DefianceMovies like Defiance
- Key Features:
- World War II, Jewish history, Partisans, Survival, Brotherhood, Nazi occupation, Rescue mission, True story, Historical drama, Courage, Moral dilemmas, Eastern Europe, Heroism
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, earnest
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Fans of war dramas, Viewers interested in stories of courage and survival
- Emotional Arc:
- Fear → Resilience → Hope
Defiance

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.
Defiance
As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

The film is based on a real story that happened in 1943 in the Sobibor concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. The main character of the movie is the Soviet-Jewish soldier Alexander Pechersky, who at that time was serving in the Red Army as a lieutenant. In October 1943, he was captured by the Nazis and deported to the Sobibor concentration camp, where Jews were being exterminated in gas chambers. But, in just 3 weeks, Alexander was able to plan an international uprising of prisoners from Poland and Western Europe. This uprising resulted in being the only successful one throughout the war, which led to the largest escape of prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp.

Follow the perilous journey to freedom when a young boy and his dog attempt to escape a concentration camp during World War II. Based on true events.

During World War II, Salamo Arouch, a passionate boxer, is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Soon, he is forced to box against his fellow prisoners for the sake of entertainment.

Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.

A band of determined Russian soldiers fight to hold a strategic building in their devastated city against a ruthless German army, and in the process become deeply connected to a Russian woman who has been living there.

Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy ambush. As they confront unthinkable odds, the SEALs must find reserves of strength and resilience to fight to the finish.

A dwindling group of German soldiers battle to return to their lines on the harsh Eastern Front.

19 year old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer in Poland when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of – the basement of the German Major's house. Over the next eight months, Irena uses her wit, humour and immense courage to hide her friends as long as possible.

Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek, an eight-year-old boy, who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto, then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand, disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a reward, who will beat him up or try to kill him, and he meets those, who will do and risk almost everything to help him. Jurek’s resilience is put to the ultimate test, when an accident cripples him, making it harder to find work. But he struggles on against all odds. Eventually the Russians reach his area and Jurek even finds a family where he could stay. Yet he is betrayed again, and a young man from a Jewish orphanage forcefully tries to bring Jurek back to his people and his faith.

Four young Jews survive the Third Reich in the middle of Berlin by living so recklessly that they become "invisible."

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.

The story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando — one of the thirteen consecutive "Special Squads" of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of assisting in the extermination of fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life.

Five American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War II struggle to return to Allied territory after being separated from U.S. forces during the historic Malmedy Massacre.

After a failed anti-Nazi sabotage mission leaves his eleven comrades dead, a Norwegian resistance fighter finds himself fleeing the Gestapo through the snowbound reaches of Scandinavia.

In the occupied Netherlands during World War II, banker Walraven van Hall is asked to use his financial contacts to help the Dutch resistance. With his brother Gijs, he comes up with a risky plan to take out huge loans and use the money to finance the Resistance.

The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.

Based on the true story of Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, who served as a courier between the commanders of the Polish Home Army and the Polish Government in Exile in London. He must return quickly to Warsaw to transmit orders from the Polish PM to the Home Army's commander-in-chief before the start of the Warsaw uprising.

Two young brothers are abandoned by their mother during summer of 1948, they run into the forest and survive there for seven years.

City of Warsaw, Poland, August 1st, 1944. Citizens have experienced inhuman acts of terror and violence during five long years of Nazi occupation. As the Soviet Army relentlessly approaches, the youngest and bravest among them rise up as one and face tyranny fighting street by street, but the price to pay will be high and hard the way to freedom…

A hiking trip into the wild turns into a desperate bid for survival for five friends on the run from a mysterious shooter.

In 1944, a courageous group of Russian soldiers managed to escape from German captivity in a half-destroyed legendary T-34 tank. Those were the times of unforgettable bravery, fierce fighting, unbreakable love, and legendary miracles.

The story of mime Marcel Marceau as he works with a group of Jewish boy scouts and the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II.

Isaac's son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.

April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.

This is the true story of Freddy and Walter – two young Slovak Jews, who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. On 10 April 1944, after meticulous planning, they manage to escape. While the inmates they had left behind courageously stand their ground against the Nazi officers, the two men are driven on by the hope that their evidence could save lives.

British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.

A city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky—shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganizing themselves into a guerrilla group of fighters.

