Best movies like Holy Week
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
During the Nazi era, a Jewish woman on the run takes a trolley which passes near the Warsaw ghetto, where the uprising battle is taking place, and some passengers are struck by stray bullets. They take temporary refuge in an empty building, and there she has a chance meeting with her ex-fiancé. He offers to put her up--that is, hide her--for a few days. He's now married, a professional who lives in an idyllic suburb reached by a trolley that runs through the woods. His wife seems more committed to putting up the fugitive than he is. The story involves the neighbors, the building owner who avoids involvement and seeks solace in classic poetry, and the super and his suspicious wife.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Germany, France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Holy Week (1995):
Similar in 86%
Samson (1961)
Plot Summary:
Sampson is one of several Andrzej Wajda films harking back to his youth during the Nazi Occupation of Poland. Many of these concern not only the struggle between good and evil, but also between passive and impassive. The hero is a Jewish youth. He, like his family, has always been silent and undemonstrative in the face of prejudice. Now he stands up for his right to survive, and in so doing represents the fighting spirit that culminated in the 1943 Warsaw Uprising. It was originally titled Samson, but re-spelled as Sampson upon its American release to avoid confusion with a sword-and-sandal epic of the same name.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 234
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: heroic
Similar in 79%
Lesson of a Dead Language (1979)
Plot Summary:
An officer stationed in a remote Galician outpost at the end of the First World War is dying of consumption. Suffering from feverish dreams and hallucinations, he begins to collect religious art and attends seances.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
The Ring with a Crowned Eagle (1992)
Plot Summary:
A Polish Resistance fighter who survived the Nazi years cannot accept the new Communist power.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 316
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, France, UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Birth Certificate (1961)
Plot Summary:
Three separate stories depicting the tense everyday life during occupation, as seen through the eyes of children. In “On the Road,” the two main protagonists are lost in the September’s strife: a young boy, and a soldier transporting the valueless documents of his broken unit. In “Letter from the Concentration Camp” the story’s protagonists are young boys who help their mother during the hardships of the occupation. Their treasure is an officer uniform belonging their father who is being held in a prisoner of war camp. In “Blood Drop,” the Germans find a set of typical Aryan characteristics in this story’s protagonist – a Jewish girl, hiding in an orphanage.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 414
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: anthology
Similar in 80%
Just Beyond This Forest (1991)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1942, The Jewish wife she worked for before the war hires her to take her young daughter to the countryside until the war is over.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags:
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
Similar in 88%
Line of Demarcation (1966)
Plot Summary:
Line of Demarcation. is a 1966 film written and directed by Claude Chabrol. Its title in French is La Ligne de démarcation. It is based on upon the memoir Mémoires d'un agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation by Gilbert Renault under his pseudonym Colonel Rémy. A small village in the Jura is split by the river Loue which creates the line of demarcation between Nazi occupied France and freedom. A French officer, Pierre (Ronet), is released by the Nazi soldiers to find his chateau converted into a German command centre. Whilst he is obliged to co-operate with the enemy, his wife Mary (Seberg) supports the resistance movement and is willing to risk her life for it. The Nazis step up their activity against the resistance, insisting that any who attempt to cross the line of demarcation will be shot. When his wife is arrested, Pierre decides to switch his allegiance.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 865
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: anthology
Similar in 82%
Godzina W (1980)
Plot Summary:
Tells the story of a very memorable in Warsaw - August 1, 1944. The Germans have been withdrawing for some time, everyone is waiting for the signal of the Polish uprising to start.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Hidden in Silence (1996)
Plot Summary:
Poland 1939, shortly before invasion of the German troops. To save their belongings from the Nazis, the Jewish family Diamant transfers them to their 17-year-old catholic maid Fusia. In return Fusia provides them with food until the ghetto is dissolved, and then hides 13 people in her loft for over two years. However, as the front approaches and two German nurses take quarter in Fusias apartment everything seems to be in vain.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 531
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
And the Violins Stopped Playing (1988)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 192
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 79%
Spring 1941 (2007)
Plot Summary:
After Germany invades Poland and the Nazis order the confinement of all local Jews in the ghetto, medical doctor Artur Planck (Joseph Fiennes) manages to flee with his family, seeking refuge at the farm of Emilia (Kelly Harrison), their former grocer. With the Planck family hiding in her attic, Emilia finds her feelings for the physician growing stronger than she wants, or can control -- despite the dangers of the situation.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 789
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Israel
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, sexual, sexy
Similar in 87%
Fanny's Journey (2016)
Plot Summary:
Fanny is a Jewish girl in a French orphanage in 1943. When she and her friends are no longer safe from the Nazis, they try to flee to Switzerland. After their guide disappears, Fanny has to take the lead and help the other kids make it over the mountains.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Belgium
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, thought provoking, touching, suspense
Similar in 84%
Johnny the Partisan (2000)
Plot Summary:
