Highest-Rated Movies about 'Book Burning'

Memento (2000), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Jules and Jim (1962), The Mortal Storm (1940), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Book Thief (2013), Pleasantville (1998), Comrades (1986) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Book Burning movies.

#1. Memento (2000)

Storyline: Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.

Plot Keywords: memory, hidden truth, amnesiac, diabetic, neo noir, nonlinear timeline, insulin ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Storyline: An art collector appeals to Indiana Jones to embark on a search for the Holy Grail. He learns that another archaeologist has disappeared while searching for the precious goblet, and the missing man is his own father, Dr. Henry Jones. The artifact is much harder to find than they expected, and its powers are too much for those impure of heart.

Plot Keywords: origin of hero, father son relationship, obsession, map, tumbleweed, united states of america, revolver ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#3. Jules and Jim (1962)

Storyline: In pre-WWI Paris, two friends, Jules (Austrian) and Jim (French), fall in love with the same woman, Catherine. But Catherine loves and marries Jules. When they meet again in Germany after the war, Catherine starts to love Jim - This is the story of three people in love, a love that doesn't affect their friendship, and about how their relationship evolves with the years.

Plot Keywords: marriage, adultery, menage a trois, adulterous wife, female psychopath, promiscuity, french new wave ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#4. The Mortal Storm (1940)

Storyline: Interesting to note that the film was made in 1940, one year before America's entry into the European war against Hitler. The movie depicts Germany in 1933. In 1938 the 'night of broken glass' took place. Interesting to note the attitudes portrayed in the film, definitely anti-Nazi.—Matt Goodwin

Plot Keywords: gestapo, title spoken by character, based on novel, based on book, concentration camp, year 1933, fascism ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#5. The Name of the Rose (1986)

Storyline: 1327. After a mysterious death in a Benedictine Abbey, the monks are convinced that the apocalypse is coming. With the Abbey to play host to a council on the Franciscan's Order's belief that the Church should rid itself of wealth, William von Baskerville, a respected Franciscan friar, is asked to assist in determining the cause of the untimely death. Alas, more deaths occur as the investigation draws closer to uncovering the secret the Abbey wants hidden, and there is finally no stopping the Holy Inquisition from taking an active hand in the process. William and his young novice must race against time to prove the innocence of the unjustly accused and avoid the wrath of Holy Inquisitor Bernardo Gui.

Plot Keywords: middle ages, monk, male rear nudity, multiple murder, murder investigation, secret room, serial killer ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#6. The Book Thief (2013)

Storyline: In 1938, the young girl Liesel Meminger is traveling by train with her mother and her younger brother when he dies. Her mother buries the boy in a cemetery by the tracks and Liesel picks up a book, "The Gravediggers Handbook", which was left on the grave of her brother and brings it with her. Liesel is delivered to a foster family in a small town and later she learns that her mother left her because she is a communist. Her stepmother, Rosa Hubermann, is a rude but caring woman and her stepfather, Hans Hubermann, is a simple kind-hearted man. Liesel befriends her next door neighbor, the boy Rudy Steiner, and they go together to the school. When Hans discovers that Liesel cannot read, he teaches her using her book and Liesel becomes an obsessed reader. During a Nazi speech where the locals are forced to burn books in a bonfire, Liesel recovers one book for her and the Mayor's wife Ilsa Hermann witnesses her action. Meanwhile Hans hides the Jewish Max Vandenburg, who is the son of a ...

Plot Keywords: book, world war two, nazi, nazi germany, book burning, loss of father, loss of mother ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#7. Pleasantville (1998)

Storyline: David Wagner is a kid whose mind is stuck in the 1950s. He's addicted to a classic 50's sitcom television show called "Pleasantville". Pleasantville is a simple place, a place where all of its citizens are swell and simple-minded folks, a place where the word "violence", and life outside of Pleasantville, is unbeknownst to its inhabitants; things are perfect down in Pleasantville. One evening, the life of David and his obnoxious sister Jennifer take a bizarre turn when an eccentric repairman hand them a supposed magical remote. After a quarrel between the siblings, they inexplicably zap themselves into the world of "Pleasantville". Now, David and Jennifer must adjust to a 50s lifestyle of repressed desires and considerably different societal values while trying to find their way home.

Plot Keywords: 1950s, censorship, symbolism, rebellion, art, apple, alternate dimension ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#9. The Grand Role (2004)

Storyline: The Nazi propaganda mastermind behind Hitler speaks in first person as actor Kenneth Branagh reads pages of the diary kept by the chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, revealing the man's most inner thoughts. Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was a symbol of Germany's Nazi regime and a twentieth-century icon of maniacal cruelty. His name has been synonymous with cynical, unscrupulous, and at times successful, propaganda. The life of Joseph Goebbels is far more complicated and disturbing than labels like "genius of spin" or "Reich Liar-General" would suggest. The chronicle shows how Goebbels continually "restaged" and reinvented himself -- from his early days as a radical "popular socialist" to his tragic end. The film lets Goebbels speak for himself through the diaries he kept without interruption from 1924 to 1945, as never before seen historical footage from German archives traces the life of the second most powerful man of the Third Reich, detailing his initial attraction to the Nazi party and his adoration of Hitler. The result is a fascinating psycho-gram of a man who careened extravagantly between self-pity, wild extermination fantasies, and political excesses.—Sujit R. Varma

