Best movies like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Last updated March 2024
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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
Best tv shows and movies like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008):
Similar in 89%
Sarah's Key (2010)
Plot Summary:
On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being send to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closed just before the police entered their appartment.Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 18000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: emotional, captivating, disturbing, serious, sexy, social, educational, art film, powerful, realistic
Similar in 85%
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 81%
Little Boy (2015)
Plot Summary:
An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father has for his little boy and the love a son has for his father.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 24000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Mexico, USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, emotional, touching, sweet, sad, semi serious, fairy tale, christian film, spiritual, scenic
Similar in 82%
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Plot Summary:
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 301000
Genere: Animation, Drama, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: depressing, anime, touching, heartbreaking, sad, emotional, harsh, dramatic, sentimental, tear jerker
Similar in 80%
Run Boy Run (2013)
Plot Summary:
Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek, an eight-year-old boy, who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto, then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand, disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a reward, who will beat him up or try to kill him, and he meets those, who will do and risk almost everything to help him. Jurek’s resilience is put to the ultimate test, when an accident cripples him, making it harder to find work. But he struggles on against all odds. Eventually the Russians reach his area and Jurek even finds a family where he could stay. Yet he is betrayed again, and a young man from a Jewish orphanage forcefully tries to bring Jurek back to his people and his faith.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Biography, Drama, War
Country: Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: touching, captivating, bleak, serious, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 87%
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 83%
Katyn (2007)
Plot Summary:
An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Poland
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: disturbing, sentimental, heartbreaking, realistic, sad, sincere, touching, epic, social, controversial
Similar in 82%
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Plot Summary:
A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 428000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: New Zealand, USA, Czech Republic
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sad, dark comedy, black comedy, funny, psychological, tense, touching, political, disturbing, controversial
Similar in 85%
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Plot Summary:
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 83000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 179 min
Plot tags: political, black and white, emotional, suspenseful, disturbing, sincere, tense, realistic, talky, philosophical
Similar in 86%
Before the Fall (2004)
Plot Summary:
In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column,Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Sport, Thriller, War
Country: Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: melancholic, harsh, disturbing, sentimental, touching, emotional, serious, suspenseful, sincere, captivating
Similar in 84%
Turtles Can Fly (2004)
Plot Summary:
Turtles can fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iran border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 21000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Iran, France, Iraq
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: sincere, bleak, emotional, atmospheric, stylized, rough, heartbreaking, political, dramatic, realistic
Similar in 76%
Goodbye, Children (1987)
Plot Summary:
A French boarding school run by priests seems to be a haven from World War II until a new student arrives. He becomes the roommate of top student in his class. Rivals at first, the roommates form a bond and share a secret.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 36000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: France, West Germany, Italy
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sad, heartbreaking, christian film, depressing, art house, sentimental, touching, emotional, realistic, sincere
Similar in 75%
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 85%
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 89%
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 82%
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 82%
Lore (2012)
Plot Summary:
After her Nazi parents are imprisoned, Lore leads her younger siblings across a war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos, she encounters mysterious Jewish refugee Thomas, who shatters her fragile reality with hatred and desire. To live, she must trust someone she was taught to hate and face the darkness within herself.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, Romance, War
Country: Australia, Germany, UK
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, disturbing, bleak, suspense, psychological, harsh, sincere, realistic, art house, road movie
Similar in 82%
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 77%
Black Book (2006)
Plot Summary:
In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 80000
Genere: Drama, Thriller, War
Country: Netherlands, Germany, UK, Belgium
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: tense, erotic, psychological, realistic, dramatic, political, suspense, breathtaking, emotional, intense
Similar in 90%
Land of Mine (2015)
Plot Summary:
In the days following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, a group of young German prisoners of war were handed over to the Danish authorities and subsequently sent out to the West Coast, where they were ordered to remove the more than two million mines that the Germans had placed in the sand along the coast. With their bare hands, crawling around in the sand, the boys were forced to perform the dangerous work under the leadership of the Danish sergeant, Carl Leopold Rasmussen.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 45000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark, Germany
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: suspense, harsh, emotional, sentimental, brutal, realistic, heartbreaking, suspenseful, intense, historical drama
Similar in 88%
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 77%
Europa Europa (1990)
Plot Summary:
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are cornerstones of the film, it is based upon a true story.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, France, Poland
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, realistic, retro, mind bending, psychedelic, surreal, epic, tense, thought provoking, serious
Similar in 84%
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 82%
The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)
Plot Summary:
The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 46000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: Czech Republic, UK, USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: factual, rough, tense, suspense, sad, suspenseful, disturbing, costume drama, thought provoking, touching
Similar in 83%
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 79%
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 81%
Valkyrie (2008)
Plot Summary:
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 256000
Genere: Drama, History, Thriller, War
Country: USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Japan, UK
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: factual, bad ending, tense, suspense, suspenseful, captivating, realistic, political, contemplative, dramatic
Similar in 78%
The Pianist (2002)
Plot Summary:
The true story of pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 890000
Genere: Biography, Drama, Music, War
Country: France, Poland, Germany, UK, USA
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: emotional, heartbreaking, harsh, bleak, suspense, poignant, reflective, touching, dramatic, motivational
Similar in 75%
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
Similar in 85%
Schindler's List (1993)
Plot Summary:
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 9.0
IMDB Votes: 14000000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 195 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, heartbreaking, realistic, thought provoking, poignant, black and white, dramatic, serious, sad