{{Other uses|Last days (disambiguation)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox film | name = The Last Days | image = The Last Days.jpg | writer = | starring = | director = James Moll | producer = June Beallor<br/>Kenneth Lipper | studio = Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation | distributor = October Films | released = {{Film date|1998|10|23|Los Angeles|1999|02|05|United States}} | runtime = 87 minutes | language = English, German and Hungarian | country = United States | budget = | music = Hans Zimmer }}
'''''The Last Days''''' is a 1998 American documentary film directed by James Moll and produced by June Beallor and Kenneth Lipper; Steven Spielberg, in his role as founder of the Shoah Foundation, was one of the film's executive producers. The film tells the stories of five Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust (also known as the Shoah), focusing on the last year of World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and began mass deportations of Jews in the country to concentration and extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz. It depicts the horrors of life in the camps, but also stresses the optimism and perseverance of the survivors.<ref name="Guardian-2021">{{Cite web|last=Simonpillai|first=Radheyan|date=2021-05-18|title='There is still so much hatred': looking back on Holocaust documentary The Last Days|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/18/the-last-days-holocaust-documentary-re-release|work=The Guardian|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref><ref name="Austin-1999">{{Cite web|last=Savlov|first=Marc|date=1999-03-05|title=The Last Days|url=https://www.austinchronicle.com/events/film/1999-03-05/the-last-days/|work=The Austin Chronicle|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref>
The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 71st Academy Awards.<ref name="Guardian-2021" /><ref name="NY Times">{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/173760/The-Last-Days/details |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071204002229/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/173760/The-Last-Days/details |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-12-04 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=The New York Times |date=2007 |title=New York Times • The Last Days|accessdate=2008-11-22}}</ref> It was remastered and re-released on Netflix on May 19, 2021.<ref name="Guardian-2021" />
==Content== The film includes archival footage, photographs, and documents, as well as new interviews with Holocaust survivors Bill Basch, Irene Zisblatt, Renée Firestone, Alice Lok Cahana, Tom Lantos, Randolph Braham, and Dario Gabbai.<ref name="Guardian-2021" /> The filmmakers take the first five of those, who all immigrated to the United States after WWII, back to visit their hometowns and the sites of the camps to which they were sent. Former Representative Lantos (D-CA) was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the United States Congress.<ref name="Leonard-2000">{{Cite web|last=Leonard|first=John|date=2000-05-29|title=Speak, Memory|url=https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/tv/reviews/3231/|work=New York|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref><ref name="Gorondi-2018">{{Cite web|last=Gorondi|first=Pablo|date=2018-02-01|title=Statue of late Rep. Tom Lantos unveiled in Hungary|url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/01/statue-of-late-rep-tom-lantos-unveiled-in-hungary/|work=The Mercury News|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref> He was saved by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who hid Lantos in Budapest.<ref name="Leonard-2000" />
There are also interviews with U.S. army veterans Paul Parks and Katsugo Miho, G.I.'s who helped liberate Dachau concentration camp. Former SS doctor Hans Münch, who was acquitted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials, is interviewed about his experiences at Auschwitz concentration camp.<ref name="Austin-1999" /><ref name="Leonard-2000" />
==Release== ''The Last Days'' was first released in 1998, and it was remastered and re-released worldwide on Netflix on May 19, 2021. It was produced by June Beallor, Kenneth Lipper, Steven Spielberg, and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}}
==Critical response== ''The Last Days'' received positive reviews from film critics. It holds a 92% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Last Days|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_last_days_1999|website=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=June 25, 2021}}</ref> On Metacritic, the film has a score of 85 out of 100, based on 25 critics.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Last Days|url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-last-days|website=Metacritic|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref>
According to Radheyan Simonpillai of ''The Guardian'': "The film’s thesis is that the Nazis were so fueled by hatred that they would sacrifice their position in the war in order to carry out the genocide, deporting 438,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz within a six-week period."<ref name="Guardian-2021" /> Roger Ebert wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' that the film "focuses on the last year of the war, when Adolf Hitler, already defeated and with his resources running out, revealed the depth of his racial hatred by diverting men and supplies to the task of exterminating Hungary's Jews."<ref name="Ebert-1999">{{Cite web|last=Ebert|first=Roger|date=1999-02-12|title=Reviews: The Last Days|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-days-1999|publisher=RogerEbert.com|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref> In ''New York'' magazine, John Leonard wrote: "It is a story told by five survivors of that fast-forward genocide, all of them naturalized American citizens, who return to the cities and villages from which they were seized, and to the camps to which they were committed."<ref name="Leonard-2000" />
Marc Savlov of ''The Austin Chronicle'' wrote: "Moll's film is a far cry from the elegiac poetry of, say, ''Night and Fog''; it's a document more than an examination, and its power of record is inarguable and incorruptible."<ref name="Austin-1999" /> Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, former film critic for the ''San Francisco Examiner'', wrote for Common Sense Media that "The horrors described by survivors of the death camps, the soldiers who liberated them, and historians, as well as photographs and archival footage, make this important and educational but best suited to teens and older."<ref name="CSM-1999">{{Cite web|last=Shulgasser-Parker|first=Barbara|date=2021-05-26|title=The Last Days|url=https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/the-last-days|publisher=Common Sense Media|access-date=2021-06-25}}</ref>
==See also== * List of Holocaust films
{{Portal|Film|Judaism}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb title|id=0174852|title=The Last Days}} * {{Rotten Tomatoes|the_last_days_1999}} * {{Metacritic film}}
{{James Moll}} {{AcademyAwardBestDocumentaryFeature1981-2000}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Days, the}} Category:1998 films Category:1998 black-and-white films Category:American black-and-white films Category:American documentary films Category:Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Category:Documentary films about the Holocaust Category:The Holocaust in Hungary Category:1998 documentary films Category:Films scored by Hans Zimmer Category:Films directed by James Moll Category:Jewish Hungarian history Category:1998 English-language films Category:1998 American films Category:English-language documentary films Category:Tom Lantos