Movies Similar to Maria Theresa’s Dark Side

The Pianist(2002)

The true story of pianist Władysław 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.

Schindler's List(1993)

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.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him(2005)

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

Gloomy Sunday(1999)

Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

Freedom Writers(2007)

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

Life Is Beautiful(1997)

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.

Macht und Armut: Die Mönche von Cluny(2022)

13 Hours That Saved Britain(2011)

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.

1945(2017)

An unsettling feeling overwhelms a small Hungarian town when two orthodox Jews arrive with a mysterious trunk. As residents begin to speculate on the purpose of the visit of these two strangers, order starts to crumble in town with some pursuing devious plans and others finding remorse in their hearts.

Wall of Silence(1994)

In the small town of Rechnitz a terrible crime against humanity was performed during the holocaust. Until now, no-one dares to talk about it.

Au Revoir les Enfants(1987)

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

Goering's Catalogue: A Collection of Art and Blood(2021)

For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.

Grazia Deledda, the Revolutionary(2021)

A cinematic journey to discover, through previously unpublished documents and manuscripts, the world of writer and ethnographer Grazia Deledda, the first Italian woman and writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926. A revolutionary author, she transcended the confines of male-dominated culture and asserted her creative path as an artist and a woman.

Les Damnés de la Commune(2021)

Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in 1871.

The Diary of Anne Frank(1959)

The true, 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.

Dark Side of the Moon(2002)

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

Naked Among Wolves(1963)

Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp.

Jakob the Liar(1999)

In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.

Ensemble(2010)

In Paris in full German occupation in 1942, a Jewish child Isaac escapes a raid organized by the SS. He then took refuge in the Great Mosque of Paris. The imam decides to protect him by passing him off as a Muslim, as well as the other Jewish children that he manages to free with the help of the resistance networks. The French militia and the Gestapo have suspicions... This fiction film is based on the true story of the rector of the Paris mosque, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, who saved several Jews from deportation during the Second World War.

Germans(1997)

A story about a German family during World War II with every family member having a different approach to Jews, raging from hatred to compassion.