Son of Saul (2015)
88%RT Audience Score:
Awards & Nominations: Won 1 Oscar
66 wins & 62 nominations total
Grimly intense yet thoroughly rewarding, Son of Saul offers an unforgettable viewing experience — and establishes director László Nemes as a talent to watch
Son of Saul is a movie that will leave you feeling like you’ve been through the wringer, but in the best way possible. It’s not your typical Holocaust drama – it’s a masterful work of art that will take you right to the gates of hell and back. The film’s formalist experiment yields stunning emotional dividends, making this unfathomable act personal in a way that’s both harrowing and cathartic. And while it’s not exactly a fun watch, it’s a necessary one that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Production Company(ies)
Columbia Pictures, New Regency Productions, Pascal Pictures,
Distributor
Sony Pictures Classics
Release Type
Streaming, Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)
Filming Location(s)
Mafilm, Budapest, Hungary
MPAA / Certificate
Rated R for disturbing violent content, and some graphic nudity.
Year of Release
2015
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby Digital
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Aspect ratio:1.37 : 1
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Runtime:1h 47m
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Language(s):Hungarian, Yiddish, German, Russian, Polish, French, Greek, Slovak, Hebrew
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Country of origin:Hungary
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Dec 18, 2015 Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 26, 2016
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Géza Röhrig, Kecske Molnár Levente, Todd Charmont, Sándor Zsótér, Marcin Czarnik, Uwe Lauer, directed by László Nemes, written by Clara Royer, László Nemes, drama, World War II, Auschwitz concentration camp, Jewish worker, rabbi, burial, graphic nudity, disturbing violent content, German language, Gábor Sipos, Gábor Rajna, Sony Pictures Classics, Dolby Digital, $1.8M box office, R rating, reviewed by Elissa Suh, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Jordan Hoffman, Dwight Brown, Sara Michelle Fetters, Jason Bailey, Olly Richards, Dustin Chang, David Bax, Dennis Harvey, Yasser Medina, Lucía Ros Serra, Holocaust, POV camera work, dehumanization, horror, thriller, technique, direction, protagonist, motivations, foreign film, visceral, personal experience, true horror, silent contemplation, uneasiness
Worldwide gross: $6,659,121
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $8,312,370
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,026
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 906,474
US/Canada gross: $1,777,043
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $2,218,227
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,011
US/Canada opening weekend: $37,930
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $47,347
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,229
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): 1500000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): $1,872,403
Production budget ranking: 2,033
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): $1,008,289
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): $5,431,679
ROI to date (est.): 189%
ROI ranking: 653
Kecske Molnár Levente – Abraham
Todd Charmont – Bearded Man
Sándor Zsótér – Doctor
Marcin Czarnik – Feigenbaum
Uwe Lauer – Voss
Director(s)
László Nemes
Writer(s)
Clara Royer, László Nemes
Producer(s)
Gábor Sipos, Gábor Rajna
Film Festivals
Cannes, Telluride, Toronto
Awards & Nominations
Won 1 Oscar
66 wins & 62 nominations total
Academy Awards
Oscar Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Winners, Oscar Best International Feature Film Of The Year Winners, Oscar Winners
All Critics (232) | Top Critics (73) | Fresh (222) | Rotten (10)
Son of Saul is a film of considerable virtuosity, a harrowing film like no other before it.
March 16, 2020
Elissa Suh
StageBuddy.com
TOP CRITIC
Son of Saul employs the formal mechanics of filmmaking to turn [its] … questions back in on and around themselves, doing what cinema does best in the hands of great filmmakers: showing by not showing, telling by not telling.
August 25, 2018
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
The Blue Lenses
TOP CRITIC
Perhaps one of the most striking works of art about the Holocaust yet made.
February 1, 2018
Jordan Hoffman
Times of Israel
TOP CRITIC
Son of Saul is a masterwork that leads viewers right to the gates of hell.
March 7, 2017
Dwight Brown
National Newspaper Publishers Association
TOP CRITIC
Important as it is essential, the movie is a remarkable achievement deserving of every honor and ounce of acclaim it has so far achieved, watching it a catastrophically profound experience I’m not soon to forget.
August 16, 2016 | Rating: 4/4
Sara Michelle Fetters
MovieFreak.com
TOP CRITIC
It’s an extraordinary method of making this unfathomable act personal, a formalist experiment that yields stunning emotional dividends.
May 3, 2016
Jason Bailey
Flavorwire
TOP CRITIC
If the intention is to give us even a fleeting experience of what it could have been like to live in constant fear, hoping for a breath of humanity in a life shaped by evil, then it has achieved that entirely.
May 5, 2021
Olly Richards
NME
I understand Godard’s criticism of Schindler’s List now. No holocaust movie should be a thriller. Hungarian first timer Laszlo Nemes’s Auschwitz set drama is at once riveting and quietly devastating experience and it doesn’t feel like a gimmick.
February 14, 2021
Dustin Chang
Floating World
Son of Saul presents a gargantuan moral victory in the face of incomprehensible evil.
January 7, 2021
David Bax
Battleship Pretension
Its jagged stylistic urgency [makes] it unlike any prior Holocaust drama
October 28, 2020
Dennis Harvey
48 Hills
Nemes also achieves a cinema separated from sentimentality that offers a sober, unavoidable and gloomy glimpse of dehumanization in times of war. [Full review in Spanish]
June 26, 2020 | Rating: 8/10
Yasser Medina
Cinemaficionados
László Nemes believes in the viewer’s capabilities and gives him an intelligent, hard and real film. [Full Review in Spanish]
May 14, 2020
Lucía Ros Serra
Espinof…
Plot
During World War II, a Jewish worker at the Auschwitz concentration camp tries to find a rabbi to give a child a proper burial in the harrowing and intense drama, Son of Saul.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Nothing to add here about Son of Saul.
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