Nazisploitation

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Created by manwithpetgull.

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Nazisploitation is a word usually used to describe the number of (mostly Italian) exploitation films made during the '70s that revolved around the sordidly sexual or gruesome goings-on at Nazi concentration camps/stalags/extermination camps; and in my own estimation, that is the true definition of the term, and there are only around 30 films which qualify as such.

However, I personally also believe that Nazisploitation has even earlier roots, and has also continued to evolve since it's heyday. I submit that there are four major schools of the subgenre:

1) the aforementioned '70s shock exploitation pictures,
(Ilsa, Love Camp 7, Gestapo's Last Orgy)
2) War-era Allied propaganda pieces/Post-War mad Nazi scientist pictures,
(Enemy of Women, Strange Holiday, She Demons, The Frozen Dead)
3) Nazi Zombie pictures and all the Nu-Nazisploitation created this millenium which sprung from those,
(Zombie Lake, Shock Waves, Dead Snow, Outpost) and
4) Secret Nazi pictures, about war criminals/former Nazis living in hiding among us in the "present day".
(Apt Pupil, The Boys From Brazil, They Saved Hitler's Brain).

All four schools are included in this list, in chronological order. I've excluded genre films where the Nazis are not the prominent threat, or are the victims of something supernatural themselves (The Keep, The Bunker), as well as anything which is more straight-forwardly a drama or war picture than within a more exploitative genre (Inglorious Bastards, Inglourious Basterds, Escape From Sobibor). Neither are there films where there is merely a Nazi villain present (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Captain America, Jane and the Lost City); if there is only one Nazi, he should be the major threat of the piece (Marathon Man, In a Glass Cage). I have included the Men Behind the Sun films, because even though they have no Nazis, they are clearly the Hong Kong equivalent of the genre, and hit all the same notes as the genuine articles. There are a few other odd-man-out entries in there too, like the trailer compilation Nazithon, or the arty The Empty Mirror. Really, my major criteria basically comes down to whether the film is in questionable taste or not; if it is, it's in!
Please feel free to send suggestions for inclusion on/exclusion from the list my way!

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Last updated on Jul 11, 2019;