Based on a true story and nominated for a foreign-language Oscar, Sophie Scholl has all the Reich moves. Her story picks up where Schindler's List left off, portraying yet another German-done-good, this time during the student protests in the Third Reich's waning days. Part of an underground movement called the White Rose, the 21-year-old Scholl was captured distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets and tried for high treason.
Director Mark Rothemund focuses on Scholl's story--post-arrest--and manages to turn what could be trial-room tedium into a taut and moving thriller. German actress Julia Jentsch is phenomenal in the lead role, bringing a vulnerability to a character perhaps a bit too perfect on the page. Her Scholl is brave and true to her cause, even at the threat of her own life, but she is also a young girl still finding herself amid a world teetering on the edge of its final destruction.