Final Account draws a line under a period of history that has been explored extensively before. But it also hints, in several chilling segments, at how pervasive some of the ideas that formed the core of Nazi ideology remain, even now.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2021

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of his film is the nonchalance with which some of his subjects recount those events.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2021

I am fascinated by movies and books that push aside our view of history, one informed by hindsight, and take us to what it was like at the time it was happening.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2021

Final Account is made from of a fraction of what he got - perhaps not more than a dozen or so interviews - but it's a monumental achievement, an implacable and revealing record of the corruption of a generation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2021

At first I felt a little put-upon, but the aggregation of multiple details forms a terrifying and hideous picture.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 25, 2021

The ringing message throughout "Final Account" comes from the famous quote attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

| May 24, 2021

Holland reduces interviews to snippets and sound bites and turns the work of investigation and commemoration into a mere survey.

| May 24, 2021

An invaluable documentary that hears the reflections of former soldiers, guards and prison camp workers...

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 22, 2021

Luke Holland's film makes a study of evasion, denial, and self-justification among living participants in Hitler's Third Reich.

| May 21, 2021

Final Account is about today as much as yesterday, and that makes it perhaps the most urgent World War II documentary of them all.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 20, 2021

It isn't just the preservation of how these Germans perpetrated something so horrific. It's also a reminder that we're on the verge of seeing history repeat itself.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 20, 2021

It's a fascinating look, yet again, at one of history's most horrendous periods and explores the era's eternal question: "Were you a perpetrator if you knew, but said or did nothing?"

| May 20, 2021

It's only partly effective, and frustrating.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 18, 2021

In the end, the power of "Final Account" resides in the way it shows how human nature reacts to lies, propaganda and state-sanctioned atrocity.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 17, 2021

Luke Holland's stark and revealing documentary is a gift of memory to future generations, though it's one that some will likely view as an unwelcome reminder of how everyday people can become complicit in incomprehensible evil.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 16, 2021

Holland reminds us - if recent images of neo-Nazis storming the steps of the Reichstag haven't already - of another disease that demands constant vigilance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2020

Its ambitions are too high. On the one hand, it treats viewers like newcomers to the Shoah, and yet at the same time expects them to engage in complex questions of responsibility and guilt.

| Sep 12, 2020

Holland proves a skilled inquisitor and eventually forces uncomfortable truths out of his subjects.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2020

Holland's documentary ends up being too much, but also not quite enough.

| Sep 4, 2020

A sobering round-up of voices from the Third Reich.

| Sep 3, 2020