Right up until the end, director and co-writer László Nemes’ tale of Auschwitz’s prisoner-janitors is a riveting, fascinating account of one man’s struggle, in the face of terrible suffering, to salvage human dignity through a single act of religious piety. (Not that it’s ever stated so prosaically, or stated at all. There is no need.) Jewish prisoner Saul Ausländer’s (Géza Röhrig, whose face seems built to hold shadows) entire life is built around the orderly disposal of people: stripping them, gassing them, sorting through their belongings, cleaning up the scene of their demise, hauling them to the ovens, and ultimately, shoveling their ashes into the river. His position as sonderkommando (or “secret bearer”) gives him a certain amount of freedom to move within the camp, and while his fellows use that freedom to plot sabotage and escape, Saul has something else in mind: the proper burial of a boy he believes to be his son, with a rabbi present to say the prayer for the dead. Nemes mostly keeps the camera close on Saul’s head throughout his noble, impossible quest, letting the camp’s horror play out at the edges or offscreen. It’s a smart move: as Saul is focused on the boy, so we are focused on Saul, when we might otherwise be overwhelmed by what surrounds him. But while it might seem foolish (or worse) to look for a happy ending to such a story, Nemes’ conclusion may leave you wondering why you watched, or why we have stories at all. In Hungarian (and other languages), subtitled. (2015) — Matthew Lickona