patrol, which turns out to be the beginning of Kyrstalnacht. Residents in Bernburg observe buses with blacked-out windows heading towards the town’s sanatorium, and smell sweet-smelling smoke in the air (an intertitle identifies the hospital as one of six “euthanasia centers” that murdered 14,000 people). A man describes Bergen-Belsen prisoners marching by in wooden clogs as “sounding like a threshing machine.” Some mention that businesses were happy because they now had a free labor force — there may not be a more chilling phrase than “the Auschwitz industrial complex.” Rumors of things happening just outside the forests provoke whispers but, tellingly, no protests.

That so many of these stories are recounted with such casual matter-of-factness by Holland’s subjects do not make them any less horrifying — nor does the terrible familiarity of such anecdotes, or the simplicity of Final Account ‘s talking-head format. As with all documentaries about the Holocaust (and most documentaries in general, for that matter), this recording of eyewitness accounts resides in the shadow of Shoah, Claude Lanzmann’s epic, nine-and-a-half-hour look at how the process of mass murder was enacted and enabled. Like that landmark film, Holland’s movie relies on someone coaxing people to speak of things they’d rather forget, in addition to a coded sense of aesthetic somberness that Shoah had established around the subject: mournful strings, desolate landscape shots, a dread-filled lingering within the ruins of camps and train stations. Yet Lanzmann’s onscreen presence — as an interrogator, instigator, prosecutor and therapist — added a sense of personality and righteousness to his exhaustive, enlightening endeavor. And though he never appears in the frame, Holland’s sense of inquiry drives this documentary as much as the French filmmaker’s slippery, investigative prodding drove his. He wants to know what people were thinking, doing, feeling. He needs to know.

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Even if you aren’t aware of Holland’s personal connection (much of his mother’s family were killed in the camps), or know that the 71-year-old filmmaker was battling terminal cancer while rushing to finish his film (he’d pass away in July of 2020, several months before the movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival) you can tell that Final Account is fueled by a palpable sense of mission. The “final” emphasizes his last-gasp attempt to get these testimonies on record, and you have to guess that the title’s uncomfortable similarity to “the Final Solution” is not coincidental. The “account,” however, cuts two ways: to archive, and to hold responsible. There’s no evident chronology to these interviews, only the sense that time, the enemy of all biographers, is running out. But the documentary purposefully seems to build to two late-act testimonies in particular. One is with a former soldier who says the Waffen SS was not a criminal organization, despite the fact that the Nuremberg trials clearly established that fact; for him to acknowledge that, however, is impossible, “because then I would dirty myself.” Accountability would collapse the moral house of cards he’d built for himself over a lifetime. He’s not the only subject who seems reluctant to admit this. He’s simply the one who says it out loud.

The second one takes place at the site of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials planned the Final Solution. Hans Werk, who was also a member of the SS, is meeting with a group of young students. He begs them to understand that what happened was a betrayal of Germany’s ideals and a tragedy, and to understand his shame in having been a part of it. One of the young men begins arguing with him: Why are you ashamed to be German? Why do you feel that “standing up for the Fatherland” was wrong? Why doesn’t he worry about “some Albanian stabbing you on public transport” rather than mistrust his fellow countrymen?  It devolves into a screaming match, and you suddenly see why Holland felt such an urgency to capture this older generation’s experiences on film. It isn’t just the preservation of how they perpetrated something so horrific. It’s also a reminder that, at this particular moment in time, we’re on the verge of seeing history repeat itself through attitudes held by folks like that student. And Final Account ‘s final thought is: We can never, ever allow that to happen again.

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Final Account review – German war testimonies chill the blood

Soldiers, accountants, children … Luke Holland persuaded elderly Germans to account for what they did under Nazi rule, and the air of shrugging unrepentance is damning

H einrich Schulze is a kindly-looking old man who lived as a child near the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in Lower Saxony, Germany. In the course of Luke Holland ’s quietly searing Final Account, Schulze returns to the old family farm to point out the hayloft where a group of escaped prisoners had once taken shelter. The escapees were starving and had begged him for some food. But then the guards came and retrieved them, which was of course very sad. Under further questioning, with a sheepish shrug, Schulze admits that yes, the prisoners were recaptured because he himself called the guards. As to what became of them after that? “Oh,” Herr Schulze scoffs. “Nobody knows that!”

Round them up and bring them out: the bystanders and functionaries, the children who pitched in and the adults who turned a blind eye. Holland, a British documentary-maker, spent the last decade of his life with these straggling survivors of history, those with first-hand experience of the Nazi regime, and the results are damning; the testimonies chill the blood. Monsters, Primo Levi once wrote, are always aberrations. But the small men who watch from the sidelines and occasionally lean in to lend a hand: these are the real danger. They’re even worse than the monsters.

Holland names these functionaries – and therefore it’s important that we do the same. Margarette Schwarz recalls having her teeth filled and straightened by the inmates of Dachau. (“They were nice prisoners,” she says.) Herman Knoth explains that the Waffen-SS were seen as the peak of the nation (“Not just physically. Spiritually, too”). Even today, half-deaf and doddery, Karl Hollander admits that he still honours Hitler and can’t bring himself to blame him. He feels that on balance the Jews should not have been killed. They should have been driven out of the homeland instead.

While few of Holland’s other subjects are as unrepentant as Hollander, their airy defences sound depressingly similar, to the point where one half-suspects witness tampering on an industrial scale. Either they knew nothing about what was really going on or – if they did – they bear no responsibility whatsoever, given the fact that they were frontline soldiers, or humble accountants, or excitable members of the Hitler Youth . A precious few (Hans Wierk, Kurt Sametreiter) call out these lies for what they are, insisting that, yes, everybody knew what the camps were for; you could smell the bodies burning from 2km away. The others, meantime, are keen to explain the ways in which their very presence boosted the local economy. The camps, it was said, helped the butchers, the bakers and the grocers as well. Everyone benefited, except for the people inside.

Holland was diagnosed with cancer while working on this project and he died in June, shortly after its completion. He leaves behind a simple, unadorned study of everyday evil, one which balances eye-witness accounts with archive footage and wintry location shots of mountains, forests and leaf-blown railway tracks. Explicitly, his film shows how a hundred shades of grey combine to make a darkness. Implicitly, it warns that it could well happen again.

Kurt Hollander, it turns out, is not the most purely worrying inhabitant of Final Account. That dubious honour falls to the unnamed, pixelated young student who berates elderly Hans Wierk for being ashamed of his history and says that the old man should be more worried about an Albanian immigrant mugging him than anything his country may or may not have done long ago. Sat at a table, listening to this diatribe, Wierk is distraught and close to tears. He shouts: “I ask only this of you. Do not let yourself be blinded”; the past speaking to the present in a hoarse, failing voice.

• Documentary films
• Second world war

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Review: A chilling ‘Final Account’ by witnesses and perpetrators of World War II Nazi atrocities

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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials .

“Final Account” is a chilling and essential documentary featuring rare testimony from a wide range of elderly Germans and Austrians who witnessed or participated in — both wittingly and unwittingly — the atrocities of the Holocaust. It’s a fascinating look, yet again, at one of history’s most horrendous periods and explores the era’s eternal question: “Were you a perpetrator if you knew, but said or did nothing?”

Writer-director Luke Holland (“Good Morning, Mr. Hitler,” “I Was a Slave Labourer”), who died of cancer last June at age 71 , grew up unaware that he was Jewish and that his maternal grandparents were killed in concentration camps. This long-withheld secret and need to explore his family history led him to arduously locate and interview everyday non-Jewish citizens who came of age as the Third Reich came into power — and the insidious, if often accepted, ways in which their lives were affected and shaped.

Holland’s subjects, in their 80s and 90s when shooting began in 2008 (most are now deceased), recount such things as how they blithely and inevitably became Hitler Youth (to some it had the air of a fun social club), their pride in serving as members of the SS and the Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany’s armed forces), and how they betrayed Jews who hid out on their farms. Some speakers here were concentration camp guards, others worked on the trains that transported Jews to these same camps. Many recollect the ghastly smell of burning flesh discharged from the crematoriums; others recall Kristallnacht , that fateful overnight in 1938 that saw hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses destroyed by Nazi forces.

The takeaway from many of these workaday observers: “Everyone tried to distance themselves from what happened and deny any participation.” In other words, a mass case of “see no evil, speak no evil” due to fear of Nazi reprisal — despite what they may have actually known. Still, for some, complicity admittedly turned to guilt.

Then there are those who contend that they were unaware of the hellish events that were taking place, guided — or blinded — by the Nazi propaganda machine and patriotic fervor. (The film also reminds us that Adolf Hitler’s rise occurred at a time of high unemployment and inflation.) Any parallels to recent history are, to say the least, disturbing.

But it’s hardly all “mea culpa,” “who knew?” or “we were just following orders.” Holland, often heard posing his questions off camera, lets several witnesses work their way to varying degrees of confession or incrimination. There’s one former SS member who still honors Hitler, says “the idea was correct,” and suggests that Jews shouldn’t have been murdered but, instead, forced to leave the country. (He also proudly shows off his war medals.) Another interviewee asserts that the death camps were good for nearby business owners so maybe profit trumped personal outrage. A third speaker doesn’t believe that 6 million Jews were killed — and we know he’s not alone.

Perhaps the film’s most disturbing moments unfold during a heated meeting between yet another ex-SS member and a group of teenage students. The onetime concentration camp employee, horrified by what he’d seen and done during the Holocaust, is taken to task by a few right-leaning students for not being prouder of his wartime actions. One of the kids seems angrier about Albanian immigrants than he does about Nazis. That this gathering happens at Berlin’s Wannsee House, where in 1942 Nazi leaders planned the “final solution” to annihilate the Jews of Europe, is almost unbearably ironic.

Hollander punctuates his talking-head interviews with vivid archival photos and footage plus stirring, present-day shots of the sites where many of the reported horrors took place. Although the film sometimes feels a bit static and might have benefited from a deeper dive into his subjects’ lengthy lives, it should be required viewing for the huge numbers of young adults who, recent surveys have shown , are either egregiously misinformed or completely unaware about the Holocaust. It forever bears repeating: Never forget .

'Final Account'

In German with English subtitles Rated: PG-13, for thematic material and some disturbing images Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes Playing: Starts May 21 In general release where theaters are open

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Final Account Reviews

While not visually elaborated, it is certain and precise in looking at the faces of these people who ended up in the SS [Schutzstaffel]... [Full review in Spanish] [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 9, 2023

Holland condenses twelve years of work and nearly 300 interviews into a 90 minute study of how passivity can open the door to great evil and how denial of one’s complicity can take many different forms.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Final Account is a masterpiece that puts Luke Holland in the same league as the great documentarian of the Holocaust's aftermath, Marcel Ophüls. It's unmissable.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 27, 2022

As with Claude Lanzmann's seminal Shoah (1985), Final Account cracks open the heart of darkness using little more than a camera and a microphone.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 10, 2021

Holland's film is an invaluable testament.

Full Review | Dec 9, 2021

Shot and edited with a hushed stoicism, the documentary strikes an appropriately sobering tone as people describe horrors they witnessed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 9, 2021

Final Account draws a line under a period of history that has been explored extensively before. But it also hints, in several chilling segments, at how pervasive some of the ideas that formed the core of Nazi ideology remain, even now.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2021

A valuable addition to the historical record.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2021

While this passion project is an important and valuable document, it is more of an essay on the subject than a masterclass in the art of documentary making.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 3, 2021

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of his film is the nonchalance with which some of his subjects recount those events.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2021

It's fascinating, almost blackly humorous, to notice how strategically fuzzy the subjects' memories grow...

Full Review | Oct 1, 2021

The final look at Nazi Germany from the people who were there as youths. It reveals how difficult - and how terrifyingly easy - fascism is to live with.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2021

Holland reminds us of this reality by interviewing his subjects in their homes, where signs of a full, uninterrupted life tell us that they simply never had to face their culpability in any real way.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2021

As a document made to endure the revisionism and relativism that appears when one least expects it, [the film] offers living proof that the need for accountability is never final.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2021

Accurate knowledge about the Holocaust is disturbingly low among Millennials and Gen Z Americans ... I hope this film is shown in high schools across America.

Full Review | Jun 4, 2021

Director Luke Holland has captured a rarely seen side to the Holocaust and the everyday people who helped it happen; with some the guilt and shame of what they did are things they don't want to take to the grave. With others, there is neither.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 4, 2021

A superb documentary... It is an amazing collection of voices who sometimes contradict each other.

Full Review | Jun 3, 2021

Everything in Final Account is a tacit revelation, and the way that the Third Reich purposely institutionalized racism and hatred of the Jewish population is repulsively relevant.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 2, 2021

Final Account is essential viewing and a timely cautionary tale.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 2, 2021

I am fascinated by movies and books that push aside our view of history, one informed by hindsight, and take us to what it was like at the time it was happening.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2021

‘Final Account’ Review: A Beginner’s Guide to Issues of Nazi-Era Responsibility and Guilt

Hundreds of hours of interviews with elderly Germans and Austrians are distilled to 90 minutes, seeking to lay bare how passive complicity with the Nazi regime enabled the Final Solution.

By Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg

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We all know that knee-jerk racism and willful ignorance are the handmaidens of evil: Without these all-too-common traits, heinous acts are difficult to perpetrate on a large scale. Documentary maker Luke Holland’s “ Final Account ” is the first product of an ambitious undertaking to interview the now elderly helpers and handmaidens whose tacit acceptance of the Nazi regime enabled the Final Solution. The film is a distillation of roughly 300 interviews with men and women, some of whom were literally cogs in the machine, like the governess of a Nazi family, while others, such as SS men, were directly involved. Their willingness to appear before the camera is surprising, but not the range of responses, varying from unconvincing ignorance to pride and, just occasionally, a recognition that atrocities took place literally under their noses. Clocking in at a swift 90 minutes, “Final Account” is like a teenager-friendly approach to “Shoah,” designed as an introduction to issues of responsibility, guilt and the banality of man’s inhumanity to man.

Given the glut of Holocaust dramas and documentaries, it’s valid to ask who’s the audience for “Final Account.” Definitely not those of us who had the slogan “Never Again” drummed into our brains alongside lullabies, or whose family names are inscribed on memorials throughout Europe. “Final Account” is really for people like Holland himself, unaware of his Jewish origins until adulthood, or for younger generations coming to the topic practically for the first time.

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That’s not a problem. We need these kinds of documentaries as well, and Holland’s approach, in general, is good. Yet the concern when watching an interview-based film of this kind is the constant need to question everything: Why did these people agree to participate? Can we read something in their eyes than what they’re saying? Are the people who admit a certain degree of guilt therefore the “good” ones? This kind of interrogation of words and image is as important — and even more rarely addressed — than the question of guilt itself. The editing of course does some of that, as when images of flames consuming a synagogue during Kristallnacht are juxtaposed with Obersturmführer Herbert Fuchs now, recalling that he was completely indifferent to the horrific destruction of that night. Perhaps it’s overburdening the documentary to expect more than this.

Holland opens with a montage of elderly people singing an anti-Semitic song whose tune is the same as the Dutch “Happy Birthday” ditty. It’s an effective way to begin, and underlines a key element of the film: The sights and sounds of childhood, with their jingles and playground games, remain with us, and when they’re overlaid with racist and nationalist propaganda, everything gets mixed up. The oldest person interviewed was 19 when the Nazis seized power but most were younger, and of course their recollections of summer camps with plenty of exercise and buoyant games are tinged with happy nostalgia. “Ah yes, it was so lovely to sing and march together,” to paraphrase one woman’s recollections.

So how do we judge those who participated in the Hitler Youth? Hans Werk, once in the Waffen-SS, was eight years old when the Nuremberg laws were introduced, and recalls that his teacher influenced his thinking more than his parents; he expresses more regret than most, yet how should we parse such excuses? To Holland’s credit, he guides the viewer to ask those questions themselves, by using interviews coupled with images both historic and contemporary, but given the documentary’s basic supposition of mid-level unfamiliarity with much of this material, one almost wants it accompanied by a study guide to facilitate discussion.

One of the film’s strongest scenes proves this point, when Werk talks to a group of teenagers with right-wing sympathies, to give them a first-hand account of the dangers of racism and nationalism. They’re resistant to his spiel, either sitting there — in the Wannsee villa, of all places — with crossed arms, or arguing that they refuse to feel guilty about their nation’s past. Werk has boldly spent years talking of his shame, but the rising right-wing refuses to listen, even when they’re given firsthand accounts. They’re more likely to pay attention to Herman Knoth, also a Waffen-SS member, saying the SS had nothing whatsoever to do with implementing the Final Solution, or others who outright deny that six million were killed.

Although cries of ignorance have long been rejected, there are those in the documentary who hide behind that canard, treating their moment before the camera as a way of discharging themselves of any culpability. Holland ensures this tactic is undermined by including a few voices who say they still have the smell of burning flesh in their noses, and equally powerfully includes a drone shot of the Grunwald S-Bahn station in Berlin, from where thousands of Jews were transported to extermination camps. As the camera rises above the platform, we can see the scores of well-to-do homes in the vicinity, proving it would have been impossible for neighbors not to be aware of the scenes taking place within earshot.

“I’m ashamed as a German but not as an individual,” one woman says, which resembles the argument by a former secretary at a U-boat shipyard who remarks that it still amazes her that people could be so inhuman — but of course, she adds, there was nothing she could have done. That’s the crux of “Final Account”: Those refusing to take ownership of the horrors perpetrated by their government become complicit in the crimes. As one man admits, every business in the vicinity of a concentration camp benefited from its presence, yet almost no one was willing to remove themselves from the equation.

