Top 100 Holocaust Films

[First published for Jewish Heritage Month, for my Jewish friends. No matter what your religion (or lack of one) everyone deserves justice and dignity in life, that should be basic human right that we all should fight for vigilantly]

I received this following message via email on 4/17/2012, and did not know about this observance in Israel, so I'm sure many of you don't as well, so I wanted to repeat this here: "Tomorrow evening is in Israel what we call Yom HaShoa, Holocaust Day. The Memorial day for the Jews who perished then. While it is not a holiday, light memorial candles for the known and unknown members of our families and others who died at the time. No music is heard and nothing that could be termed entertainment is open (e.g. bars, gyms) and the TV program only shows films related to the holocaust. (Which is one of the reasons I have seen so many of those that you list). - Adriana Marin Grez 

She also suggests that if possible, we donate to a holocaust survivors charity, as many survivors are still alive and living below poverty level. Here's a legitimate one in Israel: The Zdaka Center


Holocaust Films

These are all the holocaust films I found in my research, both ranked and unranked. I'm sure I've missed some, and some are borderline, see the note below the list. Many of these will not be for children, and some are definitely not for the squeamish, as this is about as horrifying as mankind can become.

RANKED [updated 4.17.12]

1. Schindler's List [Spielberg, 1993] #30 [photo top]
2. Shoah [Lanzmann, 1985] #98 Up since 2009
3. The Pianist [Polanski, 2004] #142 New since 2009
4. Army of Shadows [Melville, 1969] #277 Up since 2009
5. Downfall [Hirschbiegel, 2004] #327 New since 2009
6. Triumph of the Will [Riefenstahl, 1935] #614 Down since 2009 - this propaganda film shot by actress Leni Riefenstahl at Hitler's 'request' is tough to watch but demonstrates the power of both patriotism and propaganda. Everyone should see this so you can see how people can be manipulated by the media - Riefenstahl apologized after the war but I think she made a necessary record of evil for everyone to see, and like many, she was optimistic and bought into the disinformation and deception
7. Night and Fog [Resnais, 1955] #413 Up since 2009
8. Life is Beautiful [Begnini, 1997] #445 Up since 2009
9. Come and See [Klimov, 1985] #491 This terrific film is moving up in ranking; the same story was filmed in English as Defiance, but this is the more harrowing and passionate film
10. Au Revoir Les Enfants [Malle, 1987] #872 Up since 2009
11. Hitler: A Film from Germany [Syberberg, 1977] #1219 Down since 2009

Ironically, Oskar Schindler was a failed capitalist who saw an opportunity to succeed with cheap Jewish labor in WW2, and only later developed a conscience.

Shoah is absolutely gut-wrenching, interviews with survivors from both sides, and not for the squeamish; it has some horrifying descriptions, but is a 9 1/2 hr masterpiece of devotion to a cause.

Triumph of the Will from the brilliant actress turned director Leni Reifenstahl doesn't deal with the holocaust directly, but one can see the roots develop in this brilliant piece of propaganda filmmaking which shows the rise to power of the Nazis. The film was so successful worldwide that Time Magazine awarded Hitler "Man of the Year" in 1935! Her Olympia documented the 1936 summer Olympics held in Berlin, which was to be a showcase for the superiority of the German race; even though American sprinter Jesse Owens stunned this image by sweeping his races, the Germans did win the most medals overall. However, during this period public anti-Semitism was hidden away briefly to fool the athletes and press by showing a false and peaceful Berlin.

Army of Shadows is an engrossing film of the French underground, based on a true story. Come and See is a harrowing Russian film of the Nazi invasion of Belorus, a defenseless agrarian region of small villages that became the scorched earth. It was the massive effort it took by the army to destroy a populace here that led to the invention of what the Nazi command called "the final solution".

