The Grey Zone (2001)

69% of critics liked it
(80 reviews)
71% of users liked it
(6,278 ratings)

Actor, writer, and director Tim Blake Nelson adapts this grim look at the Holocaust from his own play, based on Miklós Nyiszli's book, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. The film centers on the Sonderkommando: Jewish concentration camp prisoners whose job was to herd their fellow Jews into… More Actor, writer, and director Tim Blake Nelson adapts this grim look at the Holocaust from his own play, based on Miklós Nyiszli's book, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. The film centers on the Sonderkommando: Jewish concentration camp prisoners whose job was to herd their fellow Jews into the gas chamber, and to dispose of the bodies following the execution. In return, these prisoners received food and a little more time before their own executions. As the members of the sonderkommando struggle to orchestrate what would be the only armed insurrection in Auschwitz, a group of them discover a 14-year-old girl who somehow survived the gas chamber. The girl becomes a symbol for their own spiritual salvation and they become obsessed with keeping the girl alive, even if it endangers the uprising that could save thousands. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 48 min.
Directed By: Tim Blake Nelson
Written By: Tim Blake Nelson
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Oct 18, 2002 Wide
On DVD: Mar 18, 2003
Studio: Lions Gate Films

Critic Reviews

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle
Even in its darkest moments, a heartening defiance underlies gut-wrenching calamity.
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee
[Blake] creates moments ... that are impossible to forget.
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News
The Grey Zone isn't for everyone, but its riveting power constitutes a stunning (as in it leaves you shattered and shaken) achievement.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
[Nelson's] movie about morally compromised figures leaves viewers feeling compromised, unable to find their way out of the fog and the ashes.
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Like the Ancient Mariner, Nelson grabs us by the collar and says, You must know about this. You must bear witness. And so you do.
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
Jagged, unrelenting, claustrophobically intimate.
Michael Dequina, TheMovieReport.com
So many incredibly raw, wrenching--and, crucially, unsparingly unsentimental--scenes and moments that it's impossible to not be haunted by the film.
Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena
Filme trágico, complexo, difícil - e que pode ser assistido em sessão dupla com O Pianista.
Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing
Roman Polanski's The Pianist may have been showered with Oscar glory ... but the best Holocaust film of 2002 was actually The Grey Zone.
M. Faust, ArtVoice
Unlike Schindler's List, ... this uses history to remind us of the tenuousness of our own morality, to remind us that ... most of us will never have to know what we might be capable of in certain circumstances.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
The effort is sincere and the results are honest, but the film is so bleak that it's hardly watchable.
MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
Hauntingly unforgettable.
Margaret A. McGurk, Cincinnati Enquirer
An intelligent and deeply felt work about impossible, irrevocable choices and the price of making them.
Paul Matwychuk, Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
It's hard to imagine anybody ever being "in the mood" to view a movie as harrowing and painful as The Grey Zone, but it's equally hard to imagine anybody being able to tear their eyes away from the screen once it's started.
Brandon Judell, Bay Area Reporter
every time Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne open their mouths, you think they're auditioning for a dinner theater version of Fiddler on the Roof.
Kim Linekin, eye WEEKLY
Brings light to a little-known facet of the Holocaust in a way that does justice to its moral ambiguities.
Cynthia Fuchs, Philadelphia City Paper
Russell Lee Fine's handheld camera presses you repeatedly too close to the characters' perpetual fatigue and resilience, their pains to survive when they cannot.
Eugene Novikov, Film Blather
If this story must be told and retold -- and indeed it must -- then The Grey Zone is to be lauded for finding a new and ingenious angle.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Chris W

Based on a play based on a book, this is Tim Blake Nelson's harrowing look at the innerworkings of moral issues within a concentration camp. The story is focused on a group of Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz who are tasked with cleaning out the ashes of their dead comrades from the… More
Based on a play based on a book, this is Tim Blake Nelson's harrowing look at the innerworkings of moral issues within a concentration camp. The story is focused on a group of Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz who are tasked with cleaning out the ashes of their dead comrades from the crematoriums. When they realize they are next on the list to die, they decided to have an uprising. This is some very hard stuff to watch, but it is also phenomenally amazing. It finds the right note between exploitative and overly emotional sentimentality, and despite being something hard to watch, it's also very hard to look away. The films boasts a talented cast who all give some really good performances. Well, okay, Keitel's accent is a bit iffy, but he's great at being a really cruel antagonist. David Arquette is surprisingly really good in a dramatic lead role, and it's nice seeing him step away from comedy once in a while. Other supporting roles are filled by the likes of Natasha Lyonne, Mira Sorvino, and Steve Buscemi among others. It's up there with Schindler's List and The Pianist as some of the best films about the Holocaust, and the direction is hauntingly effective. This isn't an uplifting film as you might have guessed, but it does really give you a lot to think about, mostly because of the issues it raises. Give this one a watch. It's something quite special.
xGary X

A group of Hungarian jews who work in a death camp plan an uprising to destroy the crematorium when it becomes clear that they are next on the death list. Based upon an eye witness account, The Grey Zone is a harrowing story of life in a concentration camp where all human morality is… More
A group of Hungarian jews who work in a death camp plan an uprising to destroy the crematorium when it becomes clear that they are next on the death list. Based upon an eye witness account, The Grey Zone is a harrowing story of life in a concentration camp where all human morality is abandoned in the attempt to stay alive. The characters are all regular people who are forced to choose between collaboration and death and in turn have to live with the consequences of their actions and it makes you wonder what you would do if you were in the same position. Great performances all round (Harvey Keitel's Hogan's Heroes accent notwithstanding) make for an intelligent and affecting story that maybe is not on a level with Schindler's List or Downfall, but it's still a powerful and thought provoking film about what happens when human life loses all value. Grim but in good way.
Coxxie M

depressing.
paul s

Compare this film to Shindler's list and it doesn't quite stack up, although there are some nice moments and camera pans that bring you in to the harrowing and oppressive world of that god forsaken place. I think the film could have done a better job of showing how the… More
Compare this film to Shindler's list and it doesn't quite stack up, although there are some nice moments and camera pans that bring you in to the harrowing and oppressive world of that god forsaken place. I think the film could have done a better job of showing how the different cells communicated, and some of the diaglog seemed a bit chewy and overacted (the scene with the watch seemed to come from out of nowhere, and the wife's constant screaming, while valid, seemed overdone and unnessesary. There was one particularly bizarre moment when all the charactors are speaking English (although Keitel wit ze German accent) and then Keitel yells "stop speaking Hungarian and speak German". Umm, ok, I'm sure no-one seeing this film had any idea that the Kommandos were speaking in Hungarian just before that (since it was the same conversational English that they had just answered Keitel in. The film did a wonderful job of showing the hopelessness and loss of humanity and how the camps effected everyone - but the scipt and direction could have been tighter.
Brian D

A look at the lifes of the prisoners in a concentration camp and the lead up to a up raising against the german. Well made and very grim but a well worth watch and a brush up history lesson.
Bruce B

When I started watching this movie, I knew I had seen it before, but looking at all my list, I can't find it. But Have seen it before guess it was in the theather. A great movie, showing what things were like inside the prision camps during WWII, Horroable, I can only hope that… More
When I started watching this movie, I knew I had seen it before, but looking at all my list, I can't find it. But Have seen it before guess it was in the theather. A great movie, showing what things were like inside the prision camps during WWII, Horroable, I can only hope that Americans today would still feel the same as they did in WWII, but somehow I doubt we would. Things are just so different. Worth th watch,
Alec B

While it lacks the budget of films like The Pianist or Schindler's List, The Grey Zone goes to places that those films barely even got close to. It questions the very nature of morality and when put to the test is it even applicable and in this kind of horrific situation, is… More
While it lacks the budget of films like The Pianist or Schindler's List, The Grey Zone goes to places that those films barely even got close to. It questions the very nature of morality and when put to the test is it even applicable and in this kind of horrific situation, is there ever a right or a wrong? I saw this film years ago and viewing it again I'm reminded of why it haunts me more than any other holocaust film. Tim Blake Nelson literally takes us into hell for the duration of the film and he never leaves it. Schindler's List was was about a man who saved thousands of Jews, The Pianist is about one man who against all odds survived, Life is Beautiful is about finding hope in a hopeless situation. But The Grey Zone is a film apart, its about the utter lack of hope and the need for a person to survive no matter what the cost for just one more day even if that means doing unspeakable acts.
Daisy M

The Grey Zone was one more of a powerful, disturbing,brutally and honest movies ever made about the holocaust.It was the true story of a group Hungarian Jews who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria, the so called SonderCommandos. The mass murders has never been… More
The Grey Zone was one more of a powerful, disturbing,brutally and honest movies ever made about the holocaust.It was the true story of a group Hungarian Jews who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria, the so called SonderCommandos. The mass murders has never been shown so openly in a movie as in here. The cast,consisting of David Arquette in the leading role gave a super performance, while the supporting roles such as Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino were amazing. Allan Corduner performed the role of the Jewish pathologist perfectly, he assisted the Germans in their horrible experiments.Anyone who watches The Grey Zone will be moved to see these Hungarians Jews, who were forced into doing what they did.Horrible..