Plot Keywords: archive footage, birthday party, book burning, burned body, city in ruins, cologne, fanaticism ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#10. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Storyline: Based on the 1951 Ray Bradbury novel of the same name. Guy Montag is a firefighter who lives in a lonely, isolated society where books have been outlawed by a government fearing an independent-thinking public. It is the duty of firefighters to burn any books on sight or said collections that have been reported by informants. People in this society including Montag's wife are drugged into compliancy and get their information from wall-length television screens. After Montag falls in love with book-hoarding Clarisse, he begins to read confiscated books. It is through this relationship that he begins to question the government's motives behind book-burning. Montag is soon found out, and he must decide whether to return to his job or run away knowing full well the consequences that he could face if captured.

Plot Keywords: haircut, library, marital separation, murder, paramedic, pill, playground ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#11. August: Osage County (2013)

Storyline: Violet Weston (Meryl Streep) has cancer and a propensity for pills and alcohol. She's a difficult woman to deal with and her husband has finally had enough. Violet's family gathers including middle daughter Ivy, youngest daughter Karen (with her new fiancé), eldest daughter Barbara (with her separated husband and teenage daughter), and her sister Mattie Fae (with her husband and son in tow). A family tragedy causes tensions to run high and secrets to come out. The Weston women will be forced to examine themselves and their lives whether they want to or not. Welcome to Osage County, Oklahoma in the sweltering heat of August.

Plot Keywords: incestuous relationship, suicide, anger, mother daughter relationship, sister sister relationship, family secret, death of husband ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#12. Agora (2009)

Storyline: Alexandria, 391 AD: Hypatia teaches astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Her student Orestes is in love with her, as is Davus, her personal slave. As the city's Christians, led by Ammonius and Cyril, gain political power, the institutions of learning may crumble along with the governance of slavery. Jump ahead 20 years: Orestes, the city's prefect, has an uneasy peace with the Christians, led by Cyril. A group from the newly empowered Christians has now taken to enforce their cultural hegemony zealously; first they see the Jews as their obstacle, then nonbelievers. Hypatia has no interest in faith; she's concerned about the movement of celestial bodies and "the brotherhood of all". Although her former slave doesn't see it that way.

Plot Keywords: roman empire, ancient egypt, atheism, atheist, astronomy, slave, miscarriage of justice ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#13. 11:14 (2003)

Storyline: A few incidents that happen at 11:14 p.m. in the town of Middleton are seen from five different perspectives, each of the players who generally works toward self interest, not caring about the consequence to other people, and in the process exacerbating the situations by his or her actions. Jack, in town to meet someone, is a chronic drinker and driver, he still doing so despite having his license temporarily suspended. Teens Mark, Eddie, and Tim are out for a joyride in Mark's van, they generally causing havoc all in the name of having fun, that is until something goes wrong. Frank, out for a walk with his dog, stumbles across something which makes him jump to a conclusion about his daughter, to whom he is both overprotective and overly trusting. Duffy, who works as a clerk at Lloyd's EZZZ Stop convenience store, goes to the store just as it is closing to ask his friend, the clerk on duty, Buzzy, for a favor, which may be difficult for her to grant based on her own needs, and Cheri ...

Plot Keywords: multiple perspectives, van, convenience store, interlinked stories, car accident, nonlinear timeline, american flag ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#14. Edge of Darkness (1943)

Storyline: It's two years after the Nazi's invasion of Norway, and in a small fishing village that is headquarters to one hundred fifty German soldiers, the eight hundred locals are stewing, waiting for a supply of arms so they can revolt. Leaders include Karen Stensgard (Ann Sheridan), whose father, Dr. Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), is not all that sure that an open revolt will accomplish much, and whose brother has previously proven to be disloyal to Norway, and Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn), a fisherman who was planning to sail to England to fight, but changed his mind on hearing of English arms being delivered. Although the Nazi's cruelty is evident, the townspeople bide their time, until one incident causes the stewpot to boil over.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>

Plot Keywords: based on novel, schoolteacher, flag, collaborator, brother sister relationship, book burning, betrayal ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#15. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

Storyline: Details the unconventional life of Dr. William Marston, the Harvard psychologist and inventor who helped invent the modern lie detector test and created Wonder Woman in 1941. Marston was in a polyamorous relationship with his wife Elizabeth, a psychologist and inventor in her own right, and Olive Byrne, a former student who became an academic. This relationship was key to the creation of Wonder Woman, as Elizabeth and Olive's feminist ideals were ingrained in the character from her creation. Marston died of skin cancer in 1947, but Elizabeth and Olive remained a couple and raised their and Marston's children together. The film is said to focus on how Marston dealt with the controversy surrounding Wonder Woman's creation.

Plot Keywords: polyamory, taboo, comic book, sadomasochism, bisexual, bdsm, lesbian kiss ...

Movie Details Click Here!