A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/?p … http_tt_35

Plot
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during the Nazi German invasion of Poland. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman rejoices with his family at home when he learns that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but the promised aid does not come. Fighting lasts for just over a month, with both the German and Soviet armies invading Poland at the same time on different fronts. Warsaw becomes part of the Nazi-controlled General Government. Jews are soon prevented from working or owning businesses and are also made to wear blue Star of David armbands.

By November 1940, Szpilman and his family are forced from their home into the isolated and overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto, where conditions only get worse. People starve, the SS guards are brutal, starving children are abandoned and there are dead bodies everywhere. On one occasion, the Szpilmans witness the SS kill an entire family in an apartment across the street during a round-up, including dumping a man in a wheelchair out a window.

On 16 August 1942, Szpilman and his family are about to be transported to the Treblinka extermination camp as part of Operation Reinhard. But a friend in the Jewish Ghetto Police recognizes Władysław at the Umschlagplatz and separates him from his family. He becomes a slave laborer and learns of a coming Jewish revolt. He helps the resistance by smuggling weapons into the ghetto, on one occasion narrowly avoiding a suspicious guard. Szpilman eventually manages to escape and goes into hiding with help from a non-Jewish friend, Andrzej Bogucki, and his wife, Janina.

In April 1943, Szpilman watches from his window as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which he aided, unfolds, and then ultimately fails. After a neighbor discovers Szpilman in the flat, he is forced to flee to a second hiding place. The new room has a piano in it, but he is compelled to keep quiet, while beginning to suffer from jaundice.

In August 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Home Army attacks a German building across the street from Szpilman's hideout. Tank shells hit the apartment, forcing him to flee. Over the course of the following months, Warsaw is destroyed. Szpilman is left alone to search desperately for shelter and supplies among the ruins. He eventually makes his way to a house where he finds a can of pickled cucumbers. While trying to open it, he is noticed by Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld, who learns that Szpilman is a pianist. He asks Szpilman to play on a grand piano in the house. The decrepit Szpilman manages to play Chopin's Ballade in G minor. Hosenfeld lets Szpilman hide in the attic of the empty house. Whilst there, he is regularly supplied with food by the German officer.

In January 1945, the Germans are retreating from the Red Army. Hosenfeld meets Szpilman for the last time, promising he will listen to him on Polish Radio after the war. He gives Szpilman his greatcoat to keep warm and leaves. In Spring 1945, former inmates of a Nazi concentration camp pass by a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp holding captured German soldiers and verbally abuse them. Hosenfeld, being one of the prisoners, overhears a released inmate lamenting over his former career as a violinist. He asks him whether he knows Szpilman, which he confirms, and Hosenfeld says he helped Szpilman and begs him to tell Szpilman he is in the camp. Later the violinist and Szpilman reach the prisoners camp but find it abandoned.

After the war, Szpilman is back at the Polish Radio, where he performs Chopin's "Grande Polonaise Brillante" to a large prestigious audience. An epilogue states that Szpilman died in 2000 at the age of 88, and all that is known of Hosenfeld is he died in 1952, still in Soviet captivity.

Cast
Adrien Brody as Władysław Szpilman
Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Wilm Hosenfeld
Frank Finlay as Samuel Szpilman
Maureen Lipman as Edwarda Szpilman
Emilia Fox as Dorota
Ed Stoppard as Henryk Szpilman
Julia Rayner as Regina Szpilman
Jessica Kate Meyer as Halina Szpilman
Ronan Vibert as Andrzej Bogucki
Ruth Platt as Janina Bogucki
Andrew Tiernan as Szalas
Michał Żebrowski as Jurek
Roy Smiles as Itzhak Heller
Richard Ridings as Mr. Lipa
Daniel Caltagirone as Majorek
Valentine Pelka as Dorota's Husband
Zbigniew Zamachowski as Customer with Coins
Ireneusz Machnicki as SS Officer
Cezary Krajewski as SS Officer