2024 Oscars: ‘The Zone of Interest’ is in the zone for Best Picture nomination

Jacob Sarkisian
·3 min read
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“The Zone of Interest” is a remarkable fourth film from Jonathan Glazer. The film, which A24 releases in the US on December 8, follows Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) as they try to live a normal life just outside of the concentration camp.

The movie is about the banality of evil — how monstrous people live almost boringly while, in the background, some of the worst horrors in human history are being carried out. Daring is probably the best word to describe this film, particularly with one very late sequence that throws the film forward to modern-day Auschwitz, wherein we see women cleaning the buildings and grounds of the camp. Critics have hailed Glazer for his work.

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David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter) called the film a “devastating Holocaust drama like no other, which demonstrates with startling effectiveness [director Jonathan Glazer]’s unerring control of tonal and visual storytelling.”

Raphael Abraham (Financial Times) noted: “Glazer has achieved something much greater than just making the monstrous mundane — by rendering such extreme inhumanity ordinary he reawakens us to its true horror.”

David Ehrlich (Indie Wire) observed that the camerawork on show instills “a flattening evenness into a film where the lack of drama becomes deeply sickening unto itself.”

“The Zone of Interest” had spent a while in our predicted nominees for Best Picture in our Oscars odds chart but it recently dropped out of the top 10. At the moment, we are predicting that the Best Picture nominees will be “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “Past Lives,” “The Color Purple,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” and “American Fiction.” “The Zone of Interest” is on the precipice, in 11th place.

The film has already won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Glazer. Two of the last 30 Grand Prix winners have gone on to land Best Picture nominations —  Roberto Benigni‘s “Life is Beautiful” in 1998 (nominated at the 1999 Oscars) and Spike Lee‘s “BlacKkKlansman” in 2018 (nominated at the 2019 Oscars).

War dramas are one of the most popular genres in this category. “All Quiet on the Western Front” was nominated earlier this year. “1917” came close to winning in 2020, the same year that “Jojo Rabbit” was nominated. “Dunkirk” was nominated in 2018, “Hacksaw Ridge” was nominated in 2017, “The Imitation Game” and “American Sniper” reaped bids in 2015, “Zero Dark Thirty” landed a nomination in 2013, “War Horse” picked up a bid in 2012, and 2010 saw “Inglourious Basterds” nominated and “The Hurt Locker” win.

But it isn’t often that two war films are nominated in the same year. That’s only happened twice in the last 15 years — in 2020 and 2010. And there’s another war movie contending this year that is set to make big waves — Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer.” That movie is predicted to win Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan, and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, amongst other awards.

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