---
title: 'Jakob the Liar (1999)'
type: 'film'
director: 'Peter Kassovitz'
released: '1999-09-24'
runtime_minutes: 120
genres:
  - 'Drama'
  - 'Comedy'
  - 'War'
countries:
  - 'Hungary'
  - 'France'
  - 'Poland'
  - 'United States'
canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/movies/jakob-the-liar-1999'
review_count: 0
imdb: 'https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120716/'
publisher: 'CinePixo'
---

# Jakob the Liar (1999)

1999 · 120 min · Drama, Comedy, War · Hungary, France, Poland, United States


## Synopsis

Jakob the Liar is a 1999 American Holocaust film directed by Peter Kassovitz, produced by Steven Haft and Marsha Garces Williams. It is written by Kassovitz and Didier Decoin based on the 1969 German novel Jacob the Liar, by Jewish author Jurek Becker. The film stars Robin Williams, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Alan Arkin, Liev Schreiber, Hannah Taylor-Gordon and Bob Balaban. The film is set in 1944 in a ghetto in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust and tells the story of a Polish-Jewish shopkeeper named Jakob Heym, who attempts to raise the morale inside the ghetto by sharing encouraging rumors that he claims to have heard on a radio. An earlier film based on the novel is the 1975 East German-Czechoslovak film Jakob der Lügner, which also featured Mueller-Stahl. The movie was a critical and commercial failure: it grossed only $4 million against a $45 million budget, and received negative reviews by critics, with many comparing it unfavorably to the similarly themed Italian movie Life Is Beautiful (1997).

## Credits

- **Director:** [Peter Kassovitz](https://cinepixo.com/people/peter-kassovitz), [Marek Brodzki](https://cinepixo.com/people/marek-brodzki)
- **Screenplay:** [Peter Kassovitz](https://cinepixo.com/people/peter-kassovitz), [Jurek Becker](https://cinepixo.com/people/jurek-becker), [Didier Decoin](https://cinepixo.com/people/didier-decoin)
- **Original Music Composer:** [Edward Shearmur](https://cinepixo.com/people/edward-shearmur)
- **Producer:** [Steven Haft](https://cinepixo.com/people/steven-haft)
- **Director of Photography:** [Elemér Ragályi](https://cinepixo.com/people/elemer-ragalyi)
- **Editor:** [Claire Simpson](https://cinepixo.com/people/claire-simpson)

## Cast

- [Nina Siemaszko](https://cinepixo.com/people/nina-siemaszko)
- [Liev Schreiber](https://cinepixo.com/people/liev-schreiber)
- [János Kulka](https://cinepixo.com/people/janos-kulka)
- [Bob Balaban](https://cinepixo.com/people/bob-balaban)
- [Mark Margolis](https://cinepixo.com/people/mark-margolis)
- [István Bálint](https://cinepixo.com/people/istvan-balint)
- [Grażyna Barszczewska](https://cinepixo.com/people/grazyna-barszczewska)
- [Mathieu Kassovitz](https://cinepixo.com/people/mathieu-kassovitz)
- [Péter Rudolf](https://cinepixo.com/people/peter-rudolf)
- [Lech Mackiewicz](https://cinepixo.com/people/lech-mackiewicz)
- [Alan Arkin](https://cinepixo.com/people/alan-arkin)
- [Ági Margitai](https://cinepixo.com/people/agi-margitai)
- [Mirosław Zbrojewicz](https://cinepixo.com/people/miros-aw-zbrojewicz)
- [János Gosztonyi](https://cinepixo.com/people/janos-gosztonyi)
- [Armin Mueller-Stahl](https://cinepixo.com/people/armin-mueller-stahl)

## Criticism on CinePixo

No reviews published yet.

Source: https://cinepixo.com/movies/jakob-the-liar-1999
Film facts: Wikidata (Q240894); synopsis from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reviews, themes and notes are the work of this site's members.