Best movies like Piłsudski

How was it possible that a single man influenced contemporary world so significantly? This film is an attempt to capture the phenomenon of a common man’s metamorphosis into a charismatic leader — an attempt to see how a Gdansk shipyard electrician fighting for workers’ rights awakened a hidden desire for freedom in millions of people.

Westerplatte is a small peninsula at the entry to the Gdansk Harbour. Before World War II, it functioned as a Polish ammunition depot in the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk. 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. It was the first obstacle to Hitler's predatory march across Europe. The first shots of World War II were fired here. This film tells the story of Westerplatte's courageous defenders.

More documentary in its approach than dramatized history, this is a compelling story about a 1901 children's strike in Wrzesnia near the Polish border with Prussia. Poland was partitioned at this time, and a rigidly patriotic Prussian teacher in Wrzesnia follows the dictates of the Germans in parliament and insists that the children be taught their religion classes in German. When the children refuse to take part in the classes, they are supported by the local priest, but that does not save them from being beaten. They are also kept after school and tormented in other ways as well. Newspapers, parents, and the nation as a whole get involved, transforming a simple children's strike into a national incident.

Poland, 1970. Firmly determined to fight against Soviet tyranny and prevent the destruction of the world, the high-ranking officer of the Polish army Ryszard Kukliński makes a serious decision that will put his life, his family and the fate of an entire nation at risk.

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.

Poland's winning battle against Soviet Russia as seen through the eyes of two young protagonists, Ola and Jan. She is a Warsaw cabaret dancer, while he is a cavalry officer and poet who believes in socialist ideals

Based on a true story of Polish submarine "Orzel" (The Eagle): September 1939, "Orzel" is coming to Estonian neutral harbor in Tallin. Under pressure from Germany Estonians have intern the ship. Commander Grabinski decides to escape to England through the Baltic Sea, without any maps that has been confiscated and with only small amount of fuel on board.

In the eve of the Day of the Dead, among mysterious old rituals of the Vilnius region, ghosts of the past and present start to appear.

In preparation for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied territory, the 'overlords' were the few Allied agents who knew the details of the operation. When one them is captured by the Germans, a double agent must infiltrate occupied Paris, with the help of a high level German officer and the French resistance.

The inspiring true story of Eleanor Riese, a mental illness patient herself, who brings a class action suit to give competent mental patients the right to have a say in their medication while they’re in a hospital, and Colette Hughes, the lawyer appointed to her case.

A story about the life of a woman, two men of her life and her son, Janek Garbus, seen through the eyes of the latter - "conceived by an NKVD uncle on the night after the Soviet army entered".

Set in Norfolk, amidst an idyllic, brooding landscape, an innocent teenage boy and his battle-weary father live a simple life. Days are spent hunting, fishing and daydreaming. Out-of-nowhere, disrupting this tranquility, a mysterious intense figure gives the green light for the father to complete one last mission; he is a mercenary, hired to assassinate a group of revolutionaries holed-up in a remote, disused civil service outpost. A mission that threatens to destroy not just the compound but the love between a father and his son.

This heroic story follows the life of Karol Wojtyla, a Polish Roman catholic who ascends the throne of St. Peter as Pope John Paul II. As a young boy, Karol is a bright and talented student. Archbishop Sapieha recognizes the very special, moving qualities Karol possesses and encourages him to consider the priesthood. Although determined to study Polish literature, Karol turns to the church; he is ordained and studies in Italy, France, and Belgium. Torn by fear and repression in post-Stalin Eastern Europe, Karol becomes a poisonous thorn in the communists' side. His deer reverence and commitment return him to Poland as Pope John Paul II.

The four sequences in the film cover four days in a life of young Warsaw lad in September 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1944. In the first sequence Jurek decides not to study in the Sorbonne but enlists in a Polish military school instead. In the second sequence the war starts and Warsaw is occupied. In the third sequence he works in the underground resistance. The final sequence takes place during the Warsaw uprising.

Through the fate of the boy - whose hunger drives from his home village , and who receives a severe school of life , going through different social environments in order to become conscious , revolutionary activist - creators show a realistic panorama of conflicts in pre-WWII Poland.

In 1944, Capt. Josiah J. Newman is the doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward, at an Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona. The hospital is under-resourced and Newman scrounges what he needs with the help of his inventive staff, especially Cpl. Jake Leibowitz. The military in general is only just coming to accept psychiatric disorders as legitimate and Newman generally has 6 weeks to cure them or send them on to another facility. There are many patients in the ward and his latest include Colonel Norville Bliss who has dissociated from his past; Capt. Paul Winston who is nearly catatonic after spending 13 months hiding in a cellar behind enemy lines; and 20 year-old Cpl. Jim Tompkins who is severely traumatized after his aircraft was shot down. Others come and go, including Italian prisoners of war, but Newman and team all realize that their success means the men will return to their units.

