Roman Griffin Davis portrays the title character, Johannes "Jojo" Betzler, a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member who finds out that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic.

During the collapse of Nazi Germany in the city of Falkenheim,[a] ten-year-old Johannes "Jojo" Betzler joins the Deutsches Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth (HJ).

Jojo slowly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed and kind Elsa, frequently forging love letters from her fiancé Nathan, and begins questioning his beliefs, causing Adolf to scold him over his diminishing patriotism.

Bored with generic World War II stories that were told through the perspectives of soldiers and survivors,[4] and aided by the background of his grandfather once fighting against the Nazis,[2]: 3  he decided to adapt the novel.

[4] Waititi compared the premise of the screenplay with the Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats, which portrays violence through the fantastical lens of a child: "In a lot of ways I wanted to keep some sort of innocence around that stuff.

"[7] Another inspiration came from reading that 66% of American millennials had never heard of or had no knowledge of the Auschwitz concentration camp; with Jojo Rabbit, he hoped the memories of the victims would remain forever and that conversations about the topic would not stop.

While Waititi's film Thor: Ragnarok (2017) began production, Fox Searchlight Pictures showed interest in Jojo Rabbit after searching for "more auteur-driven movies with challenging concepts.

[1] Waititi wanted an actor "who could embody the character's pinwheeling mix of blind gusto and untamed emotions in stride", while also depicting Jojo's coming-of-age transformation in a way that blended well with the film's "deep" themes.

Thomasin McKenzie, a New Zealand-born actress Waititi had known for a long time, was chosen to portray Elsa as a "really pretty, very cool girl who has this hard attitude", which hopefully would make Jojo's infatuation towards her in the film understandable.

[2]: 49 Principal photography for Jojo Rabbit occurred between May 28 and July 21, 2018, at various places in Prague, Žatec, Úštěk, Kytín, Dolní Beřkovice, Hořín, Lenešice, and the Petschek Palace.

[27] Production designer Ra Vincent chose these pre-war, unbombed places "because it had so much character and it felt like the most German of all the Czech towns we visited, with lots of German-style baroque architecture".

[35] Lenses include the Hawk V-Lite 1.3x anamorphic, Vantage One T1 spherical,[37] and Leitz Summilux-C.[38] The stopped down T1 was used for scenes in small or low-light areas, in order to give them a wide feel.

In total, there were about 200 visual effects shots, "about half of which were big invisible set extensions and often done by a [...] team of in house compositors" led by previous Chen collaborator Kenneth Quinn Brown.

For an experimental uniform Klenzendorf was written to wear in the screenplay, Rubeo went for a "glitzier", "heroic", and "flamboyant" approach, creating for him an "unorthodox" outfit, showcasing the character's creativity despite "know[ing] almost nothing about the rules of design."

[71] It also sends a message that war takes joy away from people and is "painstakingly ugly"; the Annals of the Romanian Society for Cell Biology described it as "a moral to the present uncertainties in the modern world.

Michael of the Journal of Religion and Film, the way Falkenheim literature is German but the character dialogues are mostly English "sets up the dichotomy between the fact that what is outside may separate us, but what is inside should bring us altogether."

[76] For example, as Elsa and Rosie began stressing to Jojo the importance of love and compassion in various dialogues, his viewpoint of Nazism begin to subtly shift, shown by the darkening attitude of Adolf.

[106] The Blu-ray release contains several special features, including three deleted scenes ("Imaginary Göring",[e] "Little Piggies",[f] "Adolf Dies Again"[g]), outtakes, a featurette titled "Inside Jojo Rabbit", an audio commentary, and two of the film's trailers.

[116][117] Viewership expansions were credited to Christmas and the attention it began to receive among the accolades community, surpassing $20 million as of December 19, 2019, its tenth week, at which point it was showing in 230 theaters.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Jojo Rabbit's blend of irreverent humor and serious ideas definitely won't be to everyone's taste—but either way, this anti-hate satire is audacious to a fault.

"[128] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times lauded it as "uncomfortably funny, unapologetically insensitive, cheerfully outrageous" and concluding that writer-director Waititi "delivers a timely, anti-hate fractured fairy tale.

"[129] In another positive review, Stephanie Zacharek of Time wrote: "It's Waititi's ability to balance unassailable goofy moments with an acknowledgment of real-life horrors that makes the movie exceptional.

"[130] Adam Graham of The Detroit News called it an "enchanting, whimsical satire about the absurdity of war as seen through a child's eyes" as well as "a smart, accessible, inclusive film that opens doors at a time when many are slamming them shut.

"[134] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that "The particulars of the evil can seem curiously abstract, and the portrayal of goodness can feel a bit false, and forced" and that "Elsa's Jewishness has no real content.

"[135] Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine criticized the film's premise, lack of historical accuracy and realism, and use of anti-semitic canards and stereotypes, and wrote that Waititi's performance as Hitler is "aiming for The Great Dictator but barely hitting Ace Ventura.

"[136] Little White Lies' Hannah Woodhead criticized the film for its inclusion of a sympathetic Wehrmacht officer, Captain Klenzendorf, writing that it "feels oddly impartial, keen to note that actually, there were some Nice Nazis Too.

"[137] The film received a negative critical reception in the UK, with Robbie Collin saying that he was "aghast": the scenes at the camp were "the laziest rip-off of Moonrise Kingdom I've seen in my life", and "there's no sense that anything is at stake [...] it sentimentalises and trivialises the Holocaust [...] the stuff that JoJo is indoctrinated with is made up of old Borat lines, and that's not what anti-Semitism is.

Though female members did not do many physical activities, as seen in the film, they were given traditionally feminine duties, such as farming, cooking, cleaning, singing, swimming, gymnastics, and running, which had the purpose of keeping their bodies fit so they could find a husband and spread the Nazi ideology to their future children.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism and professor of criminal justice at California State University, San Bernardino, applauded the film for using sarcasm—an easy-to-understand modern language—to depict Nazi Germany.

[143] Jojo Rabbit had an impact on teaching of the Holocaust on December 19, 2019, when the USC Shoah Foundation announced it worked together with Searchlight to develop a classroom curriculum regarding the depiction of Nazism in the film.