The Pianist

3.86
    The Pianist
    2002

    Synopsis

    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.

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    Cast

    • Adrien BrodyWładysław 'Władek' Szpilman
    • Thomas KretschmannCaptain Wilm Hosenfeld
    • Frank FinlayFather
    • Maureen LipmanMother
    • Emilia FoxDorota
    • Ed StoppardHenryk Szpilman
    • Julia RaynerRegina Szpilman
    • Jessica Kate MeyerHalina Szpilman
    • Michal ZebrowskiJurek
    • Wanja MuesSS Slapping Father

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Washington Post

      Polanski, himself a survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, has created a near-masterpiece.
    • 100

      Boston Globe

      There are three Poles in The Pianist -- Szpilman, Polanski, and Frederic Chopin. Of the three, fittingly, Chopin speaks the loudest.
    • 91

      Entertainment Weekly

      The result is a movie, and Cannes Palme d'Or winner, of riveting power and sadness, a great match of film and filmmaker -- and star, too.
    • 90

      Chicago Reader

      The results are masterful, admirably unsentimental, and never boring, if also a little stodgy.
    • 90

      Newsweek

      This powerful, precision-made movie offers hope as well -- an act of kindness from a German officer that saves the pianist’s life, the music that sustains his soul.
    • 90

      Los Angeles Times

      Never before has a fiction film so clearly and to such devastating effect laid out the calculation of the Nazi machinery of death and its irrationality.
    • 89

      Austin Chronicle

      Szpilman takes to performing sonatas in thin air, eyes closed, those jittery fingers stroking nothing but air. It's a wonderful moment in a wonderful, ghastly film, and one of the most moving arguments for the redemptive powers of art ever made.
    • 80

      TV Guide Magazine

      Polanski's film is an unqualified success both dramatically and artistically.

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