The Pianist
Directed by Roman Polanski
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city. From TMDB
202 reactions from 3 sources (Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Oct 9, 2026 · last updated Oct 14, 2026 · How this works
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| Source | + | − | = |
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| Bluesky * | 33 | 3 | 108 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 6 |
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Critics, per Wikipedia
The Pianist was widely acclaimed by critics, with Brody's performance, Harwood's screenplay, and Polanski's direction receiving special praise. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 186 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Well-acted and dramatically moving, The Pianist is Polanski's best work in years." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, noting that, "perhaps that impassive quality reflects what [director Roman] Polanski wants to say. ...…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 202 · most liked firstAdrien Brody won best actor for movie year 2002 for his performance in the Pianist. But I believe it should've gone to Matthew Lillard for playing Shaggy in Scooby Doo. It's technically incredible. And it feels like somehow, on a deep level, he GETS Shaggy.
neutral · AI labelView post →This study I did of a still from the movie The Pianist feels a little bit close to home with the news lately. I was experimenting and learning how to use rapidiograph pens. It was fun, and I hope I get to use them again soon.
neutral · AI labelView post →#Israel -i soldiers play around in a destroyed home in south #Lebanon. The owner of the piano saw the video and shared a video she took of herself playing the soundtrack of The Pianist, the holocaust movie.
neutral · AI labelView post →Bride of Chuckie, now there’s a film. The Pianist, that’s another
neutral · AI labelView post →if it’s someone you are close to, maybe they’d even be willing to watch a movie. There are so many good ones. My area of focus is on the Jewish Holocaust and my favorite movie is The Pianist. But there are so many others, documentaries too. I will never stop talking about all of this, my liberal
positive · AI labelView post →I watched The Pianist yesterday for the first time What a masterpiece. What a performance by Adrien Brody. The film has stayed with me all day and will for a long time. So harrowing, so moving, so brilliantly filmed. In my opinion, better than Schindlers list, which was the best I had seen.
positive · AI labelView post →Watching a nice cheerful movie this evening. The Pianist (2002)
negative · AI labelView post →With each rise and fall of the bow, city walls and battle smoke tremble in unison, echoing Baldur’s Gate’s final reverberations. *Inspired by the World War II film The Pianist. #BG3 #Astarion #Astarionfanart #BaldursGate3
neutral · AI labelView post →#NowWatching THE PIANIST (2002). Director: Roman Polanski. Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann. Feeling like a peppy musical to lift my spirits. This should do the trick, right? Rewatching winner of 3 Oscars, including Actor & Director. #filmsky 📽
negative · AI labelView post →Thank you for this detailed recount of events. If anyone has ever watched "The Pianist" this post of the detail of events reminds me of that movie.
neutral · AI labelView post →In my brain, The Piano, The Pianist, and The Piano Teacher are all the same movie
neutral · AI labelView post →#MovieMadness Day 8: best acting performance Adrian Brody in 'The Pianist'. He portrays a gifted pianist--a relatively frail, civilized man--who survives the Holocaust not through heroism, but by a combination of luck, unexpected kindness, and the capacity to endure suffering and adversity.
neutral · AI labelView post →It's always funny to me because some silent era veterans would get dewy-eyed about how silent movies introduced people to highbrow music but actual film magazines were like: "WILL THE PIANIST PLEASE STOP PLAYING "I'VE GOT A PAIN IN MY SAWDUST" DURING DEATH SCENES!"
neutral · AI labelView post →Good morning everyone! Today is sharing day, what's your favorite historic film? I have quite a few but the standout for me is . . The Pianist (2002)
positive · AI labelView post →I can't remember if it was Schindler's List or The Pianist or some other holocaust movie but there was an early scene when the Nazis push an old man in a wheelchair out the window of an apartment building. This is that.
neutral · AI labelView post →In 1998, a daughter of Hosenfeld's found over 600 letters from her father to her mother and other documents, including his diaries. Spilman's biography was translated into English (1999) which led to Polanski's film "The Pianist" (2002). (His story was released in Poland in 1946)
neutral · AI labelView post →Favourite film for each year of the 2000s: 2000: Sexy Beast 2001: Mulholland Drive 2002: The Pianist 2003: Oldboy 2004: Sideways 2005: Wolf Creek 2006: The Prestige 2007: No Country for Old Men 2008: Martyrs 2009: Inglourious Basterds
neutral · AI labelView post →In 2003, Polanski won the Oscar for Best Director for the Pianist. There was a standing ovation and Harrison Ford accepted it for him, though he was also the presenter so it could have been just because he was there. Then again, he did meet up with Polanski at a festival in France to deliver the award himself, so… https://youtu.be/PXnNOBj26lk
neutral · AI labelView post →About more than half way through The Pianist. I've had to stop watching it multiple times because it got way too much for me at points. It's a great movie but it's an endurance test for your mental health
positive · AI labelView post →Choose each day one film from each of your 10 favourite directors. Name of the film and director, along with a still. #filmsky #moviesky #movies #filmchallenge #filmdirectors 2/10 The Pianist - Roman Polanski
neutral · AI labelView post →Unquestionably the best speech of the night... down to his asking for extra time by indicating that he'd been here before! 2002's The Pianist and this amazing film make perfect bookends in an extraordinary career that undoubtedly has many more milestones awaiting us!
