[The film] touches on important questions about the costs of human life and the dangers of hatred in a stirring, heart-wrenching tale.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 7, 2024

A child’s-eye view of the Holocaust, this family film is likely to trigger big questions from younger viewers.

| Nov 4, 2022

“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” asks several powerful questions about war, family, and morality. It also gives us a glimpse into a part of our world’s history that is still hard to look at but should be reckoned with.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2022

A valiant attempt to tell a small scale story about an unimaginably huge period in our history, and while it may drag in places, it has its heart in the right place and a devastating ending that will take your breath away.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 31, 2021

At once painful, tear-jerking, and deeply emotional, this is a film that cannot be easily forgotten.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2020

British director Mark Herman's film... is moving and thought provoking, and handles its subject matter with great sensitivity. It deserves to be seen by young and old.

| Nov 12, 2020

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas may very well be 2008's most important family film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 4, 2020

Despite the film's various weaknesses, however, it's hard not to be moved by its ending.

| Sep 2, 2020

A superb adaptation of John Boyne's novel bears witness to the unyielding horror of the Holocaust through the eyes of a child.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2020

This intelligent film offers a fresh perspective on an oft-portrayed period, asking the viewer to question his own assumptions about what he expects and wants from such a telling.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 12, 2018

Not without its qualities, the movie ultimately does a disservice to the very people it purports to represent.

| Original Score: 69/100 | Jul 12, 2012

[Director] Mark Herman knows how to milk the melodrama from every scene, but viewers may feel a little icky about the experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

A film dealing with the Holocaust really should be a little less clumsily executed, manipulative and contrived than this.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 14, 2011

Built upon a powerful but gimmicky end, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas would make a fine short. As a full-length feature, though, the pajamas wear thin quickly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 14, 2009

We are left in no doubt about the brutality of what's going on there but it's almost entirely off-screen. Still, the film is terribly confronting.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 1, 2009

This writer can't remember witnessing a harder-hitting kids' movie denouement than the one that closes this microcosm of middle-class German family life in WWII.

| Original Score: 4/6 | Apr 24, 2009

Much of the film depends on our ability to suspend disbelief and see the world as Bruno sees it. It has a finale designed to shock.

| Apr 24, 2009

You may get halfway through and wonder why it's getting so heavily recommended here. Once you've experienced it in its entirety, you'll know why.

| Apr 24, 2009

For me, the pluses far outweighed any misgivings I had with this ultimately very moving film.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2009

The performances never falter, and even James Horner's heavy-handed score can't dim the film's unfathomable, unshakable ending.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2009