Best movies like The Zone of Interest
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK, Poland
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: experimental
Best tv shows and movies like The Zone of Interest (2023):
Similar in 80%
Passenger (1963)
Plot Summary:
The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a crash during the filming. A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life. Her vision is shown and then the actual events.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 62 min
Plot tags: experimental, odd
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Similar in 86%
Persian Lessons (2020)
Plot Summary:
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Russia, Germany, Belarus
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: captivating, suspense, independent film
Similar in 77%
The Auschwitz Report (2021)
Plot Summary:
This is the true story of Freddy and Walter – two young Slovak Jews, who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. On 10 April 1944, after meticulous planning and with the help and the resilience of their inmates, they manage to escape. While the inmates they had left behind courageously stand their ground against the Nazi officers, the two men are driven on by the hope that their evidence could save lives. Emaciated and hurt, they make their way through the mountains back to Slovakia. With the help of chance encounters, they finally manage to cross the border and meet the resistance and The Red Cross. They compile a detailed report about the systematic genocide at the camp. However, with Nazi propaganda and international liaisons still in place, their account seems to be too harrowing to believe.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: suspense, tense, disturbing, social
Similar in 87%
Warsaw 44 (2014)
Plot Summary:
A beautiful story about youth, love, friendship and the pursuit of adventure during the bloody and brutal reality of the Warsaw Uprising.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: realistic, romantic, captivating, psychological, tense, suspense, social
Similar in 81%
Naked Among Wolves (2015)
Plot Summary:
Naked Among Wolves (German: Nackt unter Wölfen) is a German drama film directed by Philipp Kadelbach in 2015. It is based on the novel of the same name by Bruno Apitz, which was published in 1958 by the East German Publishing house. It was created for television, it is the third film version of the literary text. The film takes place in the years 1944 and 1945 towards the end of World War II in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, psychological, realistic, independent film, ambiguous ending
Similar in 75%
Prisoners of Auschwitz (2013)
Plot Summary:
Arnost Lustig was one of the world's most renowned literary authors of our times. Lustig's novel 'A girl from Antwerp' upon which our film Colette is based, draws on the author's personal Nazi Concentration Camp experience and his own recollection of several escape attempts from the hell of Auschwitz. The story of The Pulitzer Prize nominee Lustig is about the power of love under an extreme life circumstances. It is a story of young lovers and their vigorous determination to escape from a hopeless life condition and theirs courage to face death.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 599
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic
Duration: 126 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, tense, touching
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Similar in 81%
The Shadow in My Eye (2021)
Plot Summary:
On March 21st, 1945, the British Royal Air Force set out on a mission to bomb Gestapo's headquarters in Copenhagen. The raid had fatal consequences as some of the bombers accidentally targeted a school and more than 120 people were killed, 86 of whom were children.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark, Belgium
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: suspense, disturbing
Similar in 81%
1939 Battle of Westerplatte (2013)
Plot Summary:
This harrowing war film is an epic dramatization of the first battle of World War II. The Battle of Westerplatte that began on 1 September 1939 will forever be remembered as the one that announced the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Over one week, fewer than 200 Polish soldiers fought against heavy German bombardment and in the process came to symbolize the power of resistance. As the violence rages, a complex battle of a more personal nature plays out between two Polish commanders over how to best lead their men. Amid the bloodshed, they must ask themselves – should they fight until the last man standing or surrender in the face of overwhelming odds? What unfolds is a stirring exploration of the fight against the forces of tyranny.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 956
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Poland, Lithuania
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, bleak, serious, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Auschwitz (2011)
Plot Summary:
Auschwitz is a hard-hitting war film which shows life as it really was at the death camp.
IMDB Rating: 3.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Canada, Germany
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, tense, serious, postmodern, controversial, gloomy
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Similar in 88%
The Round Up (2010)
Plot Summary:
1942. Joseph is eleven. And this June morning, he must go to school, a yellow star sown on his chest. He receives the support of a goods dealer. The mockery of a baker. Between kindness and contempt, Jo, his Jewish friends, their families, learn of life in an occupied Paris, on the Butte Montmartre, where they've taken shelter. At least that's what they think, until that morning on July 16th 1942, when their fragile happiness is toppled over.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: France, Germany, Hungary
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, emotional, disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic, sincere, touching, contemplative
Similar in 82%
Triumph of the Spirit (1989)
Plot Summary:
Fact based story about a former Greek Olympic boxer who was taken as a prisoner during World war II and placed in the Auschwitz prison camp. There he was permitted to survive as long as he fought for the amusement of his captors. His father and brother were also held as insurance that he would continue to fight.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Sport, War
Country: USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: disturbing, independent film, tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, crying, inspirational, odd
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Similar in 82%
Across the Waters (2016)
Plot Summary:
Fuglene Over Sundet is the gripping tale of the Danish Jews' escape to Sweden in October 1943.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: exciting, thought provoking, unusual plot structure, sincere, touching
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Similar in 75%
The Conference (2022)
Plot Summary:
On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference takes place in Berlin, a meeting that had only one item on the agenda: The Final Solution, the organization of the systematic mass murder of eleven million European Jews.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, disturbing, tense, captivating
Similar in 81%
Winter in Wartime (2008)
Plot Summary:
During World War II in the freezing Netherlands winter of 1944/1945 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: tense, exciting, serious, realistic, captivating, sexy, sad, stylized, gloomy, tear jerker
Similar in 89%
April 9th (2015)
Plot Summary:
