Movies about concentration camps

Movies about concentration camps
List of the best movies about concentration camps, selected by visitors to our site: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Photographer of Mauthausen, Son of Saul, Calm at Sea, Hart's War, The Pianist, The Zookeeper's Wife, Ashes in the Snow, Persian Lessons, Schindler's List.

In the top there are new films of 2022, a plot description and trailers for films that have already been released.

Genre
Country
Markimdb: 7.8
Genredrama, military, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration01:30
CharactersChildrens, Jews, Friends
PlotWar, Friendship
PlaceConcentration camp, Germany
TimeWorld War II
StyleSad ones, To cry, Heavy, Gloomy, Touching

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.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrethriller, drama, military, biography, history
CountrySpain
Duration01:21
CharactersDogs, Teens, Photographers
PlotWar, On real events
PlaceVillage, Concentration camp
TimeWorld War II
StyleAction, Fascinating, Heavy, Makes me think, Disturbing

Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama, military
CountryHungary
Duration01:42
CharactersJews, Photographers
PlotDancing, Prison Break, Fight, Death, Weapon
PlaceConcentration camp, Forest
TimeWorld War II

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.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genredrama, military
CountryFrance, Germany
Duration01:30
CharactersTeens, Military
PlotWar, Hostage
PlaceConcentration camp, France
TimeWorld War II
StyleAction, Fascinating, Heavy, Depressive

October 1941. Eighteen months into France’s occupation by German troops, young Communist members of the Resistance shoot dead an officer of the German Army. In retaliation, Hitler demands the deaths of 150 Frenchmen, as 'retribution'. The targets are to be mostly young men believed to share the assassins’ political convictions. Most of these men are taken from an internment camp for opponents of the occupation; a 35-year-old French rural administrator is ordered to select the victims. Although the parish priest appeals to their conscience and moral sensibilities, both the German military and their French helpers slavishly follow their orders.

Duration02:05
CharactersMilitary, Soldier
PlotWar, Pads
PlacePrison, Concentration camp, Court, Germany
TimeWorld War II
StyleAction, Soulful, Heavy, Serious

Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.

Markimdb: 8.6
Genredrama, military, music, biography
CountryFrance, Poland, United Kingdom, Germany
Duration02:29
CharactersGeniuses, Musicians, Jews, Pianists
PlotWar, On real events, Survival, Music, Hunger
PlaceConcentration camp, Ghetto, Poland
TimeWorld War II
StyleExciting, Tense, Depressive, Heartbreaking, Worth watching

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.

Markimdb: 7
Genredrama, military, biography, history
CountryUSA, United Kingdom, Czech Republic
Duration02:23
CharactersAnimals, Strong women, Jews, Lions, Smugglers
PlotWar, On real events
PlaceZoos, Poland
TimeWorld War II
StyleAction, Heavy, Tense, Makes me think, Touching

The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genremelodrama, drama, military, history
CountryLithuania
Duration01:30
PlotWar, Survival
PlaceConcentration camp, Siberia
TimeWorld War II
StyleAtmospheric

The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama, military
CountryRussia, Germany, Belarus
CharactersJews, Military, Soldier
PlaceConcentration camp
StyleFascinating

1942, occupied Europe. Gilles Cremieux, a Belgian of Jewish origin, once in a concentration camp, pretends to be a Persian - for him this is the only opportunity to stay alive. This lie, indeed, saves him from being shot, but Gilles does not yet know what price he will have to pay for this salvation. German soldiers bring Gilles to Klaus Koch, a cook in a concentration camp who wants to leave for Iran and open a restaurant there as soon as the war ends. Koch is looking for a real Persian who will teach him how to speak Farsi. Thus begins the story of Gilles Cremier and Klaus Koch - a Jew and a German, a prisoner and a jailer, student and teacher.

Markimdb: 9
Genredrama, military, biography, history
CountryUSA
Duration03:15
CharactersHeroes, Jews
PlotWar, On real events, Survival
PlaceConcentration camp, Ghetto, Germany
TimeWorld War II
StylePopular, Exciting, Fascinating, Touching, Depressive

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.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genredrama, military
CountryRussia
Duration01:51
CharactersJews
PlotWar, On real events, Uprising
PlaceConcentration camp, Russia
TimeGreat Patriotic War, World War II
StyleHeavy

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.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama, military
CountryGermany, Austria
CharactersSoldier
PlotWar, Survival, Death
PlaceConcentration camp, Psychiatric hospitals
TimeWorld War II
StyleTense, Makes me think, Serious, Disturbing

A Roma boy is placed in a mental hospital and experiences the Nazi euthanasia program. Aware of what was happening and attached to friends, the lad attempts to sabotage the program. The film addresses the complexities of the program director, the lives of the child victims, and the struggles of the child protagonist. More than five thousand children died in the Nazi euthanasia program.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genredrama, military
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration01:26
PlaceConcentration camp
TimeWorld War II

In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.

Markimdb: 7
Genredrama, military, history
CountryRussia, Germany
Duration02:10
CharactersDogs, Jews
PlotLove, Relationship, Death, Love triangle, Fate
PlacePrison, Concentration camp, France
TimeGreat Patriotic War, World War II
StylePsychological problems, Philosophical, Heavy, Touching

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.

Duration01:56
CharactersJews
PlotWar, Survival, Self-sacrifice
PlaceConcentration camp, Ghetto, Italy
TimeWorld War II
StylePopular, Mind-altering, Sad ones, To cry, Makes me think

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.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genredrama, crime, military, history
CountryAustria, Germany
Duration01:35
CharactersJews
PlotOn real events, Money
PlaceConcentration camp

The story Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon Sorowitsch, coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, military, history
CountryGermany
CharactersDogs, Snipers, Jews, Old man
PlotWar, Death
PlaceConcentration camp, Germany
TimeWorld War II
StylePsychological problems, Action, Fascinating

Taking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long prepared uprising of the concentration camp prisoners against the SS.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genredrama, military
CountrySoviet Union, Poland
CharactersSoldier
PlotWar
TimeGreat Patriotic War, World War II
StyleHeavy, Serious

Beginning of WWII. Zinaida, a Russian woman, is taken prisoner by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp together with several other women. She is imprisoned with her baby son, Gena, who is learning to walk and takes his first steps in the snow, in the concentration camp. They spend a few years together in the camp until they are separated, first within Auschwitz itself, then, for good, when the Germans are losing the war and decide to evacuate.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genremelodrama, drama, military
CountryHungary, Germany, United Kingdom, Israel, France, USA
CharactersTeens, Jews, Family
PlotWar, Survival, Test
PlaceConcentration camp, Germany
TimeWorld War II
StyleSoulful

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.

Markimdb: 8.7
Genredocumentary, military, history
CountryRussia

We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.

Markimdb: 8
Genredrama, military
CountrySoviet Union
Duration01:37
CharactersHeroes, Military, Soldier, Drivers
PlotWar
PlaceRussia, Germany
TimeGreat Patriotic War, World War II
StyleExciting, Soulful, By books, Heavy, Depressive

The story of a man (Andrey Sokolov) whose life was ruthlessly crippled by World War II. His wife and daughters were killed during the bombing of his village, he spent some time as a prisoner, and his only son was killed in action only a few days before the victory...

Markimdb: 6.8
Genredrama
CountryUSA
Duration01:53
CharactersLosers
PlotWar, On real events, Survival
PlaceConcentration camp
TimeWorld War II
StyleFascinating, Touching, Depressive, Serious

The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.

Markimdb: 7
Genredrama, military, history
CountryUSA
Duration02:25
PlotWar, On real events, Survival, Uprising
PlaceConcentration camp, Germany, Poland
TimeWorld War II
StyleDepressive, Serious

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.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrefantasy, drama, military
CountryUSA
Duration01:35
CharactersTeens, Heroes, Jews, Losers
PlotWar, Survival, Time travel
PlaceConcentration camp, Poland
TimeWorld War II
StyleTo cry, Serious

Hannah Stern, an American-born Jewish adolescent, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives; however, Hannah begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There, she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration02:37
CharactersWriters, Friends, Losers
PlotObsession, Friendship, Loneliness, Mental disorders, Love triangle
PlacePoland, New York
TimeWorld War II
StylePsychological problems, To cry, Soulful, Fascinating, Heavy

Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genremelodrama, drama, military, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, Japan
Duration01:45
CharactersGay, Jews
PlotWar, Survival, Friendship, Mystery
PlaceConcentration camp, Germany
StyleGloomy, Touching, Depressive, Serious

Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.

Markimdb: 8.7
Genredocumentary
CountryFrance, Germany
Duration09:26

Claude Lanzmann directed this 9½ hour documentary on the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since they only agreed to be interviewed by audio). His style of interviewing, by asking for the most minute details, is effective at adding up these details to give a horrifying portrait of the events of Nazi genocide. He also shows, or rather lets some of his subjects show, that the anti-Semitism that caused 6 million Jews to die in the Holocaust is still alive and well in many people who still live in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.

Markimdb: 8.9
Genredrama, military
CountrySerbia
CharactersTeens
PlaceConcentration camp, Hospitals, Serbia
TimeWorld War II
StyleMakes me think, Disturbing, Womens in main roles

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".

Markimdb: 8.2
Genrethriller, drama, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:18
CharactersPsychopath, Doctors
PlotPuzzles, The escape, Investigation, Split personality, Chase
PlaceSea, Islands, Psychiatric hospitals, Hospitals, USA
StylePopular, Unexpected ending, Psychological problems, Twisted plot, Smart

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his troubling visions and also by a mysterious doctor.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genredrama, history
CountryRussia, Belarus, Czech Republic, France, Poland, Israel
Duration01:56
CharactersJews
PlaceConcentration camp
TimeWorld War II

The film tells about the history of the Holocaust through the stories of its unwitting Witnesses.





MoviesList