Best movies like Persian Lessons
Last updated March 2024
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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
Best tv shows and movies like Persian Lessons (2020):
Similar in 76%
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 81%
Summer Solstice (2015)
Plot Summary:
Coming of Age Drama in rural Poland in the summer of 1943.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 423
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Poland, Germany
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, disturbing, period piece
Similar in 85%
Klim Voroshilov-2 Tank (1990)
Plot Summary:
Tank Klim Voroshilov 2.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 85
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: exciting, sincere, rough, touching, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 88%
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 88%
The Guard of Auschwitz (2018)
Plot Summary:
Nazi occupied Poland, during the World War II. Hans, a former brilliant student, has become an SS officer stationed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. When he is commissioned by his superior officer to build an efficient gas chamber, Hans, facing the harsh reality, begins to realize the magnitude of the atrocious acts of which he is being accomplice.
IMDB Rating: 3.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Thriller, War
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 87%
War Pigs (2015)
Plot Summary:
A rag tag unit of misfits known as the War Pigs must go behind enemy lines to exterminate Nazis by any means necessary.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, perverse
Similar in 90%
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 90%
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 86%
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 78%
4 Days in May (2011)
Plot Summary:
A group of Russian soldiers are sent into Northern Germany at the tail-end of WWII, where they occupy a children's home in close proximity to a larger German unit. Against these odds, a friendship forms between a German orphan and a childless Soviet captain.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 819
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Germany, Russia, Ukraine
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, captivating, suspense
Similar in 85%
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 88%
Dara of Jasenovac (2020)
Plot Summary:
During the Nazi-occupied Ustasha regime "NDH" in former Yugoslavia during WWII, little girl Dara is sent to the concentration camp complex Jasenovac in Croatia also known as "Balkan's Auschwitz".
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 82000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Serbia
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: suspense, thought provoking, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, touching, political, social
Similar in 80%
Oba: The Last Samurai (2011)
Plot Summary:
In 1944, the American military lands on the shores of Saipan. Refusing to commit suicide with his superiors or be forced into camps for prisoners of war, Captain Oba Sakae leads a group of his men and other similarly minded local residents into the mountains. Even after hearing reports of the Japanese military's surrender, Oba dismisses the reports as propaganda and continues to launch guerilla attacks against the American soldiers, earning him the nickname "The Fox". Soon, even the American commander who's charged with the task of capturing Oba comes to admire his persistent enemy.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing
Similar in 90%
The Last Lieutenant (1993)
Plot Summary:
Norwegian war drama. The old sea-captain retires, but the next day German WWII occupation of Norway begins. He then kisses his wife good-bye and is off to Army HQ. There he finds a lack of leadership and morale that offends him. They even laugh at him and his out-dated uniform and officer-rank. Secondloitnanten then finds and leads his private troop of volunteers against the German attack. The movie tells the story of a man that refuses to give up, even when everybody else leaves. He will fight for the country he loves and do his duty.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 365
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Norway
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 80%
Attack on Leningrad (2009)
Plot Summary:
When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad. Written by Marcio Eduardo.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Russia, UK
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
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%
Stalingrad (2013)
Plot Summary:
Drama set in 1942, during one of the most important battles of World War II, which stopped the progress of Nazi forces and turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Soviet army mounts a counter-attack on the Nazi forces that occupy half of Stalingrad on the other side of the Volga, but the operation to cross the river is unsuccessful. A few soldiers who managed to get to the other side take refuge in a house on the bank of Volga. Here they find a girl who didn’t escape when the Germans came. While the whole might of the German army descends onto them, the heroes of Stalingrad experience love, loss, joy and the sense of ultimate freedom that can only be felt by those about to die. They defend the house at all costs while the Red Army prepares for another attack.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: Russia
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, exciting, rough, serious, bleak, epic, historical drama
Similar in 84%
The Forgotten Battle (2020)
Plot Summary:
November 1944. On the flooded isle of Walcheren, Zeeland, thousands of Allied soldiers are battling the German army. Three young lives become inextricably connected. A Dutch boy fighting for the Germans, an English glider pilot and a girl from Zeeland connected to the resistance against her will, are forced to make crucial choices that impact both their own freedom and the freedom of others.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 36000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Netherlands, Belgium
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing, powerful
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 76%
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 88%
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 75%
This Life (2012)
Plot Summary:
The true story of the Fiil's a family of innkeepers who during Nazi-Germany's occupation of Denmark took up arms against the German occupiers. But in the fight for freedom, some must die so that others may live.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Denmark
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, disturbing, captivating, tense, bleak, serious
Similar in 83%
Female Agents (2008)
Plot Summary:
May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group under the command of Louise Desfontaines and her brother Pierre. Their mission, to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 148 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, tense, suspense, retro, historical drama, bleak, captivating, beautiful
Similar in 85%
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 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 75%
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 86%
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 77%
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 80%
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 87%
Unknown Soldier (2017)
Plot Summary:
The film follows Finnish army machine gun company in Continuation War against Soviet Union, 1941–1944. Based on Väinö Linna's best selling novel Tuntematon Sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) and the novel's uncensored version, Sotaromaani (A War Novel).
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Finland, Belgium, Iceland
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, thought provoking, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, novela, historical drama