Critic Reviews

A fascinating film that is as thorough as it is idiosyncratic.

One can’t watch this film and not think of events in the world today. How did the German nation get so caught up in the Nazi mythology that it plunged willingly toward its own destruction? Obviously being seduced away from a clear comprehension of reality into self-regarding mass fantasy was a big part of it.

Providing important historical and sociological context, Hitler's Hollywood emerges as a compelling cinematic essay that should be essential viewing for cinephiles and history buffs alike.

Drily narrated by Udo Kier, Hitler’s Hollywood is not a film about the rise of Nazism, nor even a linear history of the era’s cinema. Rather, it seeks to capture its spirit, interrogate its aesthetics and finally, to try to understand the insidious power of its propaganda.

Rüdiger Suchsland’s film is a master class in the relationship between image production and ideology writ large.

The most charged implication of Hitler’s Hollywood is that artistry enabled the Third Reich.

While intermittently fascinating in its attention to detail and its provocative thesis, Suchsland’s verbose essay film never successfully surpasses the realm of mere academic curiosity.