neutral · AI labelView post →A #Film Elon Musk should see. "The Pianist" (2002), directed by Roman Polanski, with actors Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschman et al. youtu.be/kJp_8AaeWI8?...
neutral · AI labelView post →deportations from Warsaw in 1942. He managed to return to town, and with the help of Hosenfeld, who hired him at the sports stadium and provided with false papers, Warm managed to survive. Hosenfeld's help for another Jew became famous through the film “The Pianist”, which is
neutral · AI labelView post →Cinematic reenactments of true stories from the Holocaust (Schindler's List, The Pianist) have won scores of awards. Freeline Media critic @milanpaurich.bsky.social thinks one of the most powerful films about the Final Solution is actually a documentary. freelinemediaorlando.com/movie-talk-t...
neutral · AI labelView post →#filmsky #OTD we lost Wladyslaw Szpilman. The composer was best known in Poland for his original songs, but he became famous when his autobiography The Pianist served as the basis for Polanski’s Oscar-winning film. Both his music and novel are worth discovering; he has a stunning story of survival.
neutral · AI labelView post →#filmsky Is the Holocaust pure catnip for film awards? The 2002 Cannes Film Festival gave the top Grand Prix award to The Pianist, finding its Nazi-era horrors more captivating than entries such as David Cronenberg’s Spider and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending. Is the message simply, “Never forget?”
neutral · AI labelView post →That scene has stayed with me. And every time I see videos of these ICE Nazis I think of it. I think you're right that it was The Pianist because I remember turning off the movie after that scene. I couldn't watch it knowing it would only get worse. The depravity of these people is what's scariest.
neutral · AI labelView post →Last night, I rewatched the movie The Pianist. Seeing the brutal persecution and massacre of Jewish people by the German Gestapo, I couldn’t help but feel deep empathy and overwhelming horror. That happened in the early 1940s, not so far removed from us... 1/
positive · AI labelView post →I remember watching The Pianist which is an incredible movie but all the while I thought, this should never have been made.
neutral · AI labelView post →#filmsky What happened at the 2003 Oscars #OTD? The Pianist looked set for a big sweep: Polanski as best director, Adrien Brody’s actor win, and script. Then this harrowing film …lost BP to the peppy musical Chicago. Hmm. More fun than revisiting the Holocaust? Who knows. My vote goes to Pianist
neutral · AI labelView post →Favourite film for each year of the 2000s: 2000: American Psycho 2001: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2002: The Pianist 2003: Kill Bill: Vol. 1 2004: Shaun of the Dead 2005: Caché 2006: The Prestige 2007: No Country for Old Men 2008: The Dark Knight 2009: Taken
positive · AI labelView post →#EdwardsMovieCharacterChallenge2025 Day 28 - piano player movie character who is NOT Szpilman from The Pianist Holly Hunter as Ada McGrath in The Piano (1993) #filmsky #moviesky
neutral · AI labelView post →Tiny Fancy is on a Holocaust movie tear, so last evening we watched The Pianist. The thing that really stood out to me was that skilled labor trades survived the Warsaw ghetto, the aftermath of the ghetto uprising reprisal and deportations Even under a genocide, the most skilled did not go hungry
neutral · AI labelView post →OK I'm forcing myself to watch The Pianist, before I watch The Brutalist, as a rule I find Adrien Brody one of the most annoying actors in mainstream film - and his Brando impersonation in Peaky Blinders ended justifiably with a bullet to the head, anyhoo here goes...
neutral · AI labelView post →My favorite WW2 movies: Tora Tora Tora, Come and See, Longest Day. Best Years of Our Lives, Patton, Das Boot, Run Silent Run Deep, Windtalkers, Schindler's List and The Pianist, The Unknown Soldier (Finnish movie), Downfall, Battle of Britain, Sink the Bismarck, Battle of the River Plate. #hatm
neutral · AI labelView post →Sneaking into the first X-Files movie as an unsupervised 13 year old at the mall. Skipping high school with a friend who had a car to go see a Lord of the Rings movie. Seeing Ghost World and The Pianist at the weird little indie movie theatre in my old neighborhood that is now a terrible music venue
neutral · AI labelView post →After The Pianist, the wife and I decided to end the night on a lighter note. Man that movie is brutal, but important. Final movie of the night, something neither of us have seen yet, and love the original Finding Dory, 2016
positive · AI labelView post →you know that scene from The Pianist (a surprisingly good movie considering the fact that it had no director or producer whatsoever) where the bug-eyed lady screams “JEEEEEEEW!! THERE’S A JEEEEEW!!!” I really want a GIF to post as a response to any posts trying to blame AIPAC for shit not about 🇮🇱
neutral · AI labelView post →In addition to all of these books, there are excellent movies and documentaries as well. My personal favorite movie about the Holocaust is The Pianist. I think it’s heart-wrenchingly and exquisitely done. While it shows the horrors of that time, it also shows the helpers. Be a helper now, too.
positive · AI labelView post →Watching The Pianist by Roman Polanski now.
neutral · AI labelView post →#MovieSky Feel-bad movie marathon progress: Irreversible, Se7en, Requiem For a Dream, Dancer in the Dark, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, No Other Land, Grave of the Fireflies, When the Wind Blows, A Clockwork Orange, The Mist, Oldboy, Come and See.
neutral · AI labelView post →You love that movie! I would have thought that with Polanski's controversies, The Pianist might have won best picture while Rob Marshall got best director (making him a rare gay director to win), but it was the other way around. That was a weird year
neutral · AI labelView post →#30DayFilmChallenge #FilmSky 15. A film that broke your heart The Pianist (2002)
neutral · AI labelView post →Choose one film from each of your 30 favourite directors. Name of the film and director, along with a GIF or still. 23. The Pianist (2002) Directed by Roman Polanski.
neutral · AI labelView post →I got stood up for a date and decided I'd watch a movie about music to cheer me up. It was The Pianist.
neutral · AI labelView post →Choose 20 films that have stayed with you or influenced you. One film per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (Pretend I didn’t forget yesterday.) day 5- The Pianist #Films #FilmSky 💙📽️ #FilmChallenge
neutral · AI labelView post →The most intriguing aspect of the documentary Roman Polanski A Film Memoir (out today, 2011) is his childhood in Poland during the Nazi invasion; it’s a miracle he survived. Some of his memories went into his film The Pianist, another remarkable Holocaust survival story. Those victims are aging fast
neutral · AI labelView post →#MovieSky Bleak movie marathon progress: Irreversible, Requiem For a Dream, Dancer in the Dark, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, No Other Land, Grave of the Fireflies.
neutral · AI labelView post →#MovieSky Bleak movie marathon progress: Irreversible → Requiem For a Dream → Dancer in the Dark → Schindler’s List → The Pianist → No Other Land.
neutral · AI labelView post →Night of The Broken Glass. I was wondering if a movie existed where it shows the build up, why that night, and so on. Kind of seem like it would be a great 3 act movie kind of like the Pianist.
neutral · AI labelView post →So many :-/ The Experiment (had to at 15) Blue is a warm color (walked out disgusted&personally offended) Most Shoah movies, esp The Pianist (unnecessary shock effects) Clockwork Orange (and any other movie that has expl rape through perp eyes🤬🤮 Why tf do people (men!) insist on calling it art
negative · AI labelView post →If you’re going to list a pedophile directory’s film, at least go with The Pianist.
neutral · AI labelView post →If you need a visual aid, the movie "The Pianist" is currently streaming on Prime and it's a step by step of what happened to the Jews leading to the Holocaust and is well worth your time...
positive · AI labelView post →Probably The Pianist - a well-made movie, but pretty bleak (and in a grungy February in Michigan), which made for difficult conversations (including everything with Polanski). Actual worst movies were The Ring Two or Puddle Chaser, but those were better dates. #HATM, what about you all?
neutral · AI labelView post →Roman Polanski's 2002 Holocaust movie 'The Pianist vs. Louis Theroux's 2025 documentary film 'The Settlers' about Israeli colonizers #history
neutral · AI labelView post →My girlfriend and I watched The Pianist this past Valentine’s Day. Fantastic film! Would not recommend it for that specific day.
positive · AI labelView post →Touching, especially if you have seen the movie The Pianist. When working from home, recently I have been listening more and more classical music. I haven't touched the piano in 2 years - that needs to change. youtu.be/MPrQdlrCzPY?...
neutral · AI labelView post →Still thinking about the *The Pianist*. What was interesting to me about the movie was that the Jewish people who lived in Warsaw never resisted or fought against the German occupation, not knowing how bad things would become for them. They just accepted everything that was demanded of them until
neutral · AI labelView post →So my movie pick tonight was The Pianist. It's easily Adrian Brody's best movie, but it's as devastating to watch as Schindler's List. Don't look away. #moviesky
positive · AI labelView post →The Pianist, great movie. Glory to 🇵🇱
positive · AI labelView post →
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