The Grey Zone

2001
NC-16
1h 48m

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

12K

YOUR RATING

Kamelia Grigorova in The Grey Zone (2001)

Play trailer2:28

1 Video

18 Photos

Drama History War

A Nazi doctor, along with the Sonderkommando, Jews who are forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz against their fellow Jews, find themselves in a moral gray zone.A Nazi doctor, along with the Sonderkommando, Jews who are forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz against their fellow Jews, find themselves in a moral gray zone.A Nazi doctor, along with the Sonderkommando, Jews who are forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz against their fellow Jews, find themselves in a moral gray zone.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

12K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 3 nominations

Trivia
Writer and DirectorTim Blake Nelsonmade Dr.Miklos Nyiszli's memoirs "Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account" (1946) mandatory reading for the film's cast, along withPrimo Levi's "The Drowned and the Saved" (1986) andFilip Müller's "Eyewitness Auschwitz" (1979).

Goofs
After the men set the crematoria 4 on fire they tore down the fences and fled into the woods. They barricaded themselves in a barn where SS caught them. They were burned alive inside the barn.

Quotes
Hoffman:I used to think so much of myself... What I'd make of my life. We can't know what we're capable of, any of us. How can you know what you'd do to stay alive, until you're really asked? I know this now. For most of us, the answer... is anything. It's so easy to forget who we were before... who we'll never be again. There was this old man, he pushed the carts, and on our first day, when we had to burn our own convoy, his wife was brought up on the elevator. Then his daughter... and then both his grandchildren. I knew him. We were neighbors. And in 20 minutes, his whole family, and all its future, was gone from this earth. Two weeks later, he took pills and was revived. We smothered him with his own pillow, and now I know why. You can kill yourself. That's the only choice. I want them to save you. I want them to save you more than I want anything. I pray to God we save you.

Connections
Featured inWatchMojo: Top 10 Holocaust Films(2014)

Soundtracks
Roses from the South Op. 388
(1880)
Composed byJohann Strauss(as Johann Strauss)
Orchestrated and arranged byJeff DannaandAndrew Lockington
Performed and conducted by members of the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra

User reviews112

Review

Featured review

10/10

You will never be the same after watching this movie

This is truly one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. If the goal of a great movie is to make its viewer changed forever, "The Grey Zone" certainly has succeeded. Yes it is not "Schindlers List". It has no uplifting theme, other than that in the face of no hope, doomed individuals tried desperately, if for nothing else, to save one life among millions of doomed. In the end even that effort is futile.

It's images are haunting.

Do to its depressing topic and even more disturbing ending others have criticized this movie as not being "entertaining". In fact it is entertaining. It is a horror movie of the real kind. The horror of human evil based on prejudice and hatred.

Everyone needs to see this movie, with the exception of those who lived through it, as they already know!