"...Claude Lanzmann has accomplished the seemingly impossible: He has brought such beauty to his recounting of the horror of the Holocaust that he has made it accessible and comprehensible..."
Los Angeles Times - Kevin Thomas (06/04/1986)

"...[A] 9 1/2-hour Holocaust masterpiece, which is routinely cited as one of the five best documentaries ever made..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (10/29/1999)

Won 12 International Film Awards:

BAFTA Awards
1987  Won Flaherty Documentary Award
Claude Lanzmann

Berlin International Film Festival
1986  Won Caligari Film Award
Claude Lanzmann

FIPRESCI Prize Forum of New Cinema
Claude Lanzmann

OCIC Award - Honorable Mention
Claude Lanzmann

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
1986  Won BSFC Award Best Documentary
 
César Awards, France
1986    Honorary César
Claude Lanzmann
 
International Documentary Association
1986  Won IDA Award
Claude Lanzmann
 
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
1987  Won KCFCC Award Best Documentary
 
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
1985  Won Special Award
Claude Lanzmann

National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA
1986  Won NSFC Award Best Documentary
 
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
1985  Won NYFCC Award Best Documentary
 
Rotterdam International Film Festival
1986  Won Rotterdam Award Best Documentary
Claude Lanzmann

Shoah is Claude Lanzmann’s landmark documentary meditation on the Holocaust. Assembled from footage shot by the filmmaker during the 1970s and 1980s, it investigates the genocide at the level of experience: the geographical layout of the camps and the ghettos; the daily routines of imprisonment; the inexorable trauma of humiliation, punishment, extermination; and the fascinating insights of those who experienced these events first hand. Absent from the film is any imagery shot at the time the Holocaust occurred. There is only Lanzmann and his crew, filming in private spaces and now-dormant zones of eradication to extract testimony from a series of survivors, witnesses, and oppressors alike. Through his relentless questioning (aided on occasion by hidden camera), Lanzmann is able to coax out material of unparalleled emotional truth that constitutes both precious oral history and withering indictment.