Shoah · reception & legacy

How Shoah has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Hailed almost instantly as a monument in 1985 — but it was furiously denounced by Poland's communist government, which protested its portrayal of Polish villagers. Four decades on the controversy has faded and it sits near the top of every greatest-documentary poll, ranked #2 in Sight & Sound's 2014 critics' poll of documentaries.

What's debated

The eternal debate: is the nine-and-a-half-hour runtime the whole point, or is 'Shoah' the canonical film more people cite than actually finish — and was Lanzmann right that this is the only ethical way to film the Holocaust?

Its footprint

The film is a big reason 'Shoah' became the standard word for the Holocaust in France and beyond, and its refusal to use a single frame of archival footage became the ethical benchmark against which every Holocaust film since — Lanzmann's famous scorn for Schindler's List included — gets argued.

Where it stands

The definition of a 'you must see it once' film: a summit of the documentary canon that cinephiles treat less as a watch than a pilgrimage.