Shoah tops list of best World War II documentaries

Collider ranked the 10 best World War II documentaries and placed Claude Lanzmann's Shoah at number one.

Shoah, released April 21, 1985, has a runtime of 566 minutes and the article describes it as the definitive documentary about the Holocaust, featuring extensive interviews with survivors, perpetrators and bystanders. The ranking also highlights a range of films covering different aspects of the war, including Night and Fog (1956); The Memory of Justice (1976), which examines the Nuremberg trials and related moral questions; The Sorrow and the Pity on Vichy France; White Light/Black Rain on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Triumph Over Violence (1965); Night Will Fall (2014), which discusses the 1945 German Concentration Camps Factual Survey and why its footage remained unreleased or inaccessible; Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia (1943) as a wartime propaganda film; Hôtel Terminus on Klaus Barbie; and The Last Days focused on concentration camp survivors.

The article excludes television series from the list and emphasizes documentary films that confront wartime realities; it notes these works are often harrowing but informative, offering historical documentation and moral reflection rather than entertainment.

Key Topics

Culture, Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, Holocaust, World War Ii, Nuremberg Trials