Best movies like Jacob the Liar
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Comedy, Crime, Drama, War
Country: East Germany, Czechoslovakia
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, tense, uplifting, serious, tragicomedy, gloomy, semi serious, fairy tale, crying
Best tv shows and movies like Jacob the Liar (1974):
Similar in 83%
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Plot Summary:
In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, talky, touching, sincere, realistic, erotic, absurd, dark comedy, thought provoking, avant garde
Similar in 79%
Divided We Fall (2000)
Plot Summary:
In Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a childless couple agree to hide a Jewish friend at great personal risk of discovery and execution.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: surreal, compassionate, lyrical, uplifting, touching, disturbing, serious, realistic, gloomy, light
Similar in 81%
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 86%
Edges of the Lord (2001)
Plot Summary:
A 12-year-old Jewish boy hides with a family of Catholic peasant farmers to escape the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA, Poland
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, realistic, tense, serious, contemplative
Similar in 80%
David (1979)
Plot Summary:
Although members of the Hitler Youth chant anti-Semitic paroles in front of his house during the Purim festival, Rabbi Singer is still profoundly convinced that Germany will stay a safe country for him, his family, and his fellow believers. But several years later, his son David is banned from going to school because he is a Jew. Shortly after, Rabbi Singer and his wife are deported. Now, young David also fears for his life. In constant fear of being detected, he tries to find a way to leave Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful
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 86%
Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man (2002)
Plot Summary:
It is the real story of Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti). During the 1920s he was an Italian Fascist supporter, fighting in Africa an in the Spanish civil war where he deserved a safe conduct for Spanish embassies. After some years, disillusioned by fascism, he is a fresh supplier for the Italian army. In the war years he is in Budapest for his business. He lives an easy life there, well introduced into the Hungarian high society, without any problem coming from the war situation. When the Nazi occupied Hungary, in 1944, instead to leave (Italy had already surrendered to the Allies) he escaped to the Spanish embassy in Budapest using his old safe conduct and becoming a Spanish citizen, changing name into Jorge Perlasca. He starts working as a diplomat here. When Sanz Briz (Geza Tordy), the Spanish consul, is removed, Perlasca immediately substitutes him, like if he was officially appointed from Spanish authorities... Written by 1felco.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 540
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, France, Sweden, Hungary
Duration: 197 min
Plot tags: disturbing, uplifting, serious, emotional, captivating, realistic, epic
Similar in 85%
Train of Life (1998)
Plot Summary:
In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Israel, Belgium
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: humorous, sad, surprise ending, sincere, road movie, feel good, depressing, art house, twisted, sentimental
Similar in 86%
The Devil's Arithmetic (1999)
Plot Summary:
Hannah Stern, an American-born Jewish adolescent, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives; however, Hannah begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There, she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy, War
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: emotional, uplifting, serious, realistic, sentimental, touching, period piece, teen, surprise ending
Similar in 81%
My Mother's Courage (1995)
Plot Summary:
The deportation of 4000 Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in July 1944, as told by George Tabori, and how the narrator's mother escaped it, owing to coincidence, courage and some help from where you'd least expect it.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 203
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, UK, Austria, Ireland
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, crying, black comedy, dark comedy
Similar in 76%
Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg (1990)
Plot Summary:
Swedish account of Raoul Wallenberg, the man responsible for the largest rescue of Jews during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, War
Country: Sweden, Hungary
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, crying
Similar in 89%
Fateless (2005)
Plot Summary:
An Hungarian youth comes of age at Buchenwald during World War II. György Köves is 14, the son of a merchant who's sent to a forced labor camp. After his father's departure, György gets a job at a brickyard; his bus is stopped and its Jewish occupants sent to camps. There, György find camaraderie, suffering, cruelty, illness, and death. He hears advice on preserving one's dignity and self-esteem. He discovers hatred. If he does survive and returns to Budapest, what will he find? What is natural; what is it to be a Jew? Sepia, black and white, and color alternate to shade the mood.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Hungary, Germany, UK, Israel, France, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, disturbing, emotional, realistic, gloomy, retro, touching, educational, sad
Similar in 76%
The Aryan Couple (2004)
Plot Summary:
A WWII Drama about a German/Jewish industrialist who, in order to ensure his family's safe passage out of Germany, is forced to hand over his business to the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: psychological, serious, captivating, suspenseful, tense, realistic, gloomy, crying, freeze frame
Similar in 86%
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 86%
The Last Train (2006)
Plot Summary:
A group of people are imprisoned in a rail car bound from Berlin to a concentration camp in 1945.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Czech Republic
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags: disturbing, bleak, serious, realistic, captivating, entertaining
Similar in 81%
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 77%
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 89%
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 81%
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 76%
The Truce (1997)
Plot Summary:
Although liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until October 19 of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of Italian former prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sincere, historical drama, uplifting, bleak, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 88%
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 77%
My Best Enemy (2011)
Plot Summary:
Poland 1943: An unlikely pair - a concentration camp prisoner and a captain in Hitler's notorious SS - free themselves from the wreckage of a crashed SS airplane. The two appear to be strangely familiar with each other and the extent of their extraordinary relationship is thrillingly revealed.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: Austria, Luxembourg
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, tense, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
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 76%
The Shop on Main Street (1965)
Plot Summary:
In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: sincere, atmospheric, emotional, touching, serious, realistic, depressing, social, black comedy, offbeat
Similar in 77%
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 75%
Amen. (2002)
Plot Summary:
The film "Amen." examines the links between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. The central character is Kurt Gerstein, a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS who is horrified by what he sees in the death camps. Moreover, he is shocked to learn that the process he used to purify water for his troops, by using zyklon, served as a basis to kill people in gas chambers.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama, War
Country: France, Germany, Romania
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: political, sincere, thought provoking, disturbing, bleak, suspenseful, realistic, intense, christian film, sentimental
Similar in 78%
The Book Thief (2013)
Plot Summary:
While subjected to the horrors of WWII Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Under the stairs in her home, a Jewish refuge is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 141000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, USA
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: sentimental, touching, emotional, serious, captivating, sad, stylized, tear jerker, period piece, motivational
Similar in 83%
The Counterfeiters (2007)
Plot Summary:
The story Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon Sorowitsch, coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, War
Country: Austria, Germany
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: tense, brutal, bleak, harsh, serious, disturbing, suspenseful, realistic, intense, sincere
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 83%
Life Is Beautiful (1997)
Plot Summary:
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 730000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
Country: Italy
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: touching, inspirational, emotional, sentimental, tragicomedy, poignant, heartbreaking, sad, realistic, feel good