When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad.

As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.

On the brink of the Second World War, a young Norwegian man's drive to resist the Nazis sets a new course for his future – and the future of his country.

At the beginning of the 1940s, in a France occupied by Nazi forces, lived the Jewish Joffo family. Happy and tight-knit, she sees her future darken when all members of the family are forced to wear the yellow star. Fearing the worst, the parents organized their family to flee to the free zone in the south of the country. Maurice, twelve years old, and Joseph, ten years old, will therefore leave alone in order to maximize their chances of finding their older brothers already settled in Nice. The brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.

In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.

Harry Haft is a boxer who fought fellow prisoners in the concentration camps to survive. Haunted by the memories and his guilt, he attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to find his first love again.

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

In July 1942, in the Second World War, the rearguard of the Russian army protects the bridgehead of the Don River against the German army while the retreating Russian troops cross the bridge. While they move back to the Russian territory through the countryside, the soldiers show their companionship, sentiments, fears and heroism to defend their motherland.

Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel.

After World War II, Anita, a young survivor of Auschwitz, becomes involved in an intense and passionate affair that almost shatters her until she gains the strength to start a new life.

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

The harrowing true story of the crew of the USS Indianapolis, who were stranded in the Philippine Sea for five days after delivering the atomic weapons that would eventually end WWII. As they awaited rescue, they endured extreme thirst, hunger, and relentless shark attacks.

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.

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

The film covers the heroic defence of the Brest Fortress, which was attacked during the first strike of German invaders on June 22 1941. The story describes the events of the first days of the defence, including the three main resistance zones, headed by the regiment commander, Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov, the commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin and the head of the 9th frontier outpost, Andrey Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov. Many years later veteran Alexander Akimov again recalls the memories of the time, when he, then a 15 year old Sasha Akimov was deeply in love with the beautiful Anya and suddenly found himself in the middle of the bloody events of war.

A US Army officer, who made a "friendly fire" mistake that was covered up, has been reassigned to a desk job. He is tasked to investigate a female chopper commander's worthiness to be awarded the Medal of Honor. At first all seems in order. But then he begins to notice inconsistencies between the testimonies of the witnesses...

In WWII, a squad of U.S. African-American soldiers are sent on a rescue mission behind enemy lines to locate their lost commanding officer and a downed fighter pilot.

Taking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long prepared uprising of the concentration camp prisoners against the SS.

It is 1940. The first transport of prisoners arrives at the newly created concentration camp Auschwitz. One of them is Tadeusz “Teddy” Pietrzykowski, pre-war boxing champion of Warsaw. The camp officers force him to fight in the ring for his and other prisoners’ lives. However, his every win strengthens the hope that Nazis are not invincible. Auschwitz officers notice the growing resistance. The confrontation with the authorities of the camp becomes inevitable.

In November of 1918 as World War I was ending, a unit of American soldiers goes behind enemy lines to find a lost platoon of African American soldiers.

The military draft is back. Three best friends are drafted and given 30 days to report for duty. In that time they're forced to confront everything they believe about courage, duty, love, friendship and honor. If called to serve, what would you do?

A WWII pilot, bombardier, and radioman find themselves adrift on a lifeboat without food or water after being forced to ditch their plane during a scouting mission.

Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a group of old, armed home-guardists.

In January 1943 the German army, afraid of an Allied invasion of the Balkans, launched a great offensive against Yugoslav Partisans in Western Bosnia. The only way out for Partisan forces and thousands of refugees was the bridge on the river Neretva.

In 1943, a childless couple, the Čížeks, decide to hide a Jewish refugee, David Wiener, the son of Čížek's former employer, in the secret pantry of their apartment. Čížek is aware of the danger into which he has brought his household and his neighbours, but he takes helping his fellow man in need for granted. But at the same time, as a largely unheroic hero, he is dying of fear. His personal situation is greatly complicated by the approaching end of the war, when he faces danger from both the Germans and his "honest" fellow Czechs...

Two brothers live in the economically-depressed Rust Belt, when a cruel twist of fate lands one in prison. His brother is then lured into one of the most violent crime rings in the Northeast.

Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.

Fires are raging in the Moscow region, and the forest protection airbase is on a rotation. However, experienced firefighters are in short supply and team leader Andrey Pavlovich has to take on a new recruit, Roman.