The documentary suffers somewhat from repetition, and the explanatory titles are very Holocaust 101. Holland’s most important achievement is the hundreds of hours of footage he shot, now archived, which will be useful to historian-ethicists grappling with the questions raised; distilling it all into “Final Account” makes sense as a sort of primer, but its ambitions are too high. On the one hand, it treats viewers like newcomers to the Shoah, and yet at the same time expects them to engage in complex questions of responsibility and guilt. The maddening music, especially at the start with far too much xylophone and triangle, aims to avoid pomposity but instead ends up trivializing the images.

Reviewed at Margutta Digital, Rome, Aug. 24, 2020. (In Venice Film Festival.) Running time: 90 MIN.

• Production: (Documentary – UK) A Participant presentation of a Zef Prods., Passion Pictures production. (Int'l sales: Cinephil, Tel Aviv.) Producers: John Battsek, Luke Holland, Riete Oord. Executive producers: Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Andrew Ruhemann, Claire Aguilar.
• Crew: Director, writer: Luke Holland. Camera: Holland. Editor: Stefan Ronowicz. Music: Dirac Sea, Jóhann Jóhannsson.
• With: Karl Hollander, Otto-Ernst Duscheleit, Hans Werk, Marianne Chantelau, Klaus Kleinau, Heinrich Schulze, Herbert Fuchs, Karl-Heinz Rinne, Margarete Schwartz, Franz Spalek, Herman Knoth, Friedrich Eder. (German dialogue)

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Final account, common sense media reviewers.

Powerful docu reveals impact of Nazi complicity.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Meant as a cautionary tale about how a government

Positive role model may need to be pointed out to

Descriptions of horrific violence (beating, shooti

Parents need to know that Final Account is a documentary that records the stories of Nazi perpetrators and bystanders during Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. It's meant to answer this question: How could the people of Germany allow the Holocaust and its atrocities to happen? The oral history is told by low-level…

Positive Messages

Meant as a cautionary tale about how a government can systematically create racism and hate in its citizens.

Positive Role Models

Positive role model may need to be pointed out to kids: It's Luke Holland, the off-camera director who interviews his subjects without emotion, sensitively pushing them to confront their own actions. It's not mentioned until the end, but Holland is Jewish, and his grandparents were murdered by the Third Reich. His self-control in documenting the interviewees' oral history, his courage in taking on the project is exemplary. Most subjects he interviews -- participants and bystanders -- may merit a pat on the back for going on camera to share their memories of working for or co-existing with the Third Reich, but they're certainly not role models.

Violence & Scariness

Descriptions of horrific violence (beating, shooting, gassing, hangings, being worked to death) against Jewish people, as well as against others whom Hitler deemed "unworthy of life." Most accompanying images aren't sensationalized, but there are a few shocking ones, including SS soldiers conducting a mass shooting, still images of dead bodies. Children carry and play with guns.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Final Account is a documentary that records the stories of Nazi perpetrators and bystanders during Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. It's meant to answer this question: How could the people of Germany allow the Holocaust and its atrocities to happen? The oral history is told by low-level SS officers, those who worked in other departments, and former Hitler Youth, all now elderly. The film avoids sensationalism, with just a few gut-punch images (including a group of soldiers about to fire on people near what we've been told is an open grave), but none remove the dignity of the victims. The subjects mostly speak matter-of-factly, carrying the belief that there's nothing they could have done (only slightly, if not politely, being challenged that yes, perhaps, they could have). The descriptions of the violence perpetrated against the Jews and others who were targeted by Hitler's policies are tough to hear, but they're delivered in a straightforward manner. Hearing history from those who were a part of it is imperative, but the biggest takeaway is how a government can systematically create racism and hate in its citizens. It's impossible not to feel the chill that something like this could happen again. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In FINAL ACCOUNT, director Luke Holland compiles an oral history by interviewing the last living generation of people who observed or participated in Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. In obtaining their stories, he shows how the German people were led into and participated in some of the worst atrocities against humanity in modern history.

Is It Any Good?

Holland's powerful collection of stories from those who served in the lower ranks of the Nazi party is what's been missing from the conversation about Adolph Hitler's reign of terror. Recording the testimony and memories of those who witnessed and participated in the atrocities Hitler unleashed against Jewish people and others is of vital importance. But this isn't a brash, chain-rattling film. Rather, it's a quiet look at the dangers of being complicit. The late director (Holland died three months after completing the film) is an information gatherer, intent and patient as he asks questions off camera. His subjects share what they did and what they knew; with one notable exception, they've seemingly absolved themselves of real responsibility. After all, they suggest, what could they do? While the answers ramp up, Holland softly brings the questioning around to make his interviewees confront themselves. Maybe they were just an accounting clerk, maybe they were just following orders, maybe they were put in a completely unfair situation -- but maybe they allowed themselves to be put there. And maybe, then, they're not so innocent.

Everything in Final Account is a tacit revelation, and the way that the Third Reich purposely institutionalized racism and hatred of the Jewish population is repulsively relevant. The words "perpetrators aren't born, they're made" appear on the screen, and viewers may find themselves feeling inklings of compassion for the elderly interviewees who describe how, as children, they were indoctrinated through books, films, teachers, and fun summer programs. Holland, whose Jewish grandparents were murdered at a concentration camp, is immensely restrained, especially considering that he was dying of cancer through most of the filmmaking. As he creates a living document of people who lacked the courage to stand up to evil by deciding it was out of their control, Holland himself is a portrait of courage, perseverance, and self-control.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what it means to be complicit and the danger that holds. How do we know when to question authority? How do we evaluate when we can and should stand up and speak out?

What techniques did the Third Reich use to teach Germans to hate the Jewish people? How did they use and abuse trusted sources to create racism? How can we keep our critical and independent thinking sharp when we're inundated with propaganda?

Discuss how director Luke Holland demonstrated perseverance , curiosity , and self-control . Why are these important character strengths? Why is it crucial that we find the courage to ask tough questions?

Why is it important to record and learn history through the eyes and stories of the people who lived it? What could happen if it goes unrecorded, or if we rely strictly on analysis by future historians?

Did you empathize with any of the interviewees? Do you believe there was nothing they could do to stop Hitler and the Third Reich? Do you think they hold any responsibility?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 21, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : August 3, 2021
• Cast : Karl Hollander , Otto Duscheleit , Hans Werk
• Director : Luke Holland
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Documentary
• Topics : History
• Character Strengths : Curiosity , Perseverance , Self-control
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : thematic material and some disturbing images
• Last updated : March 5, 2023

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‘final account’: film review | venice 2020.

British filmmaker Luke Holland’s historic documentary 'Final Account' compiles what may well be the last interviews with German WWII veterans about their memories of the concentration camps.

By Deborah Young

Deborah Young

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There are no heroes in Final Account, no one to empathize with. What makes it uniquely worth watching is its cast of octogenarians and nonagenarians who were eyewitnesses and in some cases active participants in the horrors of the concentration camps. British documaker Luke Holland has ferreted out ordinary Germans and Austrians whose role in carrying out Hitler’s crimes of genocide is something they now downplay and shrug off with embarrassment or denial.

Twelve years in the making, it is one of the featured films in this year’s Venice Film Festival and after fest and TV exposure, will take its place in Holocaust archives.

Because 75 years after the end of the war, there aren’t that many voices left. The speakers who peer into the camera to say their final piece as witnesses to history are bound to churn up anger, sorrow and a ton of emotion in the viewer as Holland implacably asks us all the question, when do people realize they are implicated in a crime?

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Italian writer and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi commented on the danger of ordinary functionaries in the Nazi machine, and that is just who the film presents: a procession of old Wehrmacht soldiers, SS officers and prison camp guards who were just following the genocidal orders of Adolf Hitler and his deputies. Their positions range from “Hitler wasn’t guilty, his idea was right” to “everybody was guilty.” It’s sobering to see how few — how very few — take responsibility for their personal role in killing their Jewish neighbors, or even express regret at having fought for the Third Reich. And the hardest thing to hear are their justifications, because they make one wonder what one’s own reaction would have been in that situation.

Their childhood indoctrination included ABC primers that taught them to hate and fear Jews. Their entry into Hitler Youth groups at 14 was unavoidable, they explain — a harmless way to be part of a group, to see their friends and act out a war. Their teachers controlled their minds, we hear. Later, as soldiers, officers, guards and functionaries, they were caught up in a killing machine from which there was no escape, no rebellion. Although she isn’t mentioned by name, political theorist Hannah Arendt and her concept of the banality of evil come to mind with every testimony that Holland extracts.

Even former SS officers declare themselves not guilty, while proudly showing off their paramilitary medals to the camera. One man discovered he had a Jewish grandmother, and therefore, by law, his father was Jewish, too. Most disconcerting. Another was a young cadet during the Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) in 1938 where he watched a synagogue burned to the ground — he couldn’t understand why the firemen standing by didn’t put out the fire.

Some are still proud of belonging to an elite military corps like the Waffen SS, and one such man exhibits a tattoo under his arm stating his blood group, which was a sign of his value as a fighter. He insists that the SS was not a criminal organization. All Holland’s efforts to make his subjects own up to being implicated in horrendous crimes go unheeded.

Not just soldiers, but ordinary Germans and Austrians like farm workers are made to admit that when Jewish escapees from the camp next door tried to hide on the farm, they were the ones who betrayed them. In a peaceful Austrian retirement home, elderly women recall the smell of the crematorium and burning flesh.

The one storyteller who seems genuinely traumatized by what he witnessed is a medical orderly who watched the massacre of a village, as Hungarian SS men on horseback torched the houses people had taken refuge in and then mowed them down with gunfire as they ran outside.

The film’s technical work is exceptional, contributing a paradoxically peaceful feeling to a highly charged subject.  After a decade of shooting interviews, the editing job must have been massive, and Stefan Ronowicz does a superb job picking out key moments and delicately interspersing surreally serene views of the major camps today, sad monuments rising up in the midst of nature.

Reinforcing the gloom are the same six notes of a cello which are too often repeated. But there is interesting new archival material, including some brief color footage shot during the war, which is saved for last.

Production companies: Participant, ZEF Productions, Passion Pictures Director, screenwriter: Luke Holland Producers: John Battsek, Luke Holland, Riete Oord Executive producers: Jeff Skol, Diane Weyermann, Andrew Ruhemann, Claire Aguilar Associate producer: Sam Pope Editor: Stefan Ronowicz World sales: Cinephil (North American sales: Submarine) Venue: Venice Film Festival (out of competition) 90 minutes

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Final Account

An urgent portrait of the last living generation of Hitler's Third Reich in never-before-seen interviews raising vital questions about authority, conformity, national identity, and their own... Read all An urgent portrait of the last living generation of Hitler's Third Reich in never-before-seen interviews raising vital questions about authority, conformity, national identity, and their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history. An urgent portrait of the last living generation of Hitler's Third Reich in never-before-seen interviews raising vital questions about authority, conformity, national identity, and their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history.

• Luke Holland
• 22 User reviews
• 35 Critic reviews
• 76 Metascore
• 2 nominations

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• Trivia The film premiered posthumously three months after the death of the director in June 2020.
• Soundtracks Kol Nidrei Written by Max Bruch Performed by Philip Sheppard

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• Jan 5, 2022
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• May 21, 2021 (United States)
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• Ventureland
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• May 23, 2021

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• Runtime 1 hour 34 minutes

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Review: A chilling ‘Final Account’ by witnesses and perpetrators of World War II Nazi atrocities

Director Luke Holland’s documentary includes interviews with some of the last surviving members of Hitler’s Third Reich

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The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials.

“Final Account” is a chilling and essential documentary featuring rare testimony from a wide range of elderly Germans and Austrians who witnessed or participated in — both wittingly and unwittingly — the atrocities of the Holocaust. It’s a fascinating look, yet again, at one of history’s most horrendous periods and explores the era’s eternal question: “Were you a perpetrator if you knew, but said or did nothing?”

Writer-director Luke Holland (“Good Morning, Mr. Hitler,” “I Was a Slave Labourer”), who died of cancer last June at age 71 , grew up unaware that he was Jewish and that his maternal grandparents were killed in concentration camps. This long-withheld secret and need to explore his family history led him to arduously locate and interview everyday non-Jewish citizens who came of age as the Third Reich came into power — and the insidious, if often accepted, ways in which their lives were affected and shaped.

Holland’s subjects, in their 80s and 90s when shooting began in 2008 (most are now deceased), recount such things as how they blithely and inevitably became Hitler Youth (to some it had the air of a fun social club), their pride in serving as members of the SS and the Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany’s armed forces), and how they betrayed Jews who hid out on their farms. Some speakers here were concentration camp guards, others worked on the trains that transported Jews to these same camps. Many recollect the ghastly smell of burning flesh discharged from the crematoriums; others recall Kristallnacht , that fateful overnight in 1938 that saw hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses destroyed by Nazi forces.

The takeaway from many of these workaday observers: “Everyone tried to distance themselves from what happened and deny any participation.” In other words, a mass case of “see no evil, speak no evil” due to fear of Nazi reprisal — despite what they may have actually known. Still, for some, complicity admittedly turned to guilt.

Then there are those who contend that they were unaware of the hellish events that were taking place, guided — or blinded — by the Nazi propaganda machine and patriotic fervor. (The film also reminds us that Adolf Hitler’s rise occurred at a time of high unemployment and inflation.) Any parallels to recent history are, to say the least, disturbing.

But it’s hardly all “mea culpa,” “who knew?” or “we were just following orders.” Holland, often heard posing his questions off camera, lets several witnesses work their way to varying degrees of confession or incrimination. There’s one former SS member who still honors Hitler, says “the idea was correct,” and suggests that Jews shouldn’t have been murdered but, instead, forced to leave the country. (He also proudly shows off his war medals.) Another interviewee asserts that the death camps were good for nearby business owners so maybe profit trumped personal outrage. A third speaker doesn’t believe that 6 million Jews were killed — and we know he’s not alone.

Perhaps the film’s most disturbing moments unfold during a heated meeting between yet another ex-SS member and a group of teenage students. The onetime concentration camp employee, horrified by what he’d seen and done during the Holocaust, is taken to task by a few right-leaning students for not being prouder of his wartime actions. One of the kids seems angrier about Albanian immigrants than he does about Nazis. That this gathering happens at Berlin’s Wannsee House, where in 1942 Nazi leaders planned the “final solution” to annihilate the Jews of Europe, is almost unbearably ironic.

Hollander punctuates his talking-head interviews with vivid archival photos and footage plus stirring, present-day shots of the sites where many of the reported horrors took place. Although the film sometimes feels a bit static and might have benefited from a deeper dive into his subjects’ lengthy lives, it should be required viewing for the huge numbers of young adults who, recent surveys have shown , are either egregiously misinformed or completely unaware about the Holocaust. It forever bears repeating: Never forget .

'Final Account'

In German, with English subtitles Rating: PG-13, for thematic material and some disturbing images When: Opens Friday Where: Limited release Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes

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Documentary bears sometimes frustrating witness to the crimes of the Third Reich

In 2008, filmmaker Luke Holland started filming interviews with what would turn out to be hundreds of elderly Germans, described — perhaps euphemistically in some cases — as “witnesses” to the crimes of the Third Reich. Among those who appear on camera in “Final Account,” Holland’s last documentary before his death of cancer last year, are ordinary citizens; rank-and-file veterans of the armed forces; graduates of such Nazi youth groups as the Hitlerjugend and the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls); former members of the S.S.; and one codger still unnervingly proud to claim long-ago employment among Hitler’s elite squad of personal bodyguards.

Their responses to questions about what they knew, saw or did during the Holocaust range from “Nichts gewusst” (“I had no idea”) to tacit or, in a few cases, explicit, if grudging, admission of complicity. If anyone who lived through those dark times claims not to have known what was going on, says one subject, “they’re lying.”

The bodyguard, a former member of Hitler’s elite Leibstandarte, denies nothing and says he regrets nothing — except, of course the deaths of millions. Hitler had the right idea, he explains, but the Final Solution went too far. German Jews should have been persuaded to leave the country peacefully, relocating to somewhere they could rule themselves.

Such willful blindness is astonishing, and the opposite of illuminating.

“Final Account” aims to provide insight into the psychological mechanism that would allow otherwise good people to stand idly by (or actively participate in) the perpetration of mass murder. As such, it’s only partly effective, and frustrating.

Fear is certainly one powerful motivator, cited by several subjects. One woman speaks of the whispered rumor that anyone who dared to speak up would have ended up in a camp herself. A former soldier justifies the oft-cited explanation, “I was only following orders” by saying he surely would have been shot if he had refused to assist in extermination.

Even some Jews participated, it is noted, as a form of self-preservation. One former resident of a village near a work camp recalls that her dentist — and other doctors treating her neighbors — were camp detainees. They were all quite pleasant, she notes, with a cheerful tone that lends a touch of grotesque surreality to a film that is already something of an exercise in moral and ethical head-scratching.

Extreme youth is another frequent excuse: Many of the film’s subjects were quite young during Hitler’s rise to power. “When you’re caught up in it, you keep your mouth shut, at 16,” explains one. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

There may be something to that, Holland’s film suggests. Hans Werk — a veteran of the Waffen S.S. — was only 8 years old at the 1935 introduction of the Nuremberg race laws. As a child, he says, he was more susceptible to the influence of his pro-Nazi teacher than that of his father. More than anyone else in the film, Werk manifests a deep and seemingly sincere sense of remorse about his wartime actions. That leads him, late in the film, to address a group of nationalist, anti-immigrant German teens, who mostly sit in stony silence as he tells them, “Don’t let yourself be blinded.” (Ironically, the meeting takes place in the Wannsee villa where Hitler’s plan for the Final Solution was hammered out.)

