Uprising

Uprising (2001) is a made-for-television war drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Jon Avnet. The film covers the armed revolt that broke out in the Warsaw Ghetto in January 1943, when members of the Jewish Fighting Organization refused to board trains bound for the Treblinka death camp.

Hank Azaria, David Schwimmer and Leelee Sobieski play the young organizers who had weeks to turn civilians into a fighting force. John Voight and Donald Sutherland round out the cast. The uprising held for nearly a month against SS troops — armed with a few pistols and homemade bombs — when the Germans had expected to crush it in three days.

Avnet keeps the focus on the people rather than the spectacle, which gives the film a weight that big-budget war movies sometimes miss. For anyone who wants a clear-eyed account of one of World War II's most defiant acts of resistance, this is a serious and rarely-told story. Watch Uprising (2001) online on iFILM.