Movie · 1959 · Drama, History · 2h 59m · NR · English
Curator score: 3.9/10 (14.8K ratings)
Hollywood has never made a greater suspense story... a more tender love story... or a finer human drama!
Overview
The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.9/10
IMDb: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 81%
Metacritic: 59
TMDB: 7.2/10
Director
George Stevens
Production
George Stevens Jr. Productions, 20th Century Fox
Cast
Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Richard Beymer, Gusti Huber, Lou Jacobi, Diane Baker, Douglas Spencer, Dodie Heath, Ed Wynn, Robert Boon, Delmar Erickson, Gretchen Goertz, William Kirschner, Edmund Purdom, Frank Tweddell, Charles Wagenheim
Curator Review
Verdict
A respectful, old-school adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary with strong historical weight and a few genuinely tense, moving passages, but also a stately, stagebound pace that can feel overextended. It’s best approached as a sober prestige drama rather than a fully immersive character study.
Best for
Viewers seeking a classic Holocaust-era drama
Fans of literary adaptations and mid-century prestige filmmaking
People interested in Anne Frank’s story and its cultural legacy
Audiences who don’t mind a long, dialogue-heavy chamber piece
Skip if
You want a brisk, modern, psychologically intimate film
You’re sensitive to theatrical staging and 1950s melodramatic style
You prefer Holocaust films that are more visually austere or formally daring
Long runtime and repetitive domestic tension are dealbreakers
Overview
George Stevens’ adaptation treats Anne Frank’s diary with sincere reverence, and that seriousness gives the film real moral force. Its best moments come from the contrast between ordinary adolescent life and the terror pressing in from outside, especially when the hiding place feels most fragile and the silence becomes unbearable.
Worth noting
The film is also very much a product of its era: polished, theatrical, and often more dutiful than alive. The performances and staging can feel broad or constrained, and the nearly three-hour runtime tests the material’s natural limits.
Bottom line
Still, as a major studio-era attempt to turn a world-famous testimony into cinema, it has value both as historical remembrance and as a portrait of endurance under pressure. It’s not the most emotionally immediate version of this story, but it remains an important and often affecting one.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Saif. (2.5★) · 112 likes
and who knows maybe same way a palestine girl is writing her dairy too!! and i feel so emotional whenever this thought comes...
Lee (5★) · 64 likes
Over a month ago me and my girfriend went over to Amsterdam.
Not knowing much about the Anne Frank story it was an absolute treat to hear the story and then walking into the main secret rooms where they hid for many years until caught. Anne's pictures are still pinned to the walls and of course her precious diary which is heavily protected sitting in a glass case. Plenty of other artifacts which her family used during the hideout.
I… more Over a month ago me and my girfriend went over to Amsterdam.
Not knowing much about the Anne Frank story it was an absolute treat to hear the story and then walking into the main secret rooms where they hid for many years until caught. Anne's pictures are still pinned to the walls and of course her precious diary which is heavily protected sitting in a glass case. Plenty of other artifacts which her family used during the hideout.
I… more
Mike D'Angelo (2.5★) · 58 likes
43/100
[originally written on my blog]
Randomized queue decreed that the time had finally come to get this Best Picture nominee + Cannes Competition title out of the way. Knew it was hopeless, though, as I acted in the play in high school (as Otto Frank) and disliked it even then, Pulitzer notwithstanding. Sure enough, the film has the same monotonous rhythm, alternating bland scenes of cabin-fever bickering with repetitive "suspenseful" interludes in which the Annex's inhabitants are threatened with… more
arLopez (3.5★) · 44 likes
Watching with the sound off whilst bartending — and someone just pointed out that pop superstar Lorde resembles the actual Anne Frank more than Millie Perkins.
Also, that person was me, as the bar is dead and I'm watching this alone. My movie options are few tonite. I'm fucking losing it.
*UPDATE* Two different dates just showed — and now have to, awkwardly, watch this with me.
Richard (4★) · 42 likes
I remember falling in love with Anne Frank’s mischievous wit when I read her diary at the age of about 11, so I like that the film treats her words with reverence without being too sentimental. Although Millie Perkins doesn’t completely convey that sense of mischief, she perfectly captures Anne’s curiosity and defiance, which only grow stronger as the danger mounts.
I had forgotten that George Stevens witnessed the liberation of Dachau at first hand, so I had half-expected The… more
1970 · Drama, History · 1h 35m · R · Curator 6.3/10 (17.8K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A refined, melancholy story of Jewish life under rising fascism, with a tragic sense of encroaching doom.
Topics
Holocaust drama, World War II, historical drama, coming-of-age, chamber piece, prestige cinema, survival, confinement, 1950s, literary adaptation