In the early morning of April 9th 1940 the Danish army is alerted. The Germans have crossed the border; Denmark is at war against Europe's strongest army. In Southern Jutland Danish bicycle- and motorcycle companies are ordered out, to against all odds, hold back the forces until the Danish reinforcements can be mobilized. In the fatal hours, we follow second lieutenant Sand and his bicycle company - they will as the first Danish soldiers meet the enemy in combat on April 9th 1940.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, tense, suspense, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
Katyn (2007)
Plot Summary:
An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sentimental, heartbreaking, realistic, sad, sincere, touching, epic, social, controversial
Similar in 78%
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Plot Summary:
In late 1930s Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Continis are a leading family: wealthy, aristocratic, and urbane; they are also Jewish. Their adult children, Micol and Alberto, gather a diverse circle of friends for tennis and parties at their villa with its lovely grounds, and try to keep the rest of the world at bay. But tensions between them all grow as anti-Semitism rises in Fascist Italy, and even the Finzi-Continis will have to confront the Holocaust.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, West Germany
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: disturbing, compassionate, breathtaking, emotional, talky, sentimental, thought provoking, touching, serious, captivating
Similar in 88%
The Island on Bird Street (1997)
Plot Summary:
Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all the relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, UK, Germany, France
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, serious, realistic, suspense, independent film, period piece
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Similar in 88%
Alone in Berlin (2016)
Plot Summary:
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK, France, Germany
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: period piece, enigmatic, heartbreaking, suspense, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, factual, retro, independent film
Similar in 75%
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Plot Summary:
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His diplomatic status in a Catholic country prevents Colonel Kappler from openly arresting him, but O'Flaherty's activities become so large that the Nazi's decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican. O'Flaherty continues his work in a variety of disguises. Based on a true story. Written by John Vogel.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK, Italy
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: realistic, factual, tense, serious, suspenseful, christian film, psychological, captivating, period piece, spiritual
Similar in 77%
Sobibor (2018)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story, international historical project “Sobibor” is dedicated to the heroism of the Soviet o cer Alexander Pechersky. During the great Patriotic war, being in a Nazi concentration camp Sobibor he managed to do the impossible — for only three weeks to organize a revolt and mass escape of the prisoners. Part of the escapees were caught and shot, and the rest led by Pechersky managed to escape and joined the partisans.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller, War
Country: Russia, Germany, Lithuania
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: rough, factual, suspenseful, philosophical, political
Similar in 85%
A Bag of Marbles (2017)
Plot Summary:
In occupied France, Maurice and Joseph, two young Jewish brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: France, Canada, Czech Republic
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, art film
Similar in 76%
Anzio (1968)
Plot Summary:
Allied forces land at Anzio unopposed but instead of moving straight inland their commanding officer decides to dig in. A battle-hardened war correspondent borrows a jeep and drives to Rome and back without meeting any German forces, but his report on this absence of the enemy is discounted. By the time it is finally decided to make a move the Germans have arrived in strength and a prolonged.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, USA
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: retro, macaroni combat, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
Escape from Sobibor (1987)
Plot Summary:
During WWII, the death camp at Treblinka had an escape, causing the Commandant at a similar camp in Sobibor to vow (actually threaten) that his camp would never experience the same thing. But those who were its captives, the Jewish laborers that had been spared from the ovens, knew that they were on borrowed time and that their only hope was to escape... the only question was how to do it. On October 14, 1943, members of the camp's underground resistance succeeded in covertly killing eleven German officers and a number of Ukrainian guards. Of the 600 inmates in the camp, roughly 300 escaped, although most were later re-captured and killed. The escape forced the Nazis to close the death camp, dismantling it and planting a forest.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, rough, serious, suspenseful, psychological, exciting, thought provoking, suspense, philosophical
Similar in 87%
The Grey Zone (2001)
Plot Summary:
A Nazi doctor, along with the Sonderkomando Jews – who are forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz against their fellow-Jews – find themselves in a moral grey zone.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: depressing, bleak, disturbing, factual, emotional, harsh, compassionate, serious, realistic, heartbreaking
Similar in 80%
Europa Europa (1990)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are cornerstones of the film, it is based upon a true story.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, realistic, retro, mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, epic, tense, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 88%
Jakob the Liar (1999)
Plot Summary:
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, France, Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: sad, cult classic, sincere, uplifting, humorous, emotional, realistic, gloomy, semi serious, sentimental
Similar in 78%
The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)
Plot Summary:
The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 46000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: Czech Republic, UK, USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: factual, rough, tense, suspense, sad, suspenseful, disturbing, costume drama, thought provoking, touching
Similar in 83%
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Plot Summary:
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 239000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: emotional, touching, sad, heartbreaking, sentimental, tear jerker, serious, crying, thought provoking, gloomy
Similar in 75%
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988)
Plot Summary:
During the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Otto Frank decides to hide his family, who are Jewish, after his daughter Margot is called to appear for transport to a Nazi labour camp. Miep Gies, Otto Frank's office assistant hides them in the attic above the office. The film tells the true story of Gies' struggle to keep the family hidden and safe, as the Nazis turn Amsterdam upside-down. Based upon Gies' memoirs and Anne Frank's famous diary.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 483
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
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