Best movies like Lesson of a Dead Language
Last updated March 2024
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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:
Best tv shows and movies like Lesson of a Dead Language (1979):
Similar in 86%
Holy Week (1995)
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:
Similar in 89%
The Law and the Fist (1964)
Plot Summary:
At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 412
Genere: Drama
Country: Poland
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
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 89%
Wedding (1973)
Plot Summary:
Beginning in 1943. year. The tragic story of the prisoners... partisans and others who were found in a prison in Montenegro at the time when the Chetniks and the occupiers at all costs they want to crush the uprising in Yugoslavia.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 53
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Yugoslavia, Soviet Union
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
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 89%
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 80%
Paradise (2016)
Plot Summary:
The historical drama set during the Second World War centres on three people whose paths cross: a Russian aristocratic emigrant and member of the French resistance, a French collaborator and a high-ranking German SS officer.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Russia, Germany
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: psychological, rough, touching, black and white, philosophical
Similar in 83%
Who Is That Man? (1985)
Plot Summary:
The story is set in 1939. A military officer is stripped of his rank for his apparent collaboration with a counter-espionage agent while on a mission in Paris. Then he is enlisted in his own country's counterespionage unit, due to his knowledge of languages. He is assigned to Gdansk where he is trying to uncover mysterious "Wotan" in the German Secret Service. He eventually tracks down and kills the agent, but by doing so wipes out the possibility to clearing himself of the charges. Just as the death sentence is to be carried out on him the war breaks out and he escapes out of the bombed prison to join partisans.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 33
Genere: Adventure, Drama, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: pre war
Similar in 81%
Little Alexander (1981)
Plot Summary:
May of 1945. Soviet soldiers conducting an operation to rescue the children in a small town in the territory of Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union, East Germany
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
The 25th Hour (1967)
Plot Summary:
A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, Italy, Yugoslavia
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
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 90%
The Magnate (1987)
Plot Summary:
This Polish historical drama film traces the fascinating saga of a wealthy, princely Polish dynasty in years 1900-1935.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 155
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Poland
Duration: 171 min
Plot tags: family saga
Similar in 79%
The Quality of Mercy (1994)
Plot Summary:
It is the beginning of 1945 during WW2 in former Austria. 500 Russian prisoners of war who have refused to fight on the side of the Germans against their country were moved to the concentration camp in Mauthausen awaiting execution. They decide to break out. One winter night the Russian prisoners make an escape. During the following shooting a great number of them gets killed. Some, however, succeed to hide in nearby villages. But the German Nazis convince the inhabitants of the villages to hunt the prisoners "like rabbits".
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 321
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Austria, Germany
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
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 88%
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 85%
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 Zone of Interest (2023)
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
Similar in 80%
The Last Butterfly (1991)
Plot Summary:
Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems. Reluctant at first, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the "transports" on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 300
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Czechoslovakia, France, UK
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: fairy tale, crying
Similar in 85%
The Burmese Harp (1985)
Plot Summary:
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 190
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 133 min
Plot tags: odd
Similar in 76%
Esther's Diary (2010)
Plot Summary:
Two successful, modern day American women, Maria and Sarah, are brought together by a secret connection they never knew they had; their mothers, Apolonia, a Christian, and Esther, a Jew, were best friends during the Polish Holocaust. A recently bequeathed diary from Esther to her daughter Sarah illuminates events of a dark past that lead Apolonia to confess to her daughter, Maria, a lifetime of self-blame and guilt for an unintended betrayal that led to her best friend's capture by the Nazis.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 21
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: touching, sincere, suspense, melancholic, independent film
Similar in 83%
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 83%
Squadron 303 (2018)
Plot Summary:
After the fall of the September Campaign of 1939, two Polish pilots are forced to fight for their nation in foreign battlefronts.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: exciting, sincere
Similar in 80%
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
Similar in 78%
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 85%
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 89%
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 90%
God on Trial (2008)
Plot Summary:
In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, disturbing, tense, bleak, realistic, christian film, philosophical, sad, powerful
Similar in 86%
Son of Saul (2015)
Plot Summary:
In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 51000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Hungary
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: melancholic, compassionate, disturbing, cerebral, grim, sad, philosophical, historical drama, harsh, motivational
Similar in 86%
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 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