This frightening confrontation between a country’s dark past and its uneasy future hints that, despite “Final Account’s” conclusive-sounding title, this is a story that’s not quite over yet.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic elements and disturbing images. 94 minutes.

REVIEW: “Final Account” (2021)

Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi wrote “ Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common man, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions .” The thrust of that quote forms the backbone of Luke Holland’s engrossing new Holocaust documentary “Final Account”. In it Holland condenses twelve years of work and nearly 300 interviews into a 90 minute study of how passivity can open the door to great evil and how denial of one’s complicity can take many different forms.

There is a tag at the end of “Final Account” that captures Holland’s relationship to this subject – “ In the memory of my murdered grandparents and millions of others .” This was a personal journey for Holland who sadly died from cancer shortly after completing the film. He sought to capture the German point-of-view from some of that generation’s few remaining voices. Some were simply witnesses; others were active participants. Either way it’s fascinating (and sometimes shocking) to hear them in their very own words now 75 years since the end of World War II.

When dealing with the Holocaust, movies of all types tend to examine it through the pained eyes of the countless victims. But Holland’s interview-focused documentary takes a different approach, seeking out those connected in different ways to the Nazi Party and Hitler’s Third Reich. Soldiers from the Waffen-SS, officers, bookkeepers, concentration camp guards, party officials – just some of the people Holland talks to who offer a startling array of responses to that dark time in German history.

The plethora of different opinions and perspectives coming directly from the mouths of people with first-hand knowledge is both fascinating and utterly unnerving. Elderly men and woman in the final stages of their own lives share feelings ranging from remorse and regret to outright denial. Some reminisce with an appalling tinge of nostalgia. One lady chuckles as she talks about hiding her SS boyfriend from American troops. While blindly defending an area concentration camp, a man states “ most people benefited from it ”. A former Nazi officer proudly shows off his service medals while defiantly defending Hitler’s “honor”.

Other people plead ignorance only to later undermine their claims by recalling distinct details such as the smell of human flesh as Jews were burned alive in a nearby camp. Many defended their passivity by saying they had no choice; that they would have been executed had they spoke or disobeyed. You see some of this when Holland sits down with a group of four women at a nursing home in Austria who offer different accounts of their days growing up close to a nearby work camp. “ We knew nothing ,” one says. “ Everyone knew ,” argues another.

Perhaps most enlightening are the scenes where Holland asks the interviewees what drew them to the Nazi Party. Nearly all were brought in when they were young, one as early as 9-years-old. Many were indoctrinated at school where teaching propaganda and anti-Jewish sentiment to children was a prominent part of Hitler’s recruitment. By the age of 14 many had joined Hitler’s Youth. For some “participation was mandatory ,” we’re told. A few spoke of that time with a sense of shame, but most talked about it as if reflecting on ‘the good old days’.

Moments like those permeate nearly every frame of “Final Account”. Luke Holland stays away from anything showy and there is a minimal use of archived footage. It can make the film feel a little dry, but it allows him to focus on the people he interviews and their direct testimonies. Much of Holland’s questioning is designed to make them sit in front of his camera and express whether or not they should be considered perpetrators. Some genuinely wrestle with a question and more importantly the answer. But most have found unconvincing ways to exonerate themselves in their own minds, with some going as far as to proudly boast of having “ no regrets ”. Hearing people from our current day clinging to such venomous ideology is hard to stomach, but that is a big part of what makes Holland’s film so effective and powerful. “Final Account” hits select theaters today (May 21st).

VERDICT – 4 STARS

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6 thoughts on “ review: “final account” (2021) ”.

Wow – I’d be very interested to watch this.

It’s powerful and sobering stuff. It’s getting a fairly nice sized release which is really encouraging.

I would like to see this though I’m sure it’s not as engrossing as Shoah which was an intense experience.

Not really but it’s hard to compare with “Shoah”. This is aiming for something a little different and really hits its mark.

Yes to this if it streams.

I figure it will pretty soon. At least I hope so. More people should have a chance to see it.

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Final Account

Release date

3 rd December 2021

The final work of British filmmaker Luke Holland, Final Account tells the Holocaust from the perspective of the Nazis, featuring nearly 300 interviews with the last living generation of Germans who participated in or witnessed the rise of the Third Reich.

Final Account charts the spread of Nazi influence in Germany, from its early genesis through initiatives such as the Hitler Youth programme to the grand and grisly culmination of Hitler’s doctrine. There’s a wide range of responses from Holland’s interviewees, from various SS officers to concentration camp workers and Wehrmacht soldiers attempting to construct their personal Holocaust narratives through denial, obfuscation or grim acceptance.

There’s no one way to reconcile the scale of the Holocaust, but patterns do emerge in these unreliable narrators that expose the unsettling ways that the human mind wavers in the face of terror, and how this fear quickly gives way to complicity.

Final Account also highlights the ways in which deadly ideologies can be bred in normal people, with the testimonies showing how easily forces like convenience or self-preservation can be used to calcify hearts and minds. It’s simultaneously interesting and horrifying to see Holland’s interviewees fondly remembering the liberation of the Hitler Youth, or to hear how quickly the uncompromising violence of the Third Reich was normalised in German society.

While obviously bereft of Jewish voices, Final Account makes sure the presence of the Holocaust looms over the interviews, through Holland’s tight editing and masterful solemn presentation, even when the interviewees attempt to deflect responsibility or change topic. While the titular final account is focused around the perspectives of those complicit in the atrocities, the silent voices of the dead demand one’s attention in the negative space created by their absence.

Final Account is an unconventional but complex exploration of one of the worst atrocities in human history, and a fascinating look at the worryingly fine line between man and monster.

Final Account is released in select cinemas on 3 rd December 2021.

Watch the trailer for Final Account here:

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Final Account (UK/USA, 2020)

Final Account ’s purpose is straightforward and it never varies from that goal. Holland (who worked on the movie for more than a decade and died shortly after completing it in June 2020) avoids commenting on the observations and ruminations of his subjects, letting their words condemn, exonerate, and/or explain. The movie begins with a caption that elucidates why Holland made the movie: “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” (credited to Primo Levi, Auschwitz survivor)

During the film’s early parts, the participants recall their days in the Hitler Youth – happy times for many. Looking back, they remember times of games, singing, and fellowship. It wasn’t until they got older that things moved in a darker, militaristic direction. Even those with the deepest sense of regret, like former Waffen-SS officer Hans Werk, recall those childhood days in Nazi Germany with pangs of nostalgia. In asking for his subjects to plumb those memories, however, Holland is setting them up for the Big Question. What responsibility, if any, did those living in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s bear for the implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution?

Although Final Account is mostly a talking-heads documentary, Holland punctuates the interviews with existing images (both moving footage and still pictures) of Nazi Germany. He also shows key locations as they are today, some eighty years later. There’s something ghostly about those recent shots as one considers all the unseen specters haunting them. Ultimately, though, it’s the words of the men and women giving their “final account” that makes the movie sufficiently important to warrant viewing. This can be seen as a companion piece to the various films over the years that have given voice to the victims.

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Final Account Parent Guide

This disturbing but informative documentary looks at nazi germany from the perspective of the young people who were part of it..

Digital on Demand: A documentary about the legacy of Nazi Germany from the perspective of the last generation that participated in it.

Release date May 21, 2021

Run Time: 90 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kirsten hawkes.

What makes a person complicit in historical atrocities? Do they have to share the regime’s aims? Or is unwilling participation enough? What if their only involvement was bureaucratic? Do they still have blood on their hands? These are the questions that hover over Final Account, a disturbing but intriguing documentary about the German teens and young adults who found themselves, willingly or not, implementing Hitler’s demented vision of a Third Reich.

In 2008, director Luke Holland set out to interview German veterans and survivors of the war, to hear their stories and perspectives on the past. This film, released a few months after Holland’s death, shows some Germans filled with regret and remorse and others still struggling to justify their roles in the Nazi system.

In stark contrast to Werk are the men who do not disavow their activities. Karl Hollander, whose SS service comes as an unpleasant surprise to his adult daughter, still holds on to his Nazi memorabilia, while insisting that the SS was never involved in atrocities. “I would dirty myself if I were to admit to that.” But he still honors Hitler – “The idea was correct,” he insists, while also disavowing the Holocaust. “The Jews shouldn’t have been murdered. They should have been driven out to another country where they could rule themselves.” Heinrich Schulze of the Wehrmacht also equivocates on the Holocaust – apparently the Jews were “unpopular” which had “consequences”.

