Number 44 on IMDb's Top 250
Władysław Szpilman, a famous Polish Jewish pianist working for the Warsaw radio, sees his whole world collapse with the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of Poland. The year is 1939 and the nightmare was just beginning...
Years go by and living conditions for the Jewish people gradually deteriorate as their rights are slowly eroded: they now have a limited amount of money permitted per family, armbands to identify themselves, and eventually, late in 1941, they are all forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. There, they face hunger, humiliation from the Nazis and the ever present fear of death or torture. Before long, they were rounded up to be deported to concentration camps. At the last moment, Szpilman is saved from this gruesome fate by a family friend. Now, separated from his family and loved ones, he survives, at first in the Ghetto as a slave laborer for German reconstruction units and later outside, relying on the help of non-Jews who still remember him. Hilarity was very hard to find, it is always depressing seeing people treated the way they were.
Trivia: A nuance for those who don't speak German: In general, the German officers use the informal version of "you" ("du," etc.) when talking to the Jews, which reflects their views (you wouldn't talk to adult strangers that way); however, Hosenfeld (the officer who discovers Szpilman in hiding) always uses the proper formal form ("Sie," etc.) because of the way he personally feels. The scene in which Wladyslaw Szpilman is saved from going to the concentration camps and is told "Don't run!" is inspired by a similar event in director Roman Polanski's life. This is the first film ever to receive the Best Film Award at the Césars (France's national film award) with not a single word of French spoken in it. "Szpilman" sounds like the German word "Spielmann", meaning bandsman or minstrel. Hence Hosenfeld's remark that it is a good name for a pianist.
Wladyslaw Szpilman wrote his memoirs in 1945 so the events were very fresh in his mind and Roman Polanski, who had lived through the war in Krackow, tried to stay as close to the book as he could. It was amazing to watch the transformation of this man from one of the best pianist in Poland and a vibrant man todesperatelyy searching for anything to eat and then having to play for his life in front of a german officer after not having touched a piano in 2 and a half years.
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