The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

PG-13 7.7
2008 1 hr 34 min Drama , History , War

When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

  • Cast:
    Asa Butterfield , Jack Scanlon , Vera Farmiga , David Thewlis , Rupert Friend , David Hayman , Sheila Hancock

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Reviews

Linbeymusol
2008/11/07

Wonderful character development!

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Voxitype
2008/11/08

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

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Kirandeep Yoder
2008/11/09

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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Geraldine
2008/11/10

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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hoperain-388-280369
2008/11/11

This movie contains some emotional things, maybe you would find hyperbole. Because of you can feel who produce use your feel about a kid at the end of film, like I feel. But generally theme was good. Yes, we know there are many 2nd war scenarios and sometimes they are copy of each of them. But this movie wasn't without end. It has extremely original story. Yes I didn't like end, but it is best appropriate end for this movie. Because story has to be end stunning as possible as.

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amysquire87
2008/11/12

When watching this film I think it's best remembered that this story was written for children to help them understand the holocaust (if such a thing were possible). The plot is simple and the historical accuracy has been maligned, however I don't think this makes it an insult to survivors and victims as others have suggested. The acting is sensitively done and I thought the 'ordinariness' of it all (as very little of the camp is shown until the end) actually brought home the reality of it. Same goes for the English accents. For English speaking audiences I thought this really made the characters seem even more like a family who could be living next door. It's too easy to call the perpetrators of the holocaust evil. They were ordinary men with families which makes it all the more chilling and thought provoking. Up until the ending I thought this was an 'easy' film which surprised me given the subject, but it builds to the last scenes which did exactly what every good account on the holocaust should do - made you think 'Never again'.

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Tony Van Duin
2008/11/13

Firstly I was very confused as to why a German family all had English accents, but gradually moved past it. Equally confusing was why a German family in Nazi Germany was praying Christian prayers, and when there Grandmother died there was a Catholic burial. It all pointed to a very modern understanding of the world, that was not accurate with how Nazi Germany was at the time. This kind of sanitation was very disappointing. Also, why wasn't the boy of an SS officer in the Hitler Youth, and well versed to Nazi propaganda? It seems the film maker either wasn't well read in history, or the more likely, they simply wanted to make it digestible to the audience. Such a shame if it is the latter.

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Moeshe
2008/11/14

This is a very sick, sci-fi movie about an ethnic genocide. The people, who make up this kind of stories must be very sick in the mind. I especially found it sickening about spilling zyklon B pellets onto a "gas chamber" even though this would require special apparatus to properly circulate the gas. Total joke.

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