The Boys from Brazil (1978) - Plot Summary Poster


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  • (contains spoilers) A young aspiring Nazi hunter is in Paraguay keeping an eye on Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor who performed experiments on Jews during the war. The man has been calling famed Nazi hunter, Ezra Lieberman and Lieberman is annoyed by his calls. When Mengele has some guests he decides to bug his meeting. Just when he was about to get some details, Mengele finds the bug. So he runs off and calls Liberman and tells him that Mengele is planning to kill 96 men who are 65 years old all over the world. Just as he was going to tell Liberman more, Mengele finds him and kills him. Liberman receives some photos he sent of Mengele's guests, he recognizes some of them as Nazis so he decides to keep an eye out for a rash death of 65 year old men. Mengele upon learning of Liberman's snooping wants him killed but his superiors won't let him. When Liberman visits some of the homes of the men who are killed, he discovers that all of them have an adopted son who all resemble each other.

  • A young inexperienced Nazi Hunter stumbles onto a secret SS meeting in 1970's South America. Led by the infamous Doctor Josef Mengele, the plot of the Nazis is first dismissed as unimportant by veteran Nazi hunter Lieberman. When the young Nazi hunter turns up murdered, however, Lieberman investigates the mysterious meeting and discovers an insane plot to resurrect the Führer Adolf Hitler and establish the Fourth Reich.

  • From the jungles of Paraguay, Dr. Josef Mengele, the chief doctor at Auschwitz, plans the rebirth of the Nazi empire. He sends his minions to assassinate 94 men over a two year period just around the time they will turn 65 years of age. Famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman gets hold of this information and isn't quite sure how killing these 65-year old men will lead to a new Nazi regime. That is, until he visits some of the dead men's families and sees their sons.


The synopsis below may give away important plot points.


  • Gregory Peck portrays the infamous Nazi, Dr. Josef Mengele, who, while hiding in South America, plans the beginning of the Fourth Reich with other Nazi sympathizers. Laurence Olivier portrays Ezra Lieberman, a famed Nazi hunter.

    Dr. Mengele's plan is to recreate the childhood of Hitler for the 95 young boys he cloned from Hitler. Lieberman first learns of the scheme through Barry Kohler, a young, lone Nazi hunter portrayed by Steve Guttenberg. Guttenberg's character is caught while relaying the information to Lieberman and is executed by the group of Nazis loyal to Dr. Mengele.

    As Lieberman uncovers the plot, the Nazi commanders become afraid of being found out and terminate the plan, to Mengele's anger and disappointment. Dr. Mengele will not accept defeat and goes on in an attempt to complete his project. On his quest, he and Lieberman finally confront each other in a battle to the death at the adoptive home of one of the teen-aged Hitlers.

    When the Hitler boy walks in on the two embattled old men, he must make a choice as to whom he wants to trust and help. All the Hitler clones have shown definite propensities towards art and ruthlessness. The boy decides to sick his vicious dogs on Mengele, who is mauled to death--much to the entertainment of the boy Hitler. Lieberman takes the opportunity to take the list of the 95 cloned boys from Mengele's pocket. The boy then decides to help Lieberman, who would bleed to death from his wounds from the fight, only after making a deal with him not to tell the police what he has done.

    In the final scene, Lieberman is recovering in a hospital when another young Nazi hunter, a friend of Kohler's, comes in wanting the list of all of the Nazi boys that Lieberman had found. He wants to hunt them down and terminate them. Lieberman, who had suffered in a death camp, refuses to give up the only remaining copy of the list, and burns it in front of the young man's eyes, stating that innocent children should not be murdered.

    In this movie appears Wolf Kahler who will later play Ludendorff, chemist and Fritz Shimon Haber's close friend in Haber (2008).

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