Best movies like Triumph of the Spirit

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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.

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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.

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Paradise Road (1997)

Plot Summary:

Paradise Road is a 1997 film which tells the story of a group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women who are imprisoned in Sumatra during World War II. It was directed by Bruce Beresford and stars Glenn Close as beatific Adrienne Pargiter, Frances McDormand as the brash Dr. Verstak, Pauline Collins as missionary Margaret Drummond (based on missionary Margaret Dryburgh), Julianna Margulies as American socialite Topsy Merritt, Jennifer Ehle as British doyenne and model Rosemary Leighton Jones, Cate Blanchett as Australian nurse Susan McCarthy and Elizabeth Spriggs as dowager Imogene Roberts. Basing his picture on real events, Bruce Beresford tells the story of a vocal orchestra created by the women in a Japanese P.O.W. camp, a classic survivors' tale extolling women's ability to survive hardship and atrocity through perseverance, solidarity and creativity.

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Walking with the Enemy (2013)

Plot Summary:

Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.

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A Bag of Marbles (2017)

Plot Summary:

In occupied France, Maurice and Joseph, two young Jewish brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Unbroken (2014)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

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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.

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Defiance (2008)

Plot Summary:

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.

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Downfall (2004)

Plot Summary:

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Hiding Place (1975)

Plot Summary:

The Hiding Place is an account of a Dutch family who risk their lives by offering a safe haven for Jews during World War II.

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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