One of the most provocative and critically acclaimed films of the past year—it made our top 10 list—is coming to cable: The Zone of Interest is making its TV debut tonight, April 13.
Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin, Birth), the Holocaust drama was nominated for five Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture and Best Director, and took home two Oscars, for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. (And when you take in that spine-chilling soundscape, you'll know exactly why.)
Inspired by true events and loosely based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Martin Amis, the haunting historical drama focuses on the life of Auschwitz commandment Rudolf Höss (played by Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (the great Sandra Hüller, also a stand-out in 2023's Anatomy of a Fall), who live with their family in a home in the "Zone of Interest" next to the concentration camp.
After premiering at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in May 2023—at which it won the Grand Prix—and hitting theaters stateside last December, The Zone of Interest is now coming to television. It will air on HBO tonight, April 13 at 8pm Eastern. HBO is available with most cable TV subscriptions. However, if you've cut the cord, you have watch live simulcasts of HBO channels via several live TV streaming service options, including Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream.
Like with fellow A24 movies like Past Lives and Priscilla, you also have access to The Zone of Interest through the network's streaming platform, Max. Max is available as a standalone service, with both an ad-supported ($9.99 per month) and ad-free plan ($15.99 per month), while also available as an add-on channel on Prime Video and other streaming and live TV streaming services.
Glazer spent a decade getting The Zone of Interest made and delved into much research into Amis' book, the real-life camp commandant Rudolf Höss and Auschwitz’s own records for the film. According to The Los Angeles Times, he was especially struck by testimonies from young Polish girls who worked in the Höss home and on the grounds during the Holocaust. “I became really struck by that,” Glazer told the outlet. “The horror was in the house. Fascism starts in the family anyway, so there was something about the ordinariness and the familiarity of that ordinariness. It was just utterly captivating.”
“And this is a happy family in a back garden getting on with their lives,” he added, speaking of discovered film footage that Höss personally shot. “There’s no evidence in this roll of film that the camp wall was in fact the garden wall. He didn’t shoot it. So that tells you a lot.”
See the trailer for the harrowing drama above before tuning in to The Zone of Interest tonight on HBO.
