Best movies like My Mother's Courage
Last updated March 2024
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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
Best tv shows and movies like My Mother's Courage (1995):
Similar in 79%
The Notebook (2013)
Plot Summary:
In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Hungary, Germany, Austria, France
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, realistic, serious, sad, cult classic, cult film
Similar in 75%
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 79%
The Blockhouse (1973)
Plot Summary:
A group of Slave workers, drafted by the Nazis to help construct their coastal defenses in 1944 are trapped in an underground bunker when the Allies land at Normandy on D-Day. They find huge dtores of food but not enough candles. The slow dying of the light parallels their increasing boredom, illness and jealousy during their entrapment. Based on the Novel 'Le Blockhaus' by Jean Paul Clebert.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 632
Genere: Drama, War
Country: UK
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 84%
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 86%
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 77%
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 76%
The Only Way (1970)
Plot Summary:
In April 1940, the armies of Nazi Germany invaded Denmark. The Danish government promised peaceful cooperation on the condition that Denmark s Jews remain free. The Nazi s agreed. In October, 1943, the agreement was broken...This is the true and magnificent saga of Denmark s valorous actions to save Danish Jews from Nazi extermination at peril of death!.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 306
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA, Denmark, Panama, UK
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 89%
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 84%
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 89%
The Boat Is Full (1981)
Plot Summary:
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Switzerland, West Germany, Austria
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing
Similar in 90%
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 89%
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 80%
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 79%
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 78%
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 75%
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 75%
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 83%
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 90%
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%
Massacre in Rome (1973)
Plot Summary:
In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Italy, France
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Out of the Ashes (2003)
Plot Summary:
The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: realistic, touching, serious, bleak, captivating, emotional, contemplative, uplifting
Similar in 82%
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 78%
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 87%
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 89%
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 87%
John Rabe (2009)
Plot Summary:
A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: France, China, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, disturbing, bleak, serious, uplifting, epic, edutainment, emotional, contemplative
Similar in 86%
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
Similar in 81%
Stalingrad (1993)
Plot Summary:
"Stalingrad" follows the progress of a German Platoon through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After having half their number wiped out and after being placed under the command of a sadistic Captain, the Lieutenant of the platoon leads his men to desert. The men of the platoon attempt to escape from the city which is now surrounded by the Soviet Army.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 37000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: realistic, serious, suspenseful, gloomy, rough, epic, captivating, factual, talky, political
Similar in 88%
In Darkness (2011)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lvov (former Poland).
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Germany, Canada
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: harsh, disturbing, sincere, uplifting, social, educational, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful