1. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (New Yorker review)

"Sophie Scholl is not a great film... Yet the movie works, for the simple reason that, behind the talk-heavy flatness of its action and the stubborn demeanor of its heroine, it hoards a violence of feeling."

This film premiered during last year's Berlinale, but just got around to foisting its subtitles on American audiences this week. It's a low-key demi-documentary about the capture and trial of Sophie Scholl, the heroine of the White Rose Movement, the most significant resistance group in Nazi Germany. It spends a lot of time in her interrogation prior to the trial. You could criticize the film for keeping most of its balance in the archival department, as opposed to the circumstantial details of Sophie's life, but this should give you confidence in its accurate imitation of the truth. Must one be young to have such conviction in the face of the Nazi party?

2. Forgiving Dr. Mengele (Variety review)

One of the surviving "Mengele twins" ties up emotional loose ends after her sister dies of complications from the experiments. Her controversial idea of forgiving her tormentors, and the waves it makes throughout the historical community, is the centerpiece of the film. And though even a captive audience still seems to have doubts whether Mengele and his ilk should be forgiven, I'm in her corner, so much as a lily-white post-war fop could be. In its extremes of barbarity and cold logic, Nazism was a madness, and the commanders afflicted with it were beyond good and evil. That was for their subordinates, who had to decide how to deal with their orders. The problem with madmen is that they know not what they do.

Both of these films have been very well-reviewed and are basically documentaries, which of course means you should see them.