A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied city of Lviv. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lviv (formerly Poland).
Ratings
Curator score: 6.3/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.61/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 74
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
Agnieszka Holland
Production
Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv, The Film Works, Studio Filmowe Zebra
Cast
Robert Więckiewicz, Benno Fürmann, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Schrader, Herbert Knaup, Marcin Bosak, Julia Kijowska, Jerzy Walczak, Oliwer Stanczak, Milla Bankowicz, Krzysztof Skonieczny, Kinga Preis, Michał Żurawski, Laura Lo Zito, Aleksander Mincer, Piotr Głowacki, Maria Semotiuk, Etl Szyc, Weronika Rosati, Andrzej Mastalerz
Curator Review
Verdict
A tense, grim Holocaust rescue drama that works best as a survival thriller in claustrophobic conditions. It’s not the most psychologically rich entry in the genre, but its sewer setting, moral ambiguity, and sustained dread make it memorable and harrowing.
Best for
viewers who like Holocaust dramas with thriller tension
fans of claustrophobic survival stories
audiences interested in morally complex true stories
people drawn to wartime rescue narratives
Skip if
you want a highly interior character study
you’re burned out on WWII/Holocaust films
you dislike oppressive, grim realism
you prefer broad emotional uplift over sustained bleakness
Overview
In Darkness turns a true rescue story into something closer to a pressure-cooker survival film than a conventional prestige war drama. The sewer setting gives the movie a constant physical and moral claustrophobia, and Agnieszka Holland uses that space well to build dread, desperation, and uneasy dependence between people who would never otherwise be forced together.
Worth noting
What lingers most is the film’s refusal to make heroism feel clean. Leopold Socha begins as a thief and opportunist, and the movie is strongest when it lets his motives remain messy, practical, and only gradually transformed. That ambiguity gives the story more bite than a simple saintly-rescuer narrative.
Bottom line
It can feel familiar if you’ve seen many Holocaust films, and some emotional beats are sketched more than deeply explored. But as a tense, grimly effective wartime drama with a distinctive setting and strong atmosphere, it earns its place.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3★) · 140 likes
ACTION! - FEMALE 4FRONT: HOLLAND'S SEARCH FOR IDENTITY
Holland has always shown a profound interest in the trauma of the war and the Holocaust, and she once again tackles this, now through the point of view of two sewer workers who reluctantly help shelter a group of Jews who had escaped from the Lwow Ghetto during the Holocaust in Poland. Of course, there would be some inner and outside struggles, fights, some backstabbing and whatnot.
Holland does a great job… more
az93 (4★) · 28 likes
It's a little crass of me to compare this film to A Quiet Place, especially since this is rooted in reality - but that's what makes this all the more harrowing and terrifying. So much tension in this, and scenes that really had my heart pumping.
Would rather avoid the debate of Polish responsibility/guilt during WW2, but I think Holland handles some of the complexities really well. As a thriller, this was really well done.
Mark Kaiserman (3★) · 19 likes
Any film depicting the horrors of the Holocaust, the cruelty of the Nazis, and the innate goodness inside people is valuable.
But that doesn't mean it is a good film. While In Darkness displays the barbarism and suffering of the Holocaust more vividly and horrifyingly than Holland's brilliant Europa Europa did, it is not as effective a piece of cinema. The main character's motivations are never really addressed. We get very little of his interior life or why he risked himself and his family for this group of Jews he hid in the sewers. It is all too surface (ironic for a movie about the sewers).
Melody Shoat (4.5★) · 14 likes
"As if we need God to punish each other."
It's not often a piece of onscreen post-script packs the biggest emotional wallop for me, but the editorial nature of that line, after a movie about slightly blurred morality which kind of goes out of its way to avoid too much sentimentality, sort of knocked me sideways. MUBI listed this movie saying it was about "a little-known phenomenon in Second World War Poland, Jews hiding in the underground sewer systems", but… more
Sol (2.5★) · 13 likes
Agnieszka Holland has quite an interesting career as a director with a distinctive style which makes her an important figure in Polish cinema.
Unfortunately, her last works have not been completely good for me, In Darkness is one of them. The cinema that narrates the events of World War II has already become repetitive and tiresome. Holland shows scene by scene of Socha's actions and his help to those in need, but that connection is not really felt.
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Agnieszka… more
2008 · Action, Drama, History · 2h 17m · R · Curator 3.7/10 (211.4K ratings) · Where to watch: fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential
A resistance-and-survival narrative about Jews under Nazi rule, with strong emphasis on endurance and solidarity.