Triumph of the Spirit is a 1989 American biographical drama film directed by Robert M. Young and starring Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos.

The majority of the film is set in the German POW camp at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and details how the Jewish Greek boxer Salamo Arouch was forced to fight other internees to the death for the SS guards' entertainment.

[9] Also taking note of the "intrusive score", Rolling Stone found all of the cast melodramatic with the exception of Dafoe's "disciplined performance" and dismissed the film as "earnest but woefully misguided".

"[11] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt that, by showcasing the fights and expecting viewers to root for Arouