JustWatch

Night Will Fall

2014

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Helena Bonham Carter Jasper Britton Toby Haggith Sidney Bernstein Alfred Hitchcock Billy Wilder George S. Patton

Alternative Titles

Hitchcoks Lehrfilm für die Deutschen, Images de la libération des camps. Chronique d’un film inachevé, 밤이 걷히면, Night Will Fall - Hitchcocks Lehrfilm, Cuando caiga la noche, יירד הלילה, Ciemności skryją Ziemię, Night Will Fall - Perché non scenda la notte, A Noite Cairá, Møtet med dødsleirene, 夜幕会降临, Θα πέσει η νύχτα

Genre

Documentary

Theatrical

07 Jun 2014

11 Oct 2014

USANR

13 Jan 2015

Germany

20 Apr 2017

Greece

TV

27 Jan 2015

Netherlands16
Norway15

Germany

13 Jan 2015

Theatrical

Greece

20 Apr 2017

Theatrical

Netherlands

27 Jan 2015

TV16 NPO 2

Norway

27 Jan 2015

TV15 NRK2

UK

07 Jun 2014

Theatrical

USA

11 Oct 2014

TheatricalNR

75 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Sethsreviews 4

One of the most challenging, upsetting, and, most importantly, crucial documentaries I've ever seen. Absolutely horrific. Even if you think you've seen everything about the liberation of the death camps at the end of WWII, this is a real eye-opener. Definitely unforgettable.
Review by loureviews ★★★★½

They denied it.
The piles of spectacles, false teeth, human hair, toys, scissors, suitcases, gloves.
They denied the smell.
The stick limbs, the rotting faces, the typhoid, the vacant eyes.
They denied the camps.
Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Majdanek.
They denied the fight.
Those tears from veterans recalling the sights, the ashes, the pits of bodies, the ovens, the tortured twins.
They denied it.
German civilians marched to see the devastation, the destruction, the inhumanity, cheerfully at first, resisting afterward.
They denied the trucks and trains.
Prisoners starving in cattle cars, living bodies amongst three thousand corpses frozen in the snow.
They denied the need to care.
These burnt bodies, these hollow cheeked survivors, were not human, were simply dummies,…
Review by Tino Hahn ★★★★½

"They say dead man's shoes are unlucky, but what of dead children's toys?"
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★

Andre Singer's harrowing documentary Night Will Fall exhibits horrific and shocking scenes from the freshly liberated Nazi concentration camps immediately following the surrender of Germany in WWII, and details the making of an intended documentary produced by Sidney Bernstein for the British Ministry of Information entitled German Concentration Camps Factual Survey.
The footage itself is mostly familiar and helped to construct a record that overcomes every endeavour to refute this sickening episode in human history - although racist holocaust deniers still attempt to try. Singer does not aspire to reconstruct the original documentary, which has now been restored by film academics at the Imperial War Museum; instead, he creates a distinctively individual piece of work which leans into the precise objectives of the original project.
Review by Will Steele

Theodor Adorno once said “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” His sentiment touched upon how sensitive depicting the Holocaust onscreen can be. Whilst Adorno‘s use of poetry has been widely interpreted to mean art or any form, documentary filmmaking offers account which purport to be reality. Yet all documentary is mediated, however sensitively or thoughtfully it is constructed. Other documentaries which shone light on the atrocities of mass extermination at the time were Billy Wilder’s Death Mills or George Stevens’ German Concentration Camps with the former suffering from heavy-handed politicisation which served US interests in particular. Night Will Fall aims to rectify the politicisation with a stark bare account which cannot help but mediate the atrocities of the Holocaust but also strives to depict the accounts of survivors truthfully whilst unveiling the construction of documentaries made in the wake of the Shoah. It’s a tough and gruelling watch but nonetheless crucial.
Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★★ 7

"Unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach, then night will fall."
Those words are uttered during the narration of this film, and never has a more poignant expression been used to describe the horrors detailed throughout this documentary. Andre Singer's film chronicles the making of the 1945 documentary film, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, which was based on the work of combat cameramen who documented the atrocities uncovered in various concentration camps liberated by the Allies. It was overseen and produced by filmmaker Sidney Bernstein, but incredibly never finished despite the importance of the archival footage that laid bare the extent of the slaughter of the Jewish population of Europe. Alfred Hitchcock had been involved too, coming back…
Review by Colin Rudge ★★★★ 2

