The Pianist

Władysław Szpilman is Poland's most famous radio pianist when the Nazis invade Warsaw in 1939. Relocated to the ghetto with his family, Szpilman manages to escape and survives in devastated Warsaw thanks to the help of Polish friends and, ultimately, a German officer who hears him play. Roman Polanski, himself a Holocaust survivor, filmed Szpilman's true story in 2002 with a documentary-like sobriety that makes the horror all the more unbearable.

The Pianist portrays the Holocaust from the survivor's perspective—someone who doesn't understand why he lived. Polanski with implicit autobiography. Adrien Brody won the Oscar with a performance involving real physical deprivation. Watch with subtitles.