The Pianist is a 2002 American English - language film directed and produced by Roman Polansky. It is a war biographical drama film starring Adrien Broody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox and Julia Rayner. This film follows the story of a brilliant pianist who is a Polish Jew. He has to witness the restrictions imposed by Germans on Jews in the Polish capital, from restricted access to the building of the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is prepared to be shipped off to the German Nazi labor camps, he escapes alone from the deportation and saves himself from the capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw.