POLAND

www.polart.com was very helpful in constructing the list of movies on Poland

Medieval Poland: Piast Dynasty (966-1385)

The Cradle  --  beginning of the Polish state under the reign of Mieszko I; alliance with Emperor Otto I;  baptized a Roman Catholic; and wins the battle of Cedynia.

Boleslaw Smialy (Boleslaus the Bold) (1972)  --  1079, the last year of Boleslaus the Bold's rule; covers his conflict with the Bishop of Cracov

Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great) (1975)  --  the contribution of Casimir the Great to the building of the Polish state in the Middle Ages

Medieval Poland: Jagiellon Dynasty (1385-1572)

Krzyzacy (Black Cross) (1960)  --  defeat of the Order of Teutonic Knights of Prussia by the Polish and Lithuanians at Battle of Grunwald (1410)

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1572-1795)

Zelazna (Iron Hand) (1989)  --  Stefan Batory becomes the Polish King (1575-1586); Mroczek organizes a nationwide network of spies

The Deluge: Serious Weakening of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword) (1961) Cossacks vs. Poles; first part of a trilogy set in mid-17th century

Taras Bulba (1962) -- Cossack life in the Ukraine

Potop (The Deluge) (1975) --  second part of the trilogy; Swedish army invades Poland and a warrior fights for the heart of Olenka

Clouds of War  --  second half of the 17th century

Pan Wolodyjowski (Colonel Wolodyjowski)  --  third  part of the trilogy; Turkish invasion of Poland

Hrabina Cosel (Countess Cosel) (1968)  --  the countess, the favorite of King August II the Strong (1697-1706), fights for her right to marry the king, who is the father of their children

Pan Tadeusz  (2000)  --  Poland's attempt to free itself from Russian rule in pre-Napoleonic times

Partioned Poland: 1795-1918

Napoleon (2003)  --  Poland seeks help from Napoleon against its oppressors

Popioly  (Ashes) (1965)  --  history of Poles fighting for the independence of their partitioned country under the Napoleonic flag

Impromptu  (1991)  --  novelist George Sand and composer Frederic Chopin

Chopin: Desire for Love (2000)  --  ditto above

Mlodosc Chopina (Youth of Chopin) (1952)  -- the great Polish music composer

Polish Resistance to Russian Domination

On the Banks of the Niemen (1986)  --  1863 uprising against Russian occupation

Wierna Rzeka (Faithful River) (1936)  --  tragedy of the Polish January 1863 uprising

Noce i dnie (Nights and Days)  (1975)  --  family saga set in period after the failure of the January 1863 Uprising

Turn of the 20th Century

Goraczka (Fever) (1981)  --  turn of 20th century: revolutionary fervor, struggles for independence, and the birth of anarchism and political terrorism

Ziemia obiecana (Promised Land)  (1975)--  three industrialists build a textile factory and encounter problems with the overworked, underpaid workers

World War I (1914-1918)

Austeria (1983) --  a group of Jews flee from the Cossack army in Polish Galicia

 Second Polish Republic (1922-1939) 

Smierc Prezydenta (Death of the President) (1978)  --  assassination of Gabriel Narutowicz, 1922

Zamach stanu (Coup D'Etat) (1980) --  autumn of 1925 to the military coup in Poland by Marshal Jozef Pilsudski (May 1926) to the Brzesc Trial (1931)
 

World War II

To Be or Not to Be (1949) -- occupied Poland; Jack Benny

Agent #1 --  chronicles the history of Polish soldiers fighting in WWII through activities of real-life Polish spy and war hero Jerzy Szajnowicz-Iwanow

A Generation (1954)  --  1st in trilogy of Polish resistance

Kanal (1957) -- 2nd in trilogy; Warsaw uprising in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944

Ashes and Diamonds (1958) --  3rd in trilogy; Polish film of Resistance movement in Poland during WW II's closing days

The Pianist (2002)  --  Jewish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising

Samson  (1961) -- partly set in the Warsaw ghetto uprising

Eroica (1958)   --  uprising in the Warsaw ghetto

Ulica Graniczna (Border Street) (1949)  -- uprising in the Warsaw ghetto

Polish Fight for Independence from the Soviet Union 

Czlowiek na torze (Man on the Tracks) (1957)  -- anti-Soviet film; criticism of life in Poland under the Soviets

Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers) (1960)  --  chronicles the disillusionment of the younger generation in the 1960s

Czlowiek z zelaza (Man of Iron)  (1981)--  Gdansk 1980, the Polish strike against Soviet Domination

Rozmowy Kontrolowane (Calls Controlled ) (1990) --  amusing satires set in Poland during martial law in 1981

Pope of the Century  --  life of the Polish Pope John Paul II