The Search

In post-World War II Germany, a small boy who survived Auschwitz wanders alone -- feral, mute and terrified. He finds a makeshift home with a big-hearted GI, while the mother he does not remember searches desperately for him. Starring a then-unknown Montgomery Clift in his movie debut, directed in a near-documentary style by Fred Zinnemann and filmed in the ragged, rubble-strewn skeleton of Nuremberg, The Search vividly captures the horrifying human cost of war. This milestone of filmmaking won two 1948 Academy Awards : Best Motion Picture Story and a special award to Ivan Jandl for his haunting performance as the lost child.