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

A band of soldiers tasked with staying behind during the Battle of Dunkirk to rescue a scientist with information that could turn the tide of the war must battle their way through dangerous Nazi territory to complete their mission.

After going through a series of tragic events in his life, martial arts master Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin and must fight four international soldiers, in order to safeguard his nation's pride.

In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lvov (formerly Poland).

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

A brother and sister who run away from home find sanctuary in a deserted nature reserve. When the sister falls into the trap of a psychopathic killer, the brother sets out on a race against time to find help. In a twist of fate the rescue of the sister becomes inadvertently intertwined with the lives of a group of young tennis players, a ranger and his dog, as well as a team of policemen.

Jim Hanson’s quiet life is suddenly disturbed by two people crossing the US/Mexico border – a woman and her young son – desperate to flee a Mexican cartel. After a shootout leaves the mother dead, Jim becomes the boy’s reluctant defender. He embraces his role as Miguel’s protector and will stop at nothing to get him to safety, as they go on the run from the relentless assassins.

After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

Tuur and Lambert are best friends. But the war is closing in and is about to change their lives forever. Tuurs dad joined the resistance and even his big brother seems so be part of it. Lamberts family on the other hand choose to obey the Germans. Then a new girls from the city shows up, befriending the boys but telling her secret to only one of them. A choice that separates the boys and ultimately gets her in trouble.

American soldiers lost behind enemy lines during the WWII make a horrific discovery: Hitler has a super bomb in development. Against all odds, they set out to find the scientist in charge of the program who is looking to defect.

The film is based on the true story about a Soviet KV-1 crew of a Soviet KV-1 tank, under the command of Semyon Konovalov , whom despite being heavily outnumbered by German forces, destroyed 16 tanks, 2 armored vehicles and 8 other enemy vehicles at the village of Nizhnemytyakin, Tarasovsky district, Rostov region on July 13th, 1942.

Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart.

Former Danish servicemen Lars and Jimmy are thrown together while training in a neo-Nazi group. Moving from hostility through grudging admiration to friendship and finally passion, events take a darker turn when their illicit relationship is uncovered.

Targeted by Nazis as they hunt down and murder people with disabilities, a boy with a limb difference makes a daring decision while running for his life.

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

Occupied France, 1940. A Nazi Commander discovers one of his prisoners, Danny is a champion boxer. He forces him to fight for his company's entertainment. But the POWs realise they can use these contests, as cover for an audacious breakout, before they re sent to Germany, where escape will be almost impossible. Their fate and freedom may all come down to how long Danny can keep fighting.

Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.

Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.

Members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots battle deadly wildfires to save an Arizona town.

A Danish officer, Michael, is sent away to the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan for three months. His first mission there is to find a young radar technician who had been separated from his squad some days earlier. While on the search, his helicopter is shot down and he is taken as a prisoner of war, but is reported dead to the family.

Fanny is a Jewish girl in a French orphanage in 1943. When she and her friends are no longer safe from the Nazis, they try to flee to Switzerland. After their guide disappears, Fanny has to take the lead and help the other kids make it over the mountains.

The relationships among two pre-pubescent brothers and their estranged father are tested on a trip into the Russian wilderness.

A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.

A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

Stalinstadt, East Germany, 1956. While the Hungarian uprising against Soviets is taking place, teenage members of a classroom of the local school perform a seemingly harmless act that causes unexpected consequences.

The behind-the-scenes true life story of a groundbreaking producer, Milton Fruchtman, and blacklisted TV director Leo Hurwitz who, overcoming enormous obstacles, set out to capture the testimony of one of the war's most notorious Nazis, Adolf Eichmann, who is accused of executing the 'final solution' and organising the murder of 6 million Jews. This is the extraordinary story of how the trial came to be televised and the team that made it happen.

Based on real life events, the film revolves around the heroic efforts of a team of firefighters as they attempt to deal with a fire that breaks out at an oil refinery in Dalian.

A down-on-his-luck American Indian recently released from jail is offered the chance to "star" as the victim of a snuff film, the resulting pay of which could greatly help his poverty stricken family.

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

In New York, former convict Pete Koslow, related to the Polish mafia, must deal with both Klimek the General, his ruthless boss, and the twisted ambitions of two federal agents, as he tries to survive and protect the lives of his loved ones.

Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.



