7 war movies to watch if you liked The Pianist
The Pianist (2002) is a drama film of a true life story, directed by Roman Polanski, from the memoir of Władysław Szpilman. It is a French, British, German, and Polish co-production featuring Adrien Brody.
A widely acclaimed movie, The Pianist won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It also won three Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay, and BAFTAs and Césars. It was subsequently polled as one of BBC's 100 Greatest 21st-Century Films.
In 1939, when Warsaw had been taken over by Nazis, Polish-Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman fights for survival as his life is unraveling. Committed to being pushed out of Warsaw into the Warsaw Ghetto with his family, he goes through hunger, brutality, and tragedy.
Abandoned as an orphan, he survives and becomes homeless, observing war crimes in the backdrop. While the city is being destroyed, Szpilman finds a miraculous savior who keeps him alive until the war's end. Following the war, he continues to work as a renowned pianist, but survival with no principle is ingrained in his psyche for life.
If audiences relate to the survival, strength, and suffering theme from the film The Pianist, the following are seven more movies that reveal the human side of war and persecution.
Disclaimer: The following list is ranked in no particular order, and the opinions expressed belong solely to the author.
Zone of Interest, and other war movies to watch if you liked The Pianist
1) Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 historical drama film directed and written by Terry George and Keir Pearson. The film stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, and is based on the real-life of Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager who takes in over 1,200 refugees, including his Tutsi wife, during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
As violence escalates, Paul uses bribes, diplomacy, and deception to protect refugees, posing his hotel as open to avoid suspicion. Despite the danger, he negotiates with UN forces for survival.
Hotel Rwanda, like The Pianist, lays bare the moral conundrum of survival in genocide, and documents acts of bravery in the face of large-scale violence.
Where to watch: Prime Video
2) Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Grave of the Fireflies is an animated war drama film by Isao Takahata for Studio Ghibli, released in 1988, and is based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The movie traces the lives of siblings Seita and Setsuko as they try to survive the last few months of World War II in Kobe. Following the loss of their home and mother to an air raid, Seita and Setsuko experience starvation and loneliness.
Grave of the Fireflies replicates The Pianist's tear-jerking story, mapping war's cost on innocent lives with emotional complexity.
Where to watch: Netflix
3) Zone of Interest (2023)
Zone of Interest (2023) is a British historical drama film written and directed by Jonathan Glazer. It is an adaptation of Martin Amis' 2014 novel of the same name.
It is set in 1943 and involves the life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig, who live a seemingly serene life with family in a nearby house to the concentration camp. Höss works in the camp, while family life goes on behind the backdrop of atrocities.
Both The Zone of Interest and The Pianist portray the Holocaust, one detailing a survivor's ordeal and the other the perpetrators' lack of concern, documenting the banality of evil.
Where to watch: Prime Video, A24, HBO Max
4) Life Is Beautiful (1997)
Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) is a 1997 comedy-drama film written by and starring Roberto Benigni, and co-written by Vincenzo Cerami. The movie follows the story of Guido Orefice, an Italian-Jewish bookstore owner, who uses imagination and humor to protect his son from the atrocities of a Nazi concentration camp.
In 1939 Fascist Italy, Jewish waiter Guido wins the heart of Dora, a schoolteacher. They marry, have a son, Giosuè, and run a bookstore. In 1944, Nazis deport Guido and Giosuè to a concentration camp, and Dora follows. Guido shields Giosuè from the horrors by framing it as a game with a tank as the prize.
Life Is Beautiful imitates Guido's desperate attempt to rescue his loved ones from war atrocities as depicted in The Pianist.
Where to watch: Netflix, Prime Video
5) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2008 Holocaust war drama film directed and written by Mark Herman, based on John Boyne's 2006 novel of the same title. The film is set in Nazi-occupied Poland and follows the story of the SS officer's son who, unknowingly, befriends a Jewish boy held in a concentration camp.
The story revolves around eight-year-old Bruno, who moves to Poland when his father is promoted. Lonely and unaware of the actuality of the camp, he befriends Shmuel, a boy on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. With tensions escalating within his family, Bruno's innocence leads him to a tragic event.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas borrows The Pianist's lost innocence theme in the face of Nazi oppression but from a child's perspective.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Netflix
6) Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Jojo Rabbit is a satirical drama film directed and written by Taika Waititi based on Christine Leunens' 2008 novel Caging Skies. Roman Griffin Davis stars as Johannes "Jojo" Betzler, a 10-year-old member of the Hitler Youth who learns that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) has a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) hidden in the attic.
His imaginary friend, a comedic Hitler (Waititi), questions his beliefs. As Nazi Germany collapses, Jojo grapples with his convictions, loss, and change, finding hope in an unlikely friendship with Elsa. The cast includes Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, and Alfie Allen.
Jojo Rabbit, just like The Pianist, interweaves historical incidents with a personal experience of change under dictatorship.
Where to watch: Prime Video
7) Schindler's List (1993)
Schindler's List is a 1993 historical drama film, directed and produced by Steven Spielberg. It is an adaptation of Thomas Keneally's 1982 novel Schindler's Ark.
Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, who rescued more than a thousand Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by hiring them in his factories.
In Nazi-occupied Kraków, businessman Schindler exploits Jewish labor but risks everything to save his workers after witnessing the Holocaust’s horrors. Through bribes and pleas, he secures their safety.
Schindler’s List and The Pianist share a thematic focus on enduring the horrors of the Holocaust, emphasizing human compassion amidst the devastation.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Viewers can watch the movie The Pianist on Prime Video.