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

A difficult film, and not just to watch. This is all about the filming of the discovery and liberation of the concentration camps as the Allies moved across Nazi occupied territory. The first half of the film is interesting but plays relatively straight as a documentary, dealing with the shock of witnessing the horrors and including contemporary (or near contemporary) interviews with either the liberators or those inside the camp. This includes a couple of 'then and now' moments of showing people in the footage and as they are now, which were interesting but which also made me slightly uneasy, as it reminded me a little too much of the nostalgic use of the same technique in the BBC Lost…
Review by Cineanalyst ★★★★½

“I’d Peered into Hell”
“Night Will Fall” is basically a making-of documentary of a documentary, but it’s so outstanding that it’s received its own home-video release separate from the completion and restoration of the once-unfinished documentary that it’s about, “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” (begun in 1945 and restored and completed by the Imperial War Museum in 2014). To this day, it would appear, more people have seen “Night Will Fall” than the once-shelved film that it concerns. Albeit, if you’ve seen this documentary or various others about Nazi concentration camps—such as the cannibalized efforts made of the footage in 1945, namely the propaganda short film “Death Mills” and the Nuremberg trial evidence film “Nazi Concentration Camps,” or the incomplete…
Review by Kane Le-Petit ★★★

It’s a difficult experience to rate/review but I certainly prefer the minimalistic nature of George Stevens documentary (which is also the first film ever to show the atrocities of the holocaust) that focuses on nothing but the imagery itself because some of the interviews here fell a little flat for me. Nontheless it’s an interesting piece but of course, extremely hard to watch, there is some incredibly graphic imagery here that ranks among the most horrific footage I’ve seen from WW11.
Review by Waldo ★★★★★

And to think genocide is alive and well today. I've seen my share of Holocaust documentaries and this is the most terrible because it feels as you're there. You can almost touch it, smell it, I felt a little sick to be honest. Movies can come close but never like this and I've seen brutal actual footage but again, never like this. Loved watching the Nazis forced to deal with their own horrible actions. We get audio, one thing almost all actual footage lacks. And to watch some of it in color was an eye opener. A window into the whole mess. Unforgettable.
Review by Juan Bacaro ★★★★★ 3

Abrumador, aplastante, revelador y agobiante. Sin duda, "Night will fall" es el documental más terrorífico que haya visto acerca del holocausto nazi. Y, también, una de las películas más sofocantes de los últimos años.
La historia va del intento de documental que se quiso hacer a partir de las imágenes registradas al final de la guerra y de las infinitas atrocidades que se corroboraron. A cargo estaba Sidney Bernstein. Una película tan extensa, espantosa, significativa y atosigante que no pudo ser finalizada.
Básicamente es el documental sobre un documental. Imágenes difíciles de tolerar -pero necesarias- son parte de los residuos que dejó este film inconcluso. Además, se muestran instantes de los juicios de Núremberg y las primeras imágenes a color…
Review by Ole Holgersen ★★★★

The very first British photographers who entered the German concentration camps in April 1945, were met with a shocking reality. Only now, 70 years after the war, their footage is shown in this newly produced documentary.
Famous directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein was to gather this footage and create a picture that could serve as a document of what took place in these death camps, but before its completion the movie was stopped by the British authorities. First because they thought the images were too horrific, later and finally in the interests of cooperation with Germany after the war.
Night Will Fall is the story of why it was never completed, and finally how it came to be…

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Night Will Fall

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Releases by Date

Theatrical

07 Jun 2014

11 Oct 2014

13 Jan 2015

20 Apr 2017

TV

27 Jan 2015

Releases by Country

Germany

13 Jan 2015

Greece

20 Apr 2017

Netherlands

27 Jan 2015

Norway

27 Jan 2015

UK

07 Jun 2014

USA

11 Oct 2014

Popular reviews

Where to watch

Night Will Fall

Synopsis

Cast

Director Director

Producers Producers

Writer Writer

Editors Editors

Cinematography Cinematography

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Composer Composer

Studios

Countries

Language

Alternative Titles

Genre

Theatrical

07 Jun 2014

11 Oct 2014

13 Jan 2015

20 Apr 2017

TV

27 Jan 2015

Germany

13 Jan 2015

Greece

20 Apr 2017

Netherlands

27 Jan 2015

Norway

27 Jan 2015

UK

07 Jun 2014

USA

11 Oct 2014

Popular reviews

Director

Producers

Writer

Editors

Cinematography

Executive Producers

Composer