Underground is a 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after they went underground and footage of the anti-war and civil rights protests of the time. It was directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to confiscate the film footage in order to gain information that would help them arrest the Weathermen. (Wikipedia)

A murderous psycho breaks out of a mental hospital and goes after his rich uncle who killed his father and raped his mother.

A boggy swashbuckler of Irish freedom-fighter Michael Martin. In 1815, Michael Martin, member of an Irish revolutionary society, turns highwayman to support it, and soon becomes an outlaw. In Dublin, he meets famous rebel "Captain Thunderbolt" and becomes his second-in-command, under the name "Lightfoot."

Polish film and music icon Kalina Jedrusik, a scandalous free-spirited sex symbol, fights for her independence in the prude society of the 1960s.

A universal story about entering adulthood in difficult times, growing up to the community. The great history is the background for the love story unfolding in the foreground: Józek, a deserter from the tsarist army who joins the emerging Legions, an intelligence agent for the I Brigade and Women’s Leage member – Ola, and Tadek, her fiancée, a member of Shooting Team.

A young man in his twenties leaves prison after a three-year sentence. He wants to start a new life in a place where he is not known and dreams only of a job, a wife and a family. He succeeds partially in fulfilling these dreams, but then runs into a conflict on a construction job between the corrupt boss and fellow workers secretly planning a strike. He becomes a pawn in one camp while remaining true to his ideals in the other. Filmed in 1976 and shelved for five years.

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

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 revolution of 1905 is underway. Jan Czarowic, a revolutionist, loves beautiful Krystyna without reciprocity. Soon he takes part in an attack on a Russian general. One of the comrades is arrested and blackmailed, he betrays the others. Soon, all the fighters end up in a Russian prison, where they are tortured. However, Krystyna comes to help.

Waclaw Orzeszko is unlucky soldier. Nobody from the platoon likes him. One day he decided to go away from platoon. At the castle he meet Russian soldier Marusia. At this time German forces came at the castle. They must hide. But there is also second problem. Waclaw's platoon had to find deserter. Polish Soldier close to the castle.

The final film produced by Warsaw’s Documentary Film Studio is an epic re-enactment of a treacherous mission by the Voluntary Tatra Mountain Rescue Service to aid colleagues stranded behind enemy lines at the close of World War II (several real participants feature in the film). Based on a short story about the rescue by Adam Liberak, Munk’s final “documentary” is also arguably his first major exercise in the craft of narrative filmmaking.

The Italian soldier Giuseppe Santucci, on his way home from the Russian front, during World War II (in 1943), has his machine gun stolen in Warsaw. Afraid of consequences, he stays in Warsaw and occupies a flat of the Polish girl Maria, whom he suspects of stealing weapon. Maria indeed is an active member of the Polish resistance, contrary to her brother, Staszek, a painter, who only wants a calm living. In a course of funny events, Giuseppe falls in love, and, along with Staszek, becomes a hero of the Polish resistance.

Two-part biopic about General Karol Świerczewski, living embodiment of the party line, and the group of party members from his hometown fighting the fascist forces towards the socialist state of affairs.

Marek, a young writer, is trying to solve the mystery of the night his friend Arthur died. In the recesses of his memory, Marek finds fragments of past events: a party at the home of an eccentric publisher, his argument with Arthur, the exchange of blows, blood. Afraid that he has killed his friend, Marek suppresses his feelings of fear and guilt in his passionate meetings with a woman who has more to do with Arthur’s disappearance than it seems...

An arrogant medical man discovers there's more to his new patient than he imagined in this drama from Polish filmmaker Feliks Falk. Dr. Konstanty Grot (Borys Szyc) is an ambitious young doctor who is determined to make a name for himself, to the point that his wife often accuses him of being more interested in his career than in her. Grot believes that he can earn the respect of his peers by successfully treating a supposedly incurable patient, and he believes he may have found a likely candidate in Pawel Plocki (Grzegorz Wolf), a mental patient who can barely function. Grot signs Plocki out of the mental hospital where he's been treated for years and moves him into his own home; in time, Plocki shows genuine improvement, and Grot thinks he?s beaten the state medical establishment at their own game. But that?s before Grot learns some secrets about his patient that cast his condition in a new and disturbing light.

A young man joins the revolutionary movement in 1905, aimed at Tsarist occupiers of Poland. The members of the secret organization conspire to take the life of a noted Russian general.