Holland’s interviews with his subjects make for compelling viewing. As these elderly Germans sit in their comfortable rooms in a stable, peaceful Germany, it’s hard to imagine that they were involved in such an evil regime. But their stories spill on to the screen – a young man reporting escapees from Auschwitz, a family fearing that a Jewish ancestor will be discovered, children joining Hitler Youth for sports only to find themselves funneled into the military. And as the Nazis tightened their hold on Germany, these young people began to see the results of their policies – extermination centers, slave labor camps, concentration camps. As Karl-Heinz Lipok, veteran of the SS Death’s Head Unit says, “We can’t be accused of being active perpetrators. We didn’t beat or imprison anyone or anything like that. But we went along with it. Complicity begins by going there in the first place, not to have turned away. We didn’t dare. Nobody walked away.”

Final Account is a difficult documentary to watch, but it is extremely valuable for teens. Not only does it offer them a unique look at history, but it provides the opportunity for discussions about ethics and morality. In addition, watching the movie will almost certainly raise questions that go beyond the German experience. As major democracies wrestle with historical atrocities – Great Britain with slavery and colonialism, the USA with slavery and Native American genocide, Canada and Australia with indigenous genocide and cultural erasure – the questions of the past will continue to haunt the present. What Final Account clearly demonstrates is that understanding the past takes time, but it is possible to rebuild a culture to reject racism and genocide. For the rest of us, that’s a good place to start.

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Kirsten hawkes, watch the trailer for final account.

Final Account Rating & Content Info

Why is Final Account rated PG-13? Final Account is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for thematic material and some disturbing images.

Violence:   Someone sings about stabbing Jews. There is a photo of a firing squad: bodies are not seen. There are frequent mentions of the persecution of Jews. A man remembers brutal training for Hitler Youth, including boxing until someone bleeds. A concentration camp is briefly referred to. A man discusses an extermination center and the incineration of dead bodies. A man remembers people being hanged and others beaten with bullwhips. There is mention of slave laborers collapsing and dying. A man remembers SS units killing entire villages. There’s mention of prisoners of war digging their own mass grave and being shot. A man remembers soldiers setting civilians’ homes on fire and shooting at people when they fled from the homes. There’s mention of the Wannsee conference and Hitler’s “Final Solution”. There are pictures of emaciated corpses. Sexual Content: None noted. Profanity:   There is a single scatological curse used in the movie. Alcohol / Drug Use:   None noted.

Page last updated October 2, 2021

Final Account Parents' Guide

The interview subjects in this documentary have different perspectives on their participation in the Third Reich. They also view its crimes and actions differently. Why do you think they see things differently? What motivates the people who have disavowed Nazism and condemn the actions of their country? What motivates those who defend it?

Germany has spent decades trying to atone for its actions in World War II. Do you think it has been successful? Do you think Germany has been rehabilitated as a state? What do you think Germany did well? Do you think Germans have learned the lessons of the past? What can other countries learn from Germany’s example?

The New Yorker: What Can We Learn from the Germans About Confronting Our History?

PBS: Holocaust Education in Germany

NBC News: Germany’s Nazi Past Is Just a Stumbling Stone Away

Time: Germany Is Often Praised for Facing Up to Its Nazi Past. But Even There, the Memory of the Holocaust Is Still Up for Debate

The Washington Post: Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?

The New York Times: Germany’s Nazi Past Is Still Present

Religion News Service: German teens go to Israel to atone for their families’ Holocaust history

Related home video titles:

Acknowledging its wartime atrocities took time in Germany. Labyrinth of Lies is based on the true story of a young prosecutor who begins to investigate the case of an Auschwitz guard now teaching school. As he learns about the actions of the previous generation, he is determined to see justice done.

When a gifted young Polish musician disappears before his first concert, it takes decades before his foster brother discovers his fate. The Song of Names reveals how his life was overturned by the tragedy of the Holocaust.

The true accounts of Holocaust survivors are shared in a documentary entitled #Anne Frank: Parallel Stories.

The SS officers in this documentary aren’t the only ones to refuse to believe the historical reality of the Holocaust. Denial is based on the true story of a historian forced to defend herself in court against a Holocaust denier.

• Movie Review

HBO’s MoviePass doc is a snapshot of how C-suites kill companies

Director muta’ali’s moviepass, moviecrash is a thorough but circuitous breakdown of how executives’ obsession with exponential growth all but destroyed the company..

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

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To many, MoviePass was an overnight sensation whose too good to be true monthly cost was a sign of its potential to revolutionize the theater industry. The promise of being able to see as many newly released movies as you wanted for less than the price of a single normal ticket was intoxicating enough to convince much of the public that MoviePass had a game plan in place. 

But there were a handful of people within the company who had long been sounding alarms about its unsustainable growth. MoviePass, MovieCrash — director Muta’Ali’s new HBO documentary — is a damning account of how MoviePass’ C-suite executives were dead set on ignoring all the warning signs leading up to its filing for bankruptcy in 2020 . And while the film plays into some of the same wide-eyed mythmaking that ultimately doomed its disruptive subject, it lays bare how the chase for exponential profits can doom companies that seem to have everything going for them.

MoviePass, MovieCrash features interviews with a wide range of former employees, investors, and analysts who all speak candidly about how the company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital while struggling to make its business model work. But the film opens with the origin story of Mitch Lowe, the founder of a regional video rental chain who hopscotched his way through the entertainment industry to Netflix in the late ’90s before becoming CEO of MoviePass in 2016. 

As Lowe describes how his passion for film was sparked by a childhood viewing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho , you can hear traces of a practiced boardroom showmanship meant to convey earnestness. But MoviePass, MovieCrash uses clips from the 1960 horror classic to foreshadow how, somewhat similar to Norman Bates, Lowe would one day become infamous for running a business into the ground while drowning in a mess of his own delusional making.

Before the documentary digs into what went wrong, though, it shifts focus to MoviePass’ halcyon days, when the company was making headlines for being a hot new player poised to revolutionize the theater experience. In its first act, as staffers recount their quest to secure more venture capital by hitting 100,000 subscribers, MoviePass, MovieCrash presents 2016 as the most pivotal moment in MoviePass’ history — so much so that it almost makes it seem as if that’s when the business began. But it isn’t until the film starts unpacking how that quest put MoviePass on a downward spiral that MoviePass, MovieCrash begins telling the far more interesting story of how two Black men — entrepreneur Stacy Spikes and investor Hamet Watt — co-founded the company in 2011.

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In the news coverage of MoviePass’ rise and fall, Spikes’ and Watt’s roles at the company were often downplayed, while Lowe was trotted out as the company’s face . Initially, MoviePass, MovieCrash feels a bit like it is playing into the self-aggrandizing narrative Lowe presented as he made TV appearances assuring the public of MoviePass’ durability. But by leading with Lowe, MoviePass, MovieCrash sets Spikes and Watts up to clear the record about why they were ousted and to explain how MoviePass’ origins were shaped by the widespread refusal of the entertainment and tech industries to invest in and trust Black founders .

While the time the documentary spends with Lowe illustrates the resources white, male executives are given to move fast and break things, it uses Spikes and Watt to hammer home how much thought and care went into creating MoviePass before it was snatched away from them. Even though they come a bit later than they probably should, Spikes and Watt help MoviePass, MovieCrash highlight how differently things might have played out if the company’s long-term existence had been prioritized over a desire for ever-increasing growth and profit .

If you followed the news in real time (which wasn’t all that long ago), most of MoviePass, MovieCrash will ring familiar and remind you how loud the hype machine roared when splashy “innovative” tech startups could still afford to subsidize their offerings. But we’re now much more attuned to the reality that C-suite execs will obsess over the idea of numbers going up while simultaneously lighting piles of cash on fire. With that in mind, the downfall of MoviePass is in no way surprising. But the doc is detailed enough to make even an all too common business story into something worth watching.

MoviePass, MovieCrash hits HBO on May 29th.

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Cannes film festival usher clashes with dominican star massiel taveras days after kelly rowland confrontation, ‘the apprentice’ review: sebastian stan and jeremy strong soar as young donald trump and his ruthless mentor roy cohn in devilish origin story – cannes film festival.

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Don’t be confused about the title The Apprentice . This is not a movie version of the NBC reality TV series in any way, but instead a smart, sharp and surprising origin story of the man who hosted it. In this case the actual “apprentice” is Donald Trump , infamous real estate developer, former President of the United States and current presumed GOP nominee for 2024.

Trump and Cohn would become an odd couple, helping each other achieve their end goals at the time. That is the story of The Apprentice , which had its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday and still has its U.S. distribution rights for sale.

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Will it sell, and will it be released before November’s election? We shall see, but this is not a hit job on Trump, and actually considering the 77-year-old we see today at MAGA rallies and dozing off in courtrooms defending his indictments on various charges including starting an insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. Instead, it presents a person somewhat driven but awkward, a man striving for the approval of a tough-love father, unsure but determined to succeed and even oddly charming at times. Yes, I said that. Cohn, responsible for helping Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s reprehensible anti-communist crusade in the ’50s as well as putting away convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, was the man pulling the strings — until he wasn’t. Think of it as a twisted Pygmalion with Cohn tutoring and training Trump the way Henry Higgins did with Eliza Dolittle.

