/r/ - Requests

1940s
YearCountryTitleDirectorNotes
1940United KingdomNight Train to MunichCarol ReedFirst feature film to depict concentration camps.
1940United StatesThe Mortal StormFrank BorzageOne character is sent to a concentration camp and dies there, while his family is trying to leave Nazi Germany.
1940United StatesThe Great DictatorCharlie ChaplinA condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. The film focuses on two men: a ruthless fascist dictator named Adenoid Hynkel (a parody of Hitler) and a persecuted Jewish barber. The Jewish barber is sent to a concentration camp, but manages to escape (and ends up mistaken for Hynkel, while Hynkel is mistaken for the Jewish barber, and sent off to a concentration camp). In one scene, Herring (a parody of Hermann Göring) makes a passing mention that they have discovered a new poison gas, that will kill everybody. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he could not have made the film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at that time.[2]
1942United StatesTo Be Or Not To BeErnst LubitschOne villain is jokingly -and repeatedly- called “concentration camp Erhardt”.
1944United StatesThe Seventh CrossFred ZinnemanSeven inmates, one Jewish, escape from a concentration camp
1944PolandMajdanek: Cemetery of EuropeAleksander FordOne of the first films to include footage of concentration camps
1945Soviet UnionThe UnvanquishedMark DonskoyFirst feature film to show mass murder of Jews and hunting for them on the occupied territories. 1946 Venice festival award.
1946United StatesThe StrangerOrson WellesFirst feature film to include footage of concentration camps[3]
1946GermanyDie Mörder sind unter unsWolfgang StaudteThe first Rubble Film and the first German film to address Nazi atrocities. English title: Murderers Among Us
1947PolandThe Last StageWanda JakubowskaEnglish titles: The Last Stage, The Last Stop
1947GermanyEhe im SchattenKurt MaetzigOne of the earliest DEFA productions. English title: Marriage in the Shadows
1947GermanyZwischen Gestern und MorgenHarald BraunOne of the first German films to be made in Munich after the war and the first to openly address the Holocaust. English title: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow
1948GermanyMorituriEugen York
1948United StatesThe SearchFred ZinnemannIn post-war Berlin, an American private helps a lost Czech boy find his mother.
1948PolandUlica GranicznaAleksander FordA Polish film about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, it premieres at the Venice Film Festival; it is released in English as Border Street in 1950.[4][5]
1949ItalyL'ebreo erranteGoffredo AlessandriniFirst Italian film to openly address the Holocaust
1949United States
West GermanyLang ist der WegHerbert B. Fredersdorf
Marek GoldsteinYiddish title: Lang iz der Veg; English title: Long Is the Road
1950s
YearCountryTitleDirectorNotes
1950CzechoslovakiaDistant JourneyAlfréd RadokEnglish title: Distant Journey
1953United StatesThe JugglerEdward DmytrykIn 1949, former concentration camp inmate and Berlin native Hans Muller immigrates to Israel where, due to psychological problems, he cannot adjust to peacetime life.
1956United StatesSinging in the DarkMax NosseckMusical about Holocaust survivors with amnesia
1958–59United StatesPursuitIan SharpAnthology series
1959East Germany
BulgariaStarsKonrad WolfEnglish title: Stars
1959United StatesThe Diary of Anne FrankGeorge StevensWon three Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress
1959Italy
Yugoslavia
FranceKapòGillo Pontecorvo
1959PolandBiały niedźwiedźJerzy ZarzyckiA Jew who escaped from a transport to a concentration camp is hiding by posing for tourists disguised as a polar bear.
1960s
YearCountryTitleDirectorNotes
1960CzechoslovakiaRomeo, Julie a tmaJiří WeissEnglish title: Romeo, Juliet and Darkness. Concerns Operation Anthropoid.
1960United StatesExodusOtto PremingerBased on the novel by Leon Uris; screenplay by Dalton Trumbo.
1960YugoslaviaDeveti krugFrance StiglicEnglish title:The Ninth Circle
1961ItalyGold of RomeCarlo LizzaniItalian title: L'oro di Roma
1961United StatesJudgment at NurembergStanley KramerWinner of Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay
1961PolandSamsonAndrzej Wajda
1961BelgiumL'enclosArmand GattiItalian title: Otto ore al buio. Prix de la Critique at 1961 Cannes Festival.
1963PolandPassengerAndrzej Munk
1963East GermanyNaked Among WolvesFrank Beyer
1964United StatesThe PawnbrokerSidney LumetA Jewish pawnbroker, victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
1965East GermanyChronik eines MordesJoachim HaslerEnglish title: Chronicle of a Murder
1965CzechoslovakiaThe Shop On Main StreetJán Kadár & Elmar Klos
1965GermanyThe InvestigationPeter WeissAlso as TV play "Die Ermittlung" (1966)
1966United StatesThe Last ChapterBenjamin Rothman & Lawrence Rothman, S. L. ShneidermanThe Last Chapter is the destruction of Polish Jewry by the Nazi onslaught, depicted here with sensitivity and high drama. The film includes rare footage of Jewish life in early 20th century Poland.
1967United StatesThe Diary of Anne FrankAlex SegalTV movie: Harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
1969FranceArmy of ShadowsJean Pierre Melville