After the 8th September 1943 north of Italy is occupied by Germans. Italian army collapsed and the soldiers are escaped to the mountains trying to set up a resistance. Many civilians did the same and Johnny, an English literature student, is among them. Johnny avoids to band together the red partisans (communists) and tries to be part of the azure bands (former regular soldiers). But in both cases he is deluded by the partisan bands and discovers that the partisan war is less poetic and genuine that he thought. At one point anyway the partisans free Alba from Germans. When the city falls again in German hands Johnny escape with Ettore and Pierre. But, one after another, German army and Italian fascists captures the partisans and Johnny will pass the winter alone and isolated. He then finds the way to participate to one of the last attack to occupants, in fact the war will be over two months later.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 324
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: suspense, disturbing, exciting, bleak
Similar in 81%
The Boys from St. Petri (1991)
Plot Summary:
A group of school-mates form a resistance group in nazi-occupied Denmark.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Naked Among Wolves (1963)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 827
Genere: Drama, War
Country: East Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: deep, crying, inspirational, complex
Similar in 78%
Calm at Sea (2011)
Plot Summary:
A teenager joins the resistance in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 803
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, bleak, captivating, suspenseful, disturbing, complex
Similar in 85%
Strange Gardens (2003)
Plot Summary:
Lucien, 14, can’t understand why his father, a serious and respected teacher, makes a fool of himself by dressing up as a clown and giving a show. André, Lucien’s father’s best friend, feels for the teenager and decides to reveal something from their mutual past that will explain the reason for Lucien’s father’s strange behavior.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 88%
Rose (2011)
Plot Summary:
This harrowing tale of survival centers on Rose, a Masurian woman, whose German soldier husband was killed in the war, leaving her alone on their farm. A single woman had no defense against Russian soldiers who raped as a form of revenge, nor against plundering Poles who found themselves in desperate straits. Help arrives for Rose in the form of Tadeusz, a former officer in the Polish Home Army who deserted after he saw his wife raped and murdered by Russian troops and is attempting to hide his identity.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, tense, captivating, psychological, bleak, serious, emotional
Similar in 76%
Monsieur Batignole (2002)
Plot Summary:
In 1942, in an occupied Paris, the apolitical grocer Edmond Batignole lives with his wife and daughter in a small apartment in the building of his grocery. When his future son-in-law and collaborator of the German Pierre-Jean Lamour calls the Nazis to arrest the Jewish Bernstein family, they move to the confiscated apartment. Some days later, the young Simon Bernstein escapes from the Germans and comes to his former home. When Batignole finds him, he feels sorry for the boy and lodges him, hiding Simon from Pierre-Jean and also from his wife. Later, two cousins of Simon meet him in the cellar of the grocery. When Pierre-Jean finds the children, Batignole decides to travel with the children to Switzerland.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, tense, exciting, captivating
Similar in 88%
For Those I Loved (1983)
Plot Summary:
Polish Martin Gray (Michael York) recalls the Holocaust, New York prosperity, and losing his wife (Brigitte Fossey) and family.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 561
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: France, Canada, Hungary
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Wall (1982)
Plot Summary:
A dramatic re-enactment of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish uprising in April 1943 were 650 armed members of the Jewish Fighting Organization of Poland held off a 3,000 strong Nazi force in which only a handful of Jews survived. Tom Conti plays Dolek Berson, a Jewish smuggler who joins the resistance movement and is aided on the Aryan side of the wall by a former teacher named Regina Kowalski played by Rachel Roberts in her final role.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 222
Genere: Action, War, Drama
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: tense, sincere, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 80%
Stones for the Rampart (2014)
Plot Summary:
To be defeated and not be - a victory. This is the motto that life is guided by three young friends: Alek, Sophy and Rudy. Scouts, high school graduates high school in Warsaw drifting ambitious plans for the future broken through September 1939. Entering adulthood in a very dramatic times, which puts them a choice - to survive at any cost, or to join the fighting for a free homeland, risking everything. The boys brought up in patriotic homes, shaped by the ideals of scouting, they decide to fight. They become soldiers, and although every scrape with death, they can live a full life.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 77%
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009)
Plot Summary:
Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: USA, Latvia, Poland, Canada
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, suspense, tense, retro, biblical, intense, period piece, gloomy
Similar in 75%
Rosenstrasse (2003)
Plot Summary:
When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Netherlands
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: uplifting, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997)
Plot Summary:
In the Warsau Ghetto of 1943, one man's struggle to keep his family together leads him to the ultimate crisis of faith, and one final chance at redemption. Written by legendary 'Twilight Zone' creator, Rod Sterling.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 352
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 81%
Uprising (2001)
Plot Summary:
Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags: uplifting, captivating, rough, serious, political, tense, bleak, emotional, realistic, independent film
Similar in 76%
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
Similar in 77%
Hatred (2016)
Plot Summary:
Summer of 1939. Zosia is a young Polish girl who is deeply in love with Ukrainian Petro. Their great love will be put to the test when her father decides to marry her to a wealthy widower Skiba. Right after wedding she is left alone because her husband is drafted to the Polish army for the war with Germany. Meanwhile, tensions grow due to Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians living side by side.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, captivating, suspense, suspenseful, art house, historical romance
Similar in 78%
The Birdcatcher (2019)
Plot Summary:
Norway, 1942, during World War II. After being separated from her family, Esther, a young Jewish girl from Trondheim, arrives at an isolated farm where she must assume a new identity in order to survive the Nazi persecution.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Norway, UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, suspense, rough, thought provoking, heartbreaking, suspenseful, factual, period piece
Similar in 82%
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