How To Watch Best Picture Nominee The Zone Of Interest At Home
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" is one of the most harrowing films of 2023, and easily one of the best. The bulk of the film takes place in a rather nice, clean, well-kempt country home in the Polish countryside. A military officer lives there with his family, and they spend their days in their lovely garden, tending to their greenhouse, trying on clothes, and playing with unusual toys. The military man is Kommandant Rudolf Höss. Sharing a wall with his property is the Auschwitz concentration camp. Smoke billows from the furnaces in the background while Höss and his family sip drinks in the sunshine. The clothes they try on have been stolen off the backs of the Jewish prisoners being tortured and killed just next door. The unusual toys are gold teeth.
There is no on-screen violence in "The Zone of Interest," and Glazer tells the story mostly through sound. The fiery groaning of Auschwitz's furnaces hums underneath almost every scene. Glazer's camera lingers on close-ups of flowers while victims plead for their lives on the soundtrack. The film is about how Höss, beholden to the whims of the Nazi military machine, might get transferred away from Auschwitz, taking him away from his cushy mansion. The Höss family is concerned only with creature comforts and prestige. They don't address the mass murders.
"The Zone of Interest" has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best International Feature (although an English production, the film is in German), and Best Sound.
"The Zone of Interest" is available for purchase online through various recognizable video-sales outlets, as well as A24's own specialty app.
Where to watch it
Firstly, one might want to check their local listings, as "The Zone of Interest" is still in limited release in some major cities.
Otherwise, Glazer's film is available to digitally purchase for $19.99 through Amazon, the Microsoft Store, and Fandango's Vudu. The former two have the film available in standard definition, high definition, and ultra-high definition. Every version costs $19.99.
One can also watch "The Zone of Interest" on the new A24 app, which offers the studio's films for rent or purchase directly from the source. For access to the app, one can purchase a year-long membership to AAA24, the studio's premium film club. AAA24 grants card-carrying members access to rentals and purchases, but also scads of special features, interviews, and short videos not available anywhere else. Currently, one can watch deleted scenes from "Past Lives," a conversation between Celine Song and Sofa Coppola, interviews with Mia Goth about "X" and "Pearl," and that video of Martin Scorsese telling Ari Aster that "Beau if Afraid" is one of the best films of 2023.
AAA24 members also get early access to unusual A24 merch; currently, members can buy a Kevin Von Erich action figure, a tie-in to Sean Durkin's wrestling tragedy "The Iron Claw." After the early access window closes, members still get 10% off in the A24 merch store. Oh yes, and one gets a subscription to the A24 quarterly zine.
In the United States, AAA24 membership costs $55 a year. Outside of the United States, it's $99. You can even give memberships as gifts.
"The Zone of Interest" will eventually make its way into other streaming services as well. Thanks to a contract signed between A24 and Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio's fare will appear on Max.