

Shoah(1985)
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Movie: Shoah
Top 10 Billed Cast
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Recommendations Movies

A Sunday in the Country(fr)
In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important than how it looks, dealing with what each character expects of life.

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks(zh)
A detailed look at the gradual decline of Shenyang’s industrial Tiexi district, an area that was once a vibrant example of China’s socialist economy. But industry is changing, and the factories of Tiexi are closing. Director Wang Bing introduces us to some of the workers affected by the closures, and to their families.

In Vanda's Room(pt)
An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

Reflections on Titanic(en)
An enthralling and fast-paced four-part documentary feature that covers the making of one of the last major Hollywood epics; Titanic. Cast and crew speak on setting the sinking of the ship against a classic romance. The feature also examines casting and the young couple headlining the film, DiCaprio's and Winslet's on-set friendship and their differing acting styles, the expansive sets and filming locations, the authenticity of the recreated ship, James Cameron's work and dedication, and budgeting. And many more aspects of the film are overviewed.

Tom and Lola(fr)
Born with their immune systems damaged, Tom and Lola are doomed to live their lives in isolation, sealed in separate plastic bubbles. However, neither cold urethane nor chillier hospital technicians can keep down the beguiling spirit of these indomitable siblings.

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches(en)
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends, lovers, and artistic idols. Blending everyday encounters with portraits of the avant-garde art scene, it forms an epic, personal meditation on community, creativity, and the passage of time.

In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle Woo(en)
Little magic and plenty of imagination turns a young man's room into a hub where various adventures await him.

We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire(fr)
A Latin palindrome is the title of Guy Debord's last film, in which he, as narrator, explains that he will make neither concessions to the tastes of his viewers nor to the dominant ideas of his day. After extensively insulting the audience that goes to the cinema to forget its heteronomous life, the film becomes autobiographical, using images from the world of spectacle: advertising brochures, clips from feature films (Les enfants du paradis), comics, aerial footage of Paris, tracking shots through Venice, photographs of friends – all commented on by Debord, with an at times melancholy undertone: "This Paris no longer exists." His assessment is that one of the great pleasures of his life has been the sensation of the passage of time, and as a witness to the disintegration of social order, he has loved his epoch.

The Old Man and the Sea(ru)
An old fisherman makes the biggest catch of his life.

Meshes of the Afternoon(en)
A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.

Children of Paradise(fr)
In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

Pope Joan(en)
A 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Ingelheim disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks.

Sonatine(ja)
Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

The Innocents(fr)
Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days(ro)
Two college roommates have 24 hours to make the ultimate choice as they finalize arrangements for a black market abortion.

Sexy Beast(en)
Ex-safecracker Gal Dove has served his time behind bars and is blissfully retired to a Spanish villa paradise with a wife he adores. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of his nemesis Don Logan, intent on persuading Gal to return to London for one last big job.

Mirror(ru)
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Brotherhood of the Wolf(fr)
In 18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.
Similar Movies

After Mein Kampf?(en)
By combining actual footage with reenactments, this film offers both a documentary and fictional account of the life of Adolf Hitler, from his childhood in Vienna, through the rise of the Third Reich, to his final act of suicide in the waning days of WWII. The film also provides considerable, and often shocking, detail of the atrocities enacted by the Nazi regime under Hitler's command.

Ils voulaient tuer de Gaulle(fr)
Based on the model of documentary fiction (alternating period films, interviews and re-enactments with actors), the film begins on September 8, 1961 with the failure of the Pont-sur-Seine attack on a road convoy carrying Charles de Gaulle, then President of the Republic, and continues with the slow preparation, the occurrence and the consequences of the Petit-Clamart attack on August 22, 1962.

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel(en)
The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

13 Hours That Saved Britain(en)
In this documentary, experts dissect the Battle of Britain, which took place on Sept. 15, 1940 — a day that determined the fate of the nation.

Mariana's Room(uk)
In the darkest days of the Second World War, Yulia and Hugo, a Jewish mother and son, escape from a Ukrainian ghetto. Fearing for his safety, Yulia entrusts her boy to the care of her friend Mariana, a sex worker who lives in a brothel. Hugo is placed in a closet, nominally for his safety, but from which he rarely leaves. With little view of the outside world, he conjures up ghosts and scenarios. But over time, Mariana brings the boy out and in doing so transforms his life.

A Midnight Clear(en)
In 1944 France, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German Platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight the other.

Paths of War(sq)
World War II - a famous warrior and a villager face the destruction of their village and heroically lead the people in a rebellion.

The Silent Village(en)
The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

Visas and Virtue(en)
Europe, 1940. For thousands of Jews, a Japanese diplomat and his wife defy Tokyo and the Nazis, and offer visas, for life.
Naši pred bránami(sk)
A tragicomedy about people who are able to make use of the war situation for their own benefit. The Gavora family of four leave their secure village home blinded by the vision of a big career and easy earning of money in the capital city.

Rommel ruft Kairo(de)
In 1942 the Germans devised an operation to introduce in Egypt spies to provoke a rebellion against the British.

Bampton Shows the Way(en)
Part of BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

4 and 20 Fit Girls(en)
Flock to your local keep fit class - there's a war on and Britain needs its citizens in tip-top shape.

Men Behind the Sun(cn)
The film is a graphic depiction of the war atrocities committed by the Japanese at Unit 731, the secret biological weapons experimentation unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film details the various cruel medical experiments Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese and Soviet prisoners at the tail-end of the war.

Elvis and the USS Arizona(en)
The surprising story of how one of music's biggest icons helped to establish a USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. Elvis’ fundraising concert drew public attention to the plight and helped to galvanize efforts to finish the USS Arizona Memorial as it stands today.

Bhayanakam(ml)
A First World War veteran reaches a backwater village in Kuttanand, India as a Postman. He delivers money orders and letters to the family of soldiers, becoming a symbol of happiness. But everything turns upside down, as the Second World War begins.

Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10(de)
Around 80 years ago, the gynecologist Carl Clauberg conducted medical experimentation on Jewish girls and women in Auschwitz. The results of those sadistic experiments were used in medicine across the globe. It is possible that German companies played a part in those experiments. Most of the survivors became infertile, and very few of them were later capable to give birth. The Untold Story of Block 10 introduces the audience to those who have survived.

Tobruk(en)
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.