The latter was the one Cohn emphasized above all as the most important thing to remember. He also told Trump no one likes a loser. “Everyone wants to suck a winner’s cock,” he tells Trump, who convinced his cold-hearted father Fred Trump (Martin Donovan) that they needed a lawyer like Cohn to take on a case the DOJ had launched over their housing developments (after being indicted for discriminating against Black tenants). In his own inimitable way he got the government to settle with no fines, thus endearing him to Donald. “You have to be willing to do anything to anyone in order to win,” Cohn says.

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The lawyer even dresses his mentee, who was born in Queens; not exactly the right breeding ground. “Is this gonna be a guy from Flushing or 5th Avenue?” he asks, getting an affirmative on the latter. He then puts him on the phone with a New York Times society columnist, and the result is a puff piece comparing his looks to Robert Redford and marking him as an up-and-comer. One of the key Cohn lessons is always chase the press, be in the newspapers every day.

Trump started moving up the ladder, with Cohn bringing him to a party with Rupert Murdoch, George Steinbrenner and others, cheekily (and now ironically in hindsight) telling him, “If you’re indicted, you’re invited.” Cohn himself had been in major legal hot water for tax evasion and also handled shady underworld characters, but he knew how to help Trump’s dreams of finishing Trump Tower come to fruition, essentially rigging a planning commission meeting to get $160 million tax abatement for which Trump was begging.

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Separately, he introduced him to a friend, Roger Stone (Mark Rendall), whose “specialty” is dirty tricks and who touts candidate Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan “let’s make America great again” (a slogan Trump would later steal as his own when he ran for president). And when the top of the still unfinished first-ever all-concrete hotel in NYC is set on fire, Cohn brings Trump to a meeting with some of his mob clients who deliver Trump a come-to-Jesus moment demanding the “f*cking concrete guy” gets paid. Trump is shown already as being notorious for not paying his construction workers.

The film shows his darker side, that scene included, as he is changing, becoming more ruthless himself — even to Cohn, by double crossing his lawyer whose partner has contracted AIDS and needed help in getting a room at the Hyatt; Trump reluctantly agreed but later sent him a bill. Soon Cohn himself contracts AIDS, but they make up when Trump comes to his birthday celebration with a gift of “diamond” cufflinks that say “Trump” on each one. Ivana later tells Roy they were fake.

This exceptionally well-researched first screenplay by Gabriel Sherman, who had profiled Trump for various publications and thought the Trump-Cohn story would make a good movie, has turned out a tale that is essentially a Faustian deal between the two. Although they have both been described as monsters in different circles, they are really given an empathetic treatment here, at least in part, and at least in an attempt to show us what led to historical change in America, and what may well continue in a story whose end has yet to be written.

Trump has never seemed so, well, human, as his own early years show a man trying desperately for his father’s approval while at the same time trying to come out from under his shadow. Progressively the two-hour film shows him doing just that, but also losing some of that humanity in the process. I wouldn’t describe the portrait as flattering, but it is not a hatchet job — perhaps part of the reason is a foreign director who didn’t even know Trump before he came down those stairs to announce his presidential bid in 2015. The goal is to show the makings of that man, not who he would later become – no matter what your opinion of that man is. I have a feeling his base of voters, the ones he dug up from under a rock, might look at these early years and give their approval, warts and all. Ironically though the first image in the film is that of Richard Nixon swearing “I am not a crook.” What the filmmakers’ intention with that choice is certainly intriguing.

Stan eases into the role, suggesting the young Trump without venturing into an SNL -like impersonation. He captures him precisely and believably throughout. Cohn has been portrayed in other projects like Al Pacino did in Angels In America, but Strong is ideal casting, going all in and delivering a three-dimensional portrait of this complicated man. Bakalova is excellent in her few scenes, as is Donovan as father Fred who early on tries to explain he is not racist. “How can I be racist when I have a Black chauffeur?” he asks at the dinner table while berating his sons. Charlie Carrick as Trump’s older brother Fred Jr. is also very fine, showing a man who just couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations. Scenes between the two siblings show Donald has at least some empathy.

Special notice to Sean Sansom’s seamless hair, makeup and prosthetics work here which never brings attention to itself.

Producers are Daniel Bekerman, Jacob Jarek, Ruth Treacy and Julianne Forde, Louis Tisne and Abbasi.

Title: The Apprentice Festival: Cannes (Competition) Director: Ali Abbasi Screenwriter: Gabriel Sherman Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Charlie Carrick, Mark Rendall Sales agent: Rocket Science Running time: 2 hr

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The 10 Best Closing Arguments in Movies to Watch Ahead of the Trump Trial’s Conclusion

From “To Kill a Mockingbird” to “The Verdict”

This week, two attorneys will stand and make their cases to the jury. Yes, that jury and that trial , which may put a former—and future?—president behind bars. This is when the pressure falls on the prosecution and defense to make their final claims of guilt or innocence.

“At this point, parties are free to use hypothetical analogies to make their points; to comment on the credibility of the witnesses, to discuss how they believe the various pieces of the puzzle fit into a compelling whole, and to advocate why jurors should decide the case in their favor,” explains the official site of the Federal Court System.

Or, we can just recall the most memorable, decisive arguments made on screen. Hey, we can handle the truth!  Here is my list of 10 to remember.

“To Kill A Mockingbird”

Gregory Peck won the Oscar — even though he didn’t win the case — as Atticus Finch, the courageous lawyer defending an innocent Black man in Maycomb, Alabama. “To begin with, this case should have never have come to trial,” he said. “It is as simple as black and white. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is.” The jury — all white — votes for conviction.

“Judgment at Nuremberg”

In this case, Maximilian Schell won an Oscar — and lost his case — defending those who followed orders in the concentration camps. He not only reminded jurors that the accused were simply following orders, but that other countries — including our own — were possibly no better. “What about the rest of the world? Did you not know the intentions of the Third Reich?” He goes on to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ouch. The man who will face his fate this coming week is already promising a “unified Reich.” Ouch again.

“The Verdict”

This is the movie that started Paul Newman’s incredible final run of great performances. As Frank Galvin, a formerly down-on-his-luck lawyer, he rises to the occasion on a medical negligence case. Reading David Mamet’s powerful and relatable words: “You know, so much of the time we’re just lost. We say, ‘Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true. And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time, we become dead… a little dead.’” The verdict – as well as “The Verdict” — was a positive one.

“Inherit the Wind”

Who can forget Spencer Tracy’s outraged and horrifyingly prescient words as he reaches the boiling point, repeating the expertise of six noted scientists? “Their testimony is basic to the defense of my client… This community is an insult to the world. I think my client has already been found guilty. If you make it a crime about teaching evolution in the public school, tomorrow it will be in the private schools and soon you may ban books and newspapers.”

“My Cousin Vinny”

As a murder trial, in a backwater Alabama town, progresses, New York lawyer Vinny—who has never won a case–agrees to represent his cousin and another friend. He ultimately sways the jury, earns the respect of district attorney Jim Trotter, and wins over several of the small town’s residents. (His girlfriend, played by Marisa Tomei, won over Oscar voters) Ultimately, when Vinny emerges victorious, even the judge is full of praise. Vinny, he claimed, is “one hell of a trial lawyer.”

“Philadelphia”

Tom Hanks won the Oscar as the AIDS victim at the center of this case, but Denzel Washington’s defense is nothing short of brilliant. “Let’s talk about what this case is really about,” he says. “Our loathing and our fear of homosexuals. (Both of which he himself had early in the film) And how that translated into the firing of my client.” The jury votes in Hanks’ favor, awarding him back pay, damages for pain and suffering, and punitive damages, totaling over $5 million.

“Legally Blonde”

In the final court scene in the film, Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, confidently defends her client and proves herself as a capable lawyer. The scene showcases the power of determination, intelligence, and resilience in the legal field.  Okay, it wasn’t her closing argument, per se, but her commencement speech. Yet, it is what young women, in particular, remember. And what Donald Trump heavily “lifted” for his 2017 speech at Liberty University. Suffice to say, the late night shows had a blast with that one.

“Adam’s Rib”

In this 1949 “romcom,” a married couple played by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy end up on opposite sides in court. Hepburn represents a woman who shot her cheating husband, arguing, “consider this unfortunate woman’s act as though you yourselves had each committed it. Assault lies dormant within us all. It requires only circumstance to set it in violent motion. There was no murder attempt here, only a pathetic attempt to save a home.” She wins the case, and her own marriage survives.

