The Tin Drum

Set in pre-war and wartime Danzig, Volker Schlöndorff's "The Tin Drum" is a visceral odyssey through the 20th century's most turbulent years. Oskar Matzerath, born in 1924, opts out of adulthood at three when he tumbles down a staircase and ceases to grow, choosing instead to wield a tin drum and shriek as a witness to the rise of Nazism and the devastation of war. Schlöndorff's adaptation of Günter Grass's novel is a raw, unflinching portrait of a child's resistance against a world of adult cruelty and political upheaval.