Best Polish war movies

A Generation (1955)

Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in dangerous efforts to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for others’ lives. A coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, A Generation delivers a brutal portrait of the human cost of war.

Holy Week (1995)

During the Nazi era, a Jewish woman on the run takes a trolley which passes near the Warsaw ghetto, where the uprising battle is taking place, and some passengers are struck by stray bullets. They take temporary refuge in an empty building, and there she has a chance meeting with her ex-fiancé. He offers to put her up--that is, hide her--for a few days. He's now married, a professional who lives in an idyllic suburb reached by a trolley that runs through the woods. His wife seems more committed to putting up the fugitive than he is. The story involves the neighbors, the building owner who avoids involvement and seeks solace in classic poetry, and the super and his suspicious wife.

The Law and the Fist (1964)

At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.

Bestia (1979)

Years later, Paweł Sarnawski returns from Switzerland to an estate in Greater Poland, where he intends to modernize a run-down farm.

Birth Certificate (1961)

Three separate stories depicting the tense everyday life during occupation, as seen through the eyes of children. In “On the Road,” the two main protagonists are lost in the September’s strife: a young boy, and a soldier transporting the valueless documents of his broken unit. In “Letter from the Concentration Camp” the story’s protagonists are young boys who help their mother during the hardships of the occupation. Their treasure is an officer uniform belonging their father who is being held in a prisoner of war camp. In “Blood Drop,” the Germans find a set of typical Aryan characteristics in this story’s protagonist – a Jewish girl, hiding in an orphanage.

Hospital of the Transfiguration (1979)

Shortly after the beginning of World War 2 a young idealist doctor is employed in a psychiatric hospital, where his notions of proper care for the patients are challenged by staff and the German occupation.

The Artillery Sergeant Kaleń (1961)

The movie is about the fate of Polish soldier named Kaleń who fought with UPA in 1946.The film recounts the exploits of the Polish soldier caught in the turmoil among the Polish Communist army, anti-communist underground and Ukrainian fascists.

Hubal (1973)

Based on a true story. After Poland is overrun by Axis forces in 1939, an officer and his remaining men decide to continue fighting the invaders alone, thereby becoming the first guerrillas of World War II.

Westerplatte Resists (1967)

Westerplatte is a small peninsula at the entry to the Gdańsk Harbour. Before World War II, it functioned as a Polish ammunition depot in the Free City of Danzig. Its crew consisted of one infantry company and a group of civilians, 182 people in total. It was the only Polish guard-post at the mouth of the Vistula River, with as little as five sentries, one field cannon, two anti-armour guns and four mortars. The first shots of World War II were fired there. This film tells the story of Westerplatte's courageous defenders.

Austeria (1983)

During a pogrom in Poland on the eve of World War I, a group of Jews seek refuge from the Cossacks. The fugitives hide out in a rural inn, terrified that they may be given away at any moment.

Rzeczpospolita babska (1969)

After the end of World War 2 a division of female soldiers settles down at Recovered Territories and make an oath to never enter into relationships with men, which may prove difficult, because male soldiers have also made their home nearby.

Joanna (2010)

In an era in which it is difficult for the true emotion and excitement, Feliks Falk found the key to the human heart. How many of us love? How much we are able to self-sacrifice? Is there a price that can not pay, when it comes to life of a loved one? Are we really as good as we think about yourself? In Joanna's life is given forever. Today's friend suddenly becomes an enemy. Reflex heart turns into a curse. When one of the lonely woman takes care of little girls-czynkę do not know that from now on, her life will be sweet - bitter taste. Fate in this film is everything. Allows people to find that in a moment blow and lead to separation. After-forgives love, for which you have to pay a huge price. Fulfills the promise of happiness loneliness, brittle as glass.

The Musicians (2021)

Roman Cudakowski, for his friends Cudak, plays in a band at weddings and city parties. During the occupation, the musician did not do well. Entrances to the premises for Germans are an opportunity to earn money. However, they cannot imagine themselves orchestras without a violinist. Cudak takes the gifted Szymon Akerman out of the ghetto to concerts, with whom he did not agree before the war. In the new reality, they both need each other: Cudak can earn money by playing with Akerman, has a chance to survive. One day, Roman decides to permanently take the violinist and his family from the ghetto and hide them, risking his life, in his home.

Where is the General? (1964)

Wacław Orzeszko is unlucky soldier, who one day decides to desert his platoon and hide out in a castle, where he meets a Red Army soldier Marusia. They discover that a German platoon is also hiding in a castle and together they must stop the Nazi soldiers from reuniting with the main army.

Daredevils (1928)

Leonard Buczkowski's feature debut in 1928 is the first Polish film super-production - made with the participation of many military formations, with innovative battle scenes, epoch-making weapons and the latest technical achievements.

The Belly of a Horrible Machine, Bleeding to Death (2019)

World War II. Kulak of Polish descent has been robbed. A man is so desperate that he decides to go through a minefield to pick apples for his dying son.

The Taste of the Black Earth (1970)

During the 1920 Silesian uprising, seven brothers take part in the struggle with the Germans to keep the region in the Polish hands.

The Reconciliation (2017)

The beginning of 1945, Poland. In a newly liberated country, the Communist Security Service is annihilating its enemies under the guise of punishing "national traitors." They organize a labor camp for Germans, Silesians and Poles, on the site of a former Nazi concentration camp called Zgoda / Reconciliation. Franek, who is in love with the Polish prisoner Anna, goes to work as a warder in the camp to save her. He does not know that one of the prisoners - Erwin, his German friend, also loved this girl for a long time. Franek joins the communists in the illusory hope of outsmarting the system.

Nikt nie woła (1960)

Shortly after World War 2 a young man arrives on the Recovered Territories and starts a romance with a young woman, all the while evading the ghosts of his past.

Day in the Life of Gestapo Officer Schmidt (1964)

The photographs of a member of the Gestapo, with narration from the captions he left in his album. Film released in 1964.

August Sky – 63 Days of Glory (2013)

A decades-old diary found at a construction site reveals the harrowing account of a professor in hiding during the early days of the Warsaw Uprising.

Pilecki (2015)

The film "Pilecki" is a fictionalized documentary depicting the story of Witold Pilecki, from his youth through action during World War II, up to the imprisonment and death in May 1948.

Red Rowan (1970)

The Polish Army fights to liberate Kołobrzeg from the Germans in the final months of World War 2.

A Face of an Angel (1971)

Story of 11-year old Tadeusz, a prisoner in a children's concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Tajemnica Westerplatte (2013)

The First Day of Freedom (1964)

Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.

To the Last Drop of Blood (1978)

The Ring with a Crowned Eagle (1992)

A Polish Resistance fighter who survived the Nazi years cannot accept the new Communist power.

Cross of Valor (1959)

Three episodes showing the repercussions of war. A soldier is awarded with the Cross of Valor and vacation to home. But instead of his village, he finds only the charred ruins. A stray dog turns out to be the former guard at Auschwitz. A young widow is hailed as the wife of the hero but dreams of something else.

Under the Volcano (2024)

The Ukrainian family of four is spending the last day of their vacation on the island of Tenerife. They do not know yet that the next day, their flight to Kyiv will be canceled and Russian bombs will start falling on their counrty.