The Pianist

The Pianist (2002) is Roman Polanski's wartime drama you can watch online on iFILM. The film follows Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish concert pianist who survived the German occupation of Warsaw — adapted from Szpilman's own memoir published after the war. Adrien Brody spent months learning piano and losing weight to carry the role without shortcuts.

In September 1939 Szpilman is still on air at Warsaw Radio. Then come the ghetto walls, roundups, and cattle cars. His entire family is deported in 1942; he stays behind alone. The next few years are a series of borrowed rooms, near starvation, and a piano he cannot touch without risking his life. Late in the film a single German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann), offers help when there is no logical reason to do so.

A British-French-German-Polish co-production. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2002, Adrien Brody took the Academy Award for Best Actor, and Polanski won for Best Direction. 150 minutes, very few wasted words. Stream The Pianist (2002) on iFILM.