The Pianist

150 minutes • 2002 • 8.5

Roman Polanski's three-time Oscar-winning The Pianist is based on Jewish radio pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's autobiographical novel about life in Warsaw's ghetto during the Nazi occupation. But the story also traces Polanski's own childhood experiences from his time in Krakow's ghetto.

Szpilman (Adrian Brody) was among the twenty of Warsaw's 500,000 Jews who managed to escape deportation to concentration camps and survived the hell of the ghetto by hiding in abandoned apartments and among the ruins of the city. Finally, he was helped by friends in the resistance movement and, unexpectedly, by a Nazi colonel.