The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (released as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in North America) is a 2008 historical drama film written and directed by Mark Herman. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by John Boyne. Set in World War II, the Holocaust drama relates the horror of a Nazi extermination camp through the eyes of two eight-year-old boys: Bruno (Asa Butterfield), the son of the camp's Nazi commandant, and Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a Jewish prisoner. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2008.