UNRANKED (alphabetical)

1. A Generation Apart [1984]
2. A Secret [2007]
3. Adam Resurrected [2008]
4. All My Loved Ones [2000]
5. America and the Holocaust [1994]
6. Angry Harvest [1985]
7. Anne Frank Remembered [1995]
8. Anne Frank: The Life of a Young Girl []
9. Anne Frank: The Whole Story [2001]
10. Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State [2005]
11. Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning [2007]
12. Billy Graham: The Hiding Place [1975]
13. Bonhoeffer [2003]
14. Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace [2000]
15. Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The [2008]
16. Boys From Brazil, The [1978]
17. Century of Simon Wiesenthal, The [1994]
18. Charlotte Gray [2001]
19. Children of Chabannes, The [1999]
20. Civilization and the Jews [1984]
21. Conspiracy [2001]
22. Counterfeiters, The [2007]
23. Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, The [2009]
24. Dear Mr. Waldman [2006]
25. Defamation [2008]
26. Defiance [2008]
27. Devil's Arithmatic, The [1999]
28. Diary of Anne Frank, The [1959]
29. Diplomats for the Damned [2008]
30. Drancy Avenir [1997]
31. Edges of the Lord [2001]
32. Ever Again [2006]
33. Everything Is Illuminated [2005]
34. Fate Did Not Let Me Go [2003]
35. Fateless [2005, Hungary] - love this story, of a kid who survives the camps, enjoys the comraderie of being with his people; for him it was an asylum from the war - amazing!
36. Forgiving Dr. Mengele [2006]
37. Frontline: Shtetl [1996]
38. Fugitive Pieces [2007]
39. Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The [1970]
40. God On Trial [2008]
41. Good Evening Mr. Wallenberg [1990]
42. Goodnight, Mister Tom [1998]
43. Hidden Child, The [2007]
44. Hidden Heroes [1999]
45. Hiding Place, The [1975]
46. Holocaust: Dachau and Sachsenhausen [2005]
47. Holocaust: Ravensbruck and Buchenwald [2006]
48. Holocaust: The Liberation of Auschwitz [2005]
49. Holocaust: The Liberation of Majdanek [2006]
50. Holocaust: Theresienstadt [2005]
51. I Have Never Forgotten You [2006]
52. I'm Still Here [2008] 53. Imaginary Witness [2004]
54. Incident at Vichy [2002] 55. Inheritance [2006]
56. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport  [2000] #1542
57. Jacob the Liar [1975]
58. Jakob the Liar [1999]
59. Kapó [1959] Italy
60. Last Days, The [1998]
61. Left Luggage [1998]
62. Lies and Whispers [1998]
63. Long Way Home, The [1997]
64. Making Choices [1005]
65. Man in the Glass Booth, The [1975]
66. Massacre in Rome [1973]
67. Maximilian: Saint of Auschwitz [1995]
68. Memory Thief, The [2007]
69. Miracle at Midnight [1998]
70. Miriam [2006]
71. My Heart is Mine Alone [1997]
72. Nazi Officer's Wife, The [2003]
73. Ninth Day, The [2004]
74. November Moon [1984]
75. Pawnbroker, The [1965]
76. Rape of Europa, The [2007]
77. Reader, The [2008] #2175
78. Rose Garden, The [1989]
79. Rotation [1949]
80. Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Rescuers[2003]
81. Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz [2008]
82. Shadows in Paradise: Hitler's Exiles [2008]
83. Shop on Main Street, The [1965]
84. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days [2005]
85. Sophie's Choice [1982]
86. The Sorrow and the Pity [1969]
87. Steal a Pencil for Me [2007]
88. Triumph of the Spirit [1989]
89. Verdict on Auschwitz [1993]
90. Voyages [1999]
91. Watermarks [2005]
92. Who Betrayed Anne Frank? [1998]

Thanks to Adriana Marin Grez, who suggested the addition of these films, which I will add here first, along with her descriptions, as I haven't seen any of these myself:

1) The Round Up ( French: La Rafle ) is a 2010 French film directed by Roselyne Bosch and produced by Alain Goldman. Based on the true story of a young Jewish boy, the film depicts the Vel d'Hiv roundup, the mass arrest of Jews by French police who were Nazi accomplices in Paris in July 1942.

2)  A Square of Sky (German: Ein Stueck Himmel)  is a 1982 television series (10 episodes) based on the australian book "A square of sky" written by Janina David, who survived as a child the Warsaw ghetto and its upraising. She was saved by being smuggled out of the ghetto and into a christian convent.

3) The Summer of Aviya . ( Hebrew: הקיץ של אביה ‎, translit. Ha-Kayitz Shel Aviya). The 1989 film is based on a Hebrew language book that became a bestseller. The 1985 autobiographical novel by theater actress Gila Almagor is a memoir of Almagor's childhood and provides insights into Israeli society in the early post-state period.

