This time too, the dilemma is how to narrow down a list of great films made on the Nazi-infused Jewish Holocaust. While the last piece explored the greatest Holocaust classics, this one explores the best of contemporary films on the Holocaust. However the dilemma persists - are the films great by themselves or is it the magnitude of the subject itself that makes them great cinema? You tell me.

Crossed Tracks, (or Roman de Gare in French) the latest offering by the prolific filmmaker Claude Lelouch, comes across as a sophisticated and witty take on the spicy ‘train station’ thrillers one flips through hurriedly between lonesome journeys. Lelouch being one of the lesser revered contemporaries of the French New Wave auteurs and frequently bashed by the Cahier’s critics for his melodramatic sentiments, is in fact in this film very close to the themes of the masters like Truffaut, Chabrol and Godard …

If you haven’t seen a Won Kar-Wai film before this is not one that you ought to begin with. In fact I would not recommend it anyways. This is not a movie; it is a collection of images. Images that are so artificial, it’s preposterous trying to stick them together using a feature-length film. I am certain it has been made on a whim; Wong must have had an idea, and he has started shooting before something concrete could have come out of it.

Goodbye Bafana is another one of those movies which completely lose the plot what cinema is all about. And instead start dosing you with hard to bear values like sexism and a child asking “Is it fair?” and thus shaking the soul of her otherwise ruthless father. It’s a little difficult to comprehend how much popcorn does the average American viewer need to consume before finally getting onto something else?

Boil water, toss in some sugar, blend in a dash of lime juice and voila you get Sukkar Banat (Caramel) - the irresistibly sweet and sticky concoction used for waxing purposes in what actor-director Nadine Labaki calls “our part of the world.” And that’s the first thing about her delightful debut drama/romantic comedy Caramel. Its warm lighting, colourful ambience, playful mood and inviting exotica do not seem as Lebanese as Mediterranean in general. The setting might as well have been Spain or even old world France; you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. But then, Labaki’s focus is not as much on Lebanon’s socio-political turbulence or religious mayhem as it is on personal turmoil.

Germany’s Christian Petzold belongs to the new breed of European directors that loves to make films layered with meaning for the astute viewer. Russia’s Andrei Zvyagintsev mesmerized serious film-goers with his multi-layered films that urge film-goers to approach cinema as one would approach a challenging and intelligent puzzle to derive maximum entertainment. Spain’s multi-talented Alejandro Amenabar has proved that a holistic mix of good screenplay, music and direction can result in films that recall the precocious brilliance of the young Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane made so many decades ago.

Blanc (”White” in English) is easily the film lacking layers in Kieślowski’s Trois Couleurs trilogy. Though interestingly it is the film having the most rich storyline out of the three. Both Bleu and Rouge have stories that are simple if you consider a story by the number of events that happen and the number of twists that the tale takes. Yet, both are exceedingly rich in metaphors, in cinematic challenges achieved, in the psychological depths that they enter into through their characters and of their characters, and both are extremely thought-provoking.

By the grace of Google I know approximately 284 films have been made on one of the most malicious events in history - the Holocaust. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) defines the Holocaust as “the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” But the concept of Holocaust cinema envelops films dealing not just with the Holocaust itself but World War II as well. This is simply because the two historic episodes are as inseparable as two sides of one coin. However, I have tried to stick to USHMM’s definition as much as possible, in selecting the greatest Holocaust films ever made. But before we get to the list I’d like to mention a quick disclaimer. This article is not a celebration of sadism. Some of the greatest films ever made happen to be Holocaust films