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Swing Kids

Play trailer Poster for Swing Kids PG-13 1993 1h 52m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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56% Tomatometer 18 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
American big-band jazz beats in the hearts of young German friends (Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley) confronted by the Nazis.
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Swing Kids

Critics Reviews

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Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader 02/21/2020
If it seems that kitsch of this kind is a less than ideal way to teach history, it's still infinitely preferable to Reagan's Bitburg pieties. Go to Full Review
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 01/01/2000
1/4
There are moments here where the movie seems to believe Hitler was bad, not because he mapped genocidal madness, but because he wouldn't let the Swing Kids dance all night. Go to Full Review
Sergio Benítez Espinof 07/26/2019
A film that, in the end, stands as the best overall quality of the proposal. [Full Review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
Vanessa Letts The Spectator 07/24/2018
Despite the film's overall ridiculousness, however, the choreography and music by Cab Calloway and Django Reinhardt is brilliant. Go to Full Review
Malcolm Johnson Hartford Courant 06/06/2018
Like the films of the '30s and '40s it pays homage to, this portrait of jazz-crazy teenagers in Nazi Germany brims with the passion and anguish of free spirits caught in a crushing world they never made. Go to Full Review
Brian Costello Common Sense Media 03/07/2017
4/5
Intense conflict in coming-of-age movie set in Nazi Germany. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Kathy V. 2d Really good and interesting movie. Googled after watching and totally fact. Wow. The acting was outstanding. See more Richard W @rdwoolf Aug 28 Watching Swing Kids in 2025 eerily reminds me of living in the USA in 2025. I hope that this is just an uncanny observation and not a look into our own actual future. See more Hanna K Jun 18 This is one of my favorite movies. There were plot points that didn’t really fit together but overall if was genuinely good and changed my personality See more Georgan G 07/19/2024 Some will say it's corny, but seems up to date to me. The individual stands against evil or there is no chance at all to reform. Certain scenes in this film could be cut, but the joy of dancing brings it all home. See more Tom F 07/06/2024 A surprisingly vivid look at how fascism works and a few enthusiastic dance scenes, but otherwise pretty flat storytelling. See more Marcel B 05/01/2024 An excellent and wonderful but unfortunately highly underestimated movie. Although there are some historical inaccuracies is this an important, valuable, great movie and in many aspects brilliant. As a historian, art historian and musicologist and also specialist of „Das Dritte Reich“ I must say that I don‘t know a single history feature film without historical mistakes. This movie contains adequates and even sophisticated insights concerning the National Socialist era. See more Read all reviews
Swing Kids

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Movie Info

Synopsis American big-band jazz beats in the hearts of young German friends (Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley) confronted by the Nazis.
Director
Thomas Carter
Producer
Mark Gordon, John Bard Manulis
Production Co
Hollywood Pictures
Rating
PG-13
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Mar 5, 1993, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 1, 2014
Box Office (Gross USA)
$5.4M
Runtime
1h 52m
Sound Mix
Surround, Stereo
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