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Movies that feel like The Champion (2021)

If you loved The Champion, the closest films we have are Sobibor (2018), Kalashnikov AK-47 (2020) and Persian Lessons (2020). All three share The Champion's contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 7 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and OVID and others, checked against today's data.

It is 1940. The first transport of prisoners arrives at the newly created concentration camp Auschwitz. One of them is Tadeusz “Teddy” Pietrzykowski, pre-war boxing champion of Warsaw. The camp officers force him to fight in the ring for his and other prisoners’ lives. However, his every win strengthens the hope that Nazis are not invincible. Auschwitz officers notice the growing resistance. The confrontation with the authorities of the camp becomes inevitable.

6.7 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Maciej Barczewskicontemplativeepicbleak
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If The Champion hit the spot, these will too

Sobibor poster
Sobibor
2018 · dir. Konstantin Khabenskiy
🍅 73%6.4war · drama

Both are built on the same subject: concentration camp

The difference: None of the scale The Champion is built on

The film is based on a real story that happened in 1943 in the Sobibor concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. The main character of the movie is the Soviet-Jewish soldier Alexander Pechersky, who at that time was serving in the Red Army as a lieutenant. In October 1943, he was captured by the Nazis and deported to the Sobibor concentration camp, where Jews were being exterminated in gas chambers. But, in just 3 weeks, Alexander was able to plan an international uprising of prisoners from Poland and Western Europe. This uprising resulted in being the only successful one throughout the war, which led to the largest escape of prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp.

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Kalashnikov AK-47 poster
Kalashnikov AK-47
2020 · dir. Konstantin Buslov
6.6war · history · drama

Contemplative and epic in the same breath

A Russian military propaganda film about the tank commander Kalashnikov, severely injured in battle in 1941. The accident leaves him incapacitated and unable to return to the front line. While recovering in the hospital, he begins creating the initial sketches of what will become one of the world’s most legendary weapons. A self-taught inventor is only 29 when he develops the now iconic assault riffle — the AK-47. Shot in occupied Crimea.

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Persian Lessons poster
Persian Lessons
2020 · dir. Vadim Perelman
🍅 80%7.4war · drama

One thread runs through both: concentration camp

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.

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Flame & Citron poster
Flame & Citron
2008 · dir. Ole Christian Madsen
🍅 86%7.2drama · history · war

Drama built on bleakness, twice over

Gunman Flame and his partner Citron assassinate Nazi collaborators for the Danish resistance. Assigned targets by their Allies-connected leader, Aksel Winther, they relish the opportunity to begin targeting the Nazis themselves. When they begin to doubt the validity of their assignments, their morally complicated task becomes even more labyrinthine.

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Katyn poster
Katyn
2007 · dir. Andrzej Wajda
🍅 91%7drama · history · war

History with a pulse of stillness, in both cases

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.

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The Shadow in My Eye poster
The Shadow in My Eye
2021 · dir. Ole Bornedal
7.3war · drama · history

Epic war, and it commits to that

On March 21st, 1945, the British Royal Air Force set out on a mission to bomb Gestapo's headquarters in Copenhagen. The raid had fatal consequences as some of the bombers accidentally targeted a school and more than 120 people were killed, 86 of whom were children.

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The Captain poster
The Captain
2018 · dir. Robert Schwentke
🍅 83%7.3war · drama · history

Both lean on bleakness more than on drama

Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of a Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.

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9th Company poster
9th Company
2005 · dir. Fyodor Bondarchuk
🍅 69%7.1war · drama · history

Contemplative history in both cases

Russian army recruits complete training and take their posting in late 1980s Afghanistan, where the insurgents are slowly gaining the upper hand.

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T-34 poster
T-34
2018 · dir. Alexey Sidorov
6.8drama · history · war

War with a pulse of scale, in both cases

In 1944, a courageous group of Russian soldiers managed to escape from German captivity in a half-destroyed legendary T-34 tank. Those were the times of unforgettable bravery, fierce fighting, unbreakable love, and legendary miracles.

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Warsaw 44 poster
Warsaw 44
2014 · dir. Jan Komasa
6.6drama · history · war

A 2010s answer to the same itch

City of Warsaw, Poland, August 1st, 1944. Citizens have experienced inhuman acts of terror and violence during five long years of Nazi occupation. As the Soviet Army relentlessly approaches, the youngest and bravest among them rise up as one and face tyranny fighting street by street, but the price to pay will be high and hard the way to freedom…

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The Counterfeiters poster
The Counterfeiters
2007 · dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
🍅 93%7.5drama · war

Both are war through and through

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

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The Flowers of War poster
The Flowers of War
2011 · dir. Zhang Yimou
🍅 41%7.5drama · history · war

Both know what they want from history

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

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In the mood for more contemplative?

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The best-reviewed films that share The Champion’s defining feeling.