4) New Land . A 1994 israeli film by Orna Ben Dor, in Hebrew with English subtitles.
It tells the story of 8 year old Anna, who travels from war ravaged Europe to Israel after World War II and their only posessions is a soiled teddy bear and a picture of their mother. Anna wanders the refugee camp searching for her mother, who she hopes also escaped the Nazis, she meets all sorts of characters with painful and colorful stories of their own.

5) Blessed is the Match:Life and Death of Hanna Senesh
At age 22, Hannah Senesh was safe in Palestine in 1944 when she joined the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust. She was one of only two women to take part in the mission. One of the reasons she did it, was because her mother and brother were stuck in Hungary and she wanted to get them out.

6)   Tadeusz Pankiewicz (a Polish film).
It tells the story of the Polish roman catholic pharmacist, who found his "Under the Eagle" apothecary suddenly in the middle of the Krakow ghetto when the Nazis set it up.  The pharmacy became a meeting place for the ghetto's intelligentsia, and a hub of underground activity. Pankiewicz and his staff risked their lives to undertake numerous clandestine operations: smuggling food and information, and offering shelter on the premises for Jews facing deportation to the camps.

7) A Film Unfinished .
In May 1942 -- two and half years after the Warsaw Ghetto was established and shortly before the Nazis sent the Ghetto's first 300,000 Jews to the extermination camp of Treblinka -- the Reich dispatched a crew of German soldiers to film Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Their perverse propaganda goal: to record for posterity examples of the religious practices and "sub-human culture" of the soon to be eliminated judische Rasse , everything from a circumcision ceremony to a burial service; from the extreme poverty of the many to the supposed lack of concern of those few Jews who still had some assets.

ADDITIONS FROM OTHERS

Escape From Sobibor (1987, d. Jack Gold) - UK/Yugoslavia; another starring Rutger Hauer, w Alan Arkin
Sarah's Key (2010, d. Gilles Paquet-Brenner) - France; stars Kristen Scott Thomas
Levin und Gutman (1983) - listed at IMDB as a German TV series
Jona che visse nella balena (Jonah Who Lived in the Whale, 1993, d. Roberto Faenza) - Italy

[I just saw the trailer for NO PLACE ON EARTH, 2012, Germany, dir by Janet Tobias - that definitely looks to belong on this list; a documentary, it tells the story of a small band of Russian Jews in the Ukraine who hid in a cave for 18 months to escape the Nazis, and some lived to tell about it, and also appear for interviews in this film; I can't imagine being underground in a Russian winter, or never seeing the sky - I'll have to see this and report back w a review -- Jose, 10/31/13]

Additional Notes:


 

Of this list, I would definitely rank the films Garden of the Finzi-Continis and The Shop on Main St., also the Oscar®-winning true story about using imprisoned Jewish forgers to print U.S. and British currency in  The Counterfeiters.



Other films may belong here, some of these may not. I thought about Seven Beauties but since it was about POW's and not the holocaust directly, I didn't include it, but it also helps paint another portrait of the nightmare.

The Night Porter was about the long-lasting effects of the war on a former prisoner and her torturer, brilliantly played by Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde, directed by Liliana Cavani, also not included above as it had nothing directly to do with the holocaust, though Rampling's character was a teenaged Jewish girl selected for sexual experiments due to her sensual beauty, similar to Susan Strasburg's character in Pontecorvo's Kapo. This was really more an esoteric love story based on sado-masochism than anything else.

I would also rank Nowhere in Africa (Oscar® for foreign language film), about a Jewish mother who takes her daughter to Kenya to escape the war. There the war seems almost non-existant, so this becomes a story more about different cultures mixing than anything more catastrophic. It's a beautiful film, on the same level (and better in some ways) as best-picture winner Out of Africa. In fact, it's currently one of my top 100 favorite films.


Inglourious Basterds (2009)? does this belong - I think with an Oscar®-winning character created by Christolph Waltz called "The Jew Hunter", this dark fantasy warrants inclusion, even with Brad Pitt's ridiculous Southern accent. Though, of course, the kicking shoe in this one was on the other foot. Being a fantasy, and another 'revenge' film as well, this film likely offended as many people as it pleased.

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