Poster Art for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 55 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
13 Iffy for 13+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 88
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Viewers should know that the film's resolution, though admirably restrained and unsentimental, is devastatingly sad. Parents should take this into account. This beautifully rendered family film is told in a classic and old-fashioned style, in the best sense, providing poignant and powerful teachable moments. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus. Read full review

  • 80
    The Hollywood Reporter | Ray Bennett

    Boyne's tale is starkly cautionary, and writer-director Herman handles a difficult topic with great sensitivity, drawing splendid performances from his young actors with David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga and the other grown-ups reliably efficient. Read full review

  • 80
    Variety | Derek Elley

    Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody. Read full review

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    The power of this Holocaust tale sneaks up and floors you. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Told from a different angle than any other Holocaust film I've seen. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times |

    The film's two levels -- metaphoric and nitty-gritty -- don't mesh until the devastation of the closing sequence, which both indulges in and transcends melodrama. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post |

    Although it's a far less objectionable Holocaust revision than, say, Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful," Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is yet another attempt to revisit a sorrowful event in history that should never be forgotten or used for entertainment. Read full review

  • 16
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    An appalling, jaw-dropping movie that will cause serious nightmares. Read full review

  • 0
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    See the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family. Better yet and in all sincerity: don't. Read full review

View more reviews for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 13+ Holocaust drama sensitive, but never sentimental.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this intense World War II-set drama follows a young boy whose father, a German officer, has moved the entire family close to his new assignment -- running a death camp dedicated to the mass extermination and murder of Jewish prisoners. The boy befriends a prisoner on the other side of the wire even as his teachers and parents explain to him about how "the Jew" is the enemy. Given the subject matter, the film -- which culminates in a room full of people being killed with poison gas -- could be difficult to watch for viewers of any age. There's also some drinking and smoking and concentration camp violence.
  • Families can talk about what teens know about the Holocaust. What upset them in the movie? Why?
  • Ask your kids whether they think people can be good and evil at the same time. Then you can go into the discussion of how the Holocaust was kept secret. Was it actually hidden, or did people know and simply look the other way?
  • Families can also discuss what keeps drawing filmmakers and audiences to this subject material.
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Extensive discussion of the German attitude toward and treatment of Jewish prisoners during World War II, including deliberate, dehumanizing language. Discussion of anti-Semitic philosophies and ideas. Discussions of duty to one's country and race.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: Guards brandish guns; prisoners are threatened with guns, clubs, and dogs. A beating is administered off screen. Discussion of a supporting character dying during an English bombing raid. The mechanisms of mass extermination are seen in action, including a sensitively shot yet still devastating sequence in which a room crammed with concentration-camp prisoners is gassed.
  • sex false1 Sex: Affection between a long-married couple; non-sexual, waist-up male nudity as concentration camp prisoners strip for a "shower."
  • language false3 Language: One non-sexual use of "f---ing" extensive use of "Jew" as an epithet.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: A Mercedes logo is visible on the hood of a car.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Characters drink hard liquor, champagne, and wine and smoke cigarettes and cigars (accurate for the time period).
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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