“On The Basis of Sex”

In this 2018 film, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a struggling attorney and new mother. When she takes on a groundbreaking case—one dealing with discrimination of both sexes–she knows it could change the direction of her career. In the title role, Felicity Jones argues,  “ The principle purpose of  Section 214 is to provide caregivers the opportunity to work outside the home. Therefore, this court should fix the law [in the way] most in line with the legislative intent. Extend the deduction to never-married men. Help all caregivers equally.” The case was a winner.

“Knock on Any Door”

This 1949 drama gave Humphrey Bogart one of his best roles, as defense attorney Andrew Morton. Just as he is about to be made a partner at a snazzy law firm, a voice from the past—that of his old client Pretty Boy Romano—yanks him back to his roots. Ultimately, Morton’s only hope is to argue against the death penalty itself. “Nick Romano is guilty,” he says. “He’s guilty of knowing his father died in prison, of having lived in slums, of the foul treatment of a primitive reform school. He is guilty, but so are we, and so is that precious thing called society. If he dies in the electric chair, we killed him.“

Michele Willens’ theatre podcast is “Stage Right..Or Not”

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The Best Films of 2024, So Far

Our critics pick nine films that they think are worth your time on this long holiday weekend.

By The New York Times

Looking for a good movie to pass the time this Memorial Day weekend? The New York Times’s chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, and movie critic, Alissa Wilkinson, have you covered. Here are their top picks for the year so far. All are in theaters or available on demand.

In theaters; June 7 on Netflix .

The story: Glen Powell is a philosophy professor who moonlights for the police in New Orleans when he finds himself undercover posing as a hit man in this Richard Linklater movie. An encounter with Madison (Adria Arjona), a housewife looking to hire him, raises the stakes, comedically and romantically.

Alissa Wilkinson’s take: “If I see a movie more delightful than “Hit Man” this year, I’ll be surprised. It’s the kind of romp people are talking about when they say that “they don’t make them like they used to”: It’s romantic, sexy, hilarious, satisfying and a genuine star-clinching turn for Glen Powell, who’s been having a moment for about two years now.” Read the review.

‘Civil War’

In theaters.

The story: Set in the near future, “Civil War” depicts a United States that has devolved into conflict between the Western Forces of California and Texas (yeah, yeah, we know) and the federal government. As photojournalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny make their way to Washington, D.C., they encounter dangerous and unsettling scenes, painting a disturbing portrait of America in this Alex Garland drama.

Manohla Dargis’s take: “Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in ‘Civil War.’ The very premise of Garland’s movie means that … a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.” Read the review.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’

The story: Picking up generations after the last trilogy ended, Wes Ball’s action-adventure follows Noa (Owen Teague) after his clan has been attacked. On his own now, he meets up with Raka, a disciple of Caesar, the leader in the earlier movies, as well as a mute human (Freya Allen).

Alissa Wilkinson’s take: “‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ is set in the future, but like a lot of science fiction … there’s a knowing sense that all this has happened before, and all this will happen again. That’s what makes ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ powerful, in the end. It probes how the act of co-opting idealisms and converting them to dogmas has occurred many times over.” Read the review.

‘Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World’

Stream it on Mubi ; rent or buy it on most major platforms .

The story: In Radu Jude’s scathing comedy, a foulmouthed production assistant named Angela (Ilinca Manolache) drives around Bucharest, Romania, looking for injured workers to interview for a workplace safety video.

Manohla Dargis’s take: “As she changes gears, and the movie switches between black-and-white film and color video, Angela flips off other drivers, acidly critiques all that she encounters, creates TikTok videos and effectively maps the geopolitical landscape of contemporary Romania.” Read the review.

‘Late Night With the Devil’

Stream it on Shudder ; also rent or buy it on most major platforms .

The story: In this horror show from the brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes, David Dastmalchian is a Johnny Carson-like late-night host desperate for ratings and awards. The film purports to be the footage of the episode that “shocked a nation.”

Alissa Wilkinson’s take: People watch late-night TV “to laugh, to be entertained and to feel some kind of companionship when the rest of the world goes to bed. ‘Late Night With the Devil’ twists that camaraderie around on itself, layering in familiar 1970s horror tropes about demonic possession, Satanism and the occult. The result is a nasty and delicious, unapologetic pastiche with a flair for menace. I had a blast.” Read the review.

‘Evil Does Not Exist’

The story: In a rural hamlet outside Tokyo, a developer tries to sell skeptical locals on the benefits of a glamping resort. As the residents push back against the prospect of tourism upending their quiet rhythms, the developer’s representatives come to see their point of view in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s deceptive drama.

Manohla Dargis’s take: “I have watched ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ twice, and each time the stealthy power of Hamaguchi’s filmmaking has startled me anew. Some of my reaction has to do with how he uses fragments from everyday life to build a world that is so intimate and recognizable — filled with faces, homes and lives as familiar as your own — that the movie’s artistry almost comes as a shock.” Read the review.

‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus’

The story: In this documentary from Neo Sora, the influential Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto plays his entire final concert. It was filmed in a studio with only the crew watching.

Alissa Wilkinson’s take: “Even for the viewer without much knowledge of Sakamoto’s work, ‘Opus’ holds its own as the rare cinematic space for contemplation. There’s no context given, no attempt to create a narrative. Instead, the visual space is carefully filmed and the lighting manipulated to subtly shift the mood.” Read the review.

‘Io Capitano’

Rent or buy it on most major platforms .

The story: Matteo Garrone’s drama tracks Seydou and Moussa, two Senegalese cousins (Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall), as they try to reach the West on a journey that takes them through the Sahara to a brutal stay in Libya, and then eventually to the edge of the Mediterranean.

Manohla Dargis’s take: “Garrone doesn’t spare you much, but if the movie never turns into an exercise in art-house sadism, it’s because his focus remains unwaveringly fixed on his characters who, from the start, are fully rounded people, not props, symbols or object lessons. … His great strength here is the tenderness of his touch.” Read the review.

‘La Chimera’

Rent on most major platforms .

The story: In Alice Rohrwacher’s 1980s-set tale, Josh O’Connor is Arthur, a tomb raider in rural Italy who pines for his missing lover. Through her mother, Flora (Isabella Rossellini), he meets a music student, Italia (Carol Duarte).

Manohla Dargis’s take: “‘La Chimera’ sneaks up on you. Rohrwacher is a discreet virtuoso with a visual style that is appealing and demonstrably unshowy. She likes to crowd the frame, yet does so coherently, and while she uses different film formats throughout to indicate distinct moments and spaces, she doesn’t make a fuss about it. She reveals beauty rather than pummels you with it.” Read the review.

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Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth take on post-apocalyptic world in 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- George Miller's "Mad Max" franchise has been a staple of the action movie genre for more than 45 years.

Now, the highly anticipated prequel "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" is set to hit theaters this weekend, delving into the origins of one of the franchise's most iconic figures.

This movie is an origin tale of survival and revenge. It's set about 15 years before "Fury Road," and it opens with a young Furiosa being kidnapped from her village.

As two tyrants fight for dominance, Furiosa finds herself in a battle, all to make her way home.

It's the adrenaline-fueled post-apocalyptic epic a decade in the works.

"Furiosa" is the prequel to "Mad Max: Fury Road" stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the warrior Furiosa and Chris Hemsworth as the ruthless warlord Dementus.

"For Demetus I went through a range of emotions with him. At first, I was like, I don't like this guy. And then I was like, there's something about Chris Hemsworth. It doesn't matter who he's playing. I will eventually like this character," Eyewitness News Reporter Joelle Garguilo said.

"He's a beautifully charismatic man. Let's be honest," Taylor-Joy said.

The movie follows Furiosa from childhood to adulthood, from freedom to captivity, and in-time supremacy.

They both had different methods to get ready for their big fight scenes.

"Yeah, I do this weird little, I pace, but very short amounts of pacing. I'm kind of just going backwards and forwards and it feels more like a tiger in a cage," Taylor-Joy said.

"A lot of it was kind of both shaking nerves, but also stimulating something. And you see animals in the wild do it too, whether they're trying to shake off an emotion or sort of induce something. So that often, and I paced because I'm not very good at sitting still as well," Hemsworth said.

For him, filming was a family affair. He said his kids saw the film and watched it being made.

"They loved it. Yeah. Yeah, they're on set, you know and they had a great time," Hemsworth said.

"His kids would outlast any of us in the wasteland. Easy. That's right. They have been trained since birth. They're ready to go," Taylor-Joy said.

Once filming was done, they both had things they would miss about their characters and making the movie.

"I think what I find most strange is especially after you've been working to this intensive of a beat, when you're first submerged in real life again, you're like, I'm not equipped for this. This is different. I don't know how to do it," Taylor-Joy said.

"I missed the freedom that the character Dementis allowed me," Hemsworth said. "He could throw a tantrum and there were no consequences and so on. And so I guess that's the big kid inside me just wanting to yell and scream."

"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" is the kind of action-packed film we've come to expect from a summer blockbuster, and it's poised to make a huge splash at the box office this weekend.

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