22 Movies You’ll Regret Not Watching
16. The Book Thief
Based on the novel by Marcus Zusak, “The Book Thief” is set in Germany during WWII and details the hardships faced by one family as well as their heroics.
The film is acclaimed for providing a fresh prospective on this historic war. It also details life in Berlin with gritty realism. For his memorable performance, Rush was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.
The film opens with a young family traveling by train. Viewers quickly learn that the young children are traveling to new families to be fostered or adopted. Young Liesel winds up in the home of a poor and often out-of-work painter and his wife, a seemingly gruff woman who takes in laundry.
While it seems apparent at first that the woman only wants Liesel in the home for the money she’ll bring in, her adopted father (Rush) is taken with her from the start and the two form an intense bond that is further nurtured when he teaches the illiterate girl how to read. This stunning film is well-worth seeing for anyone who loves historical films that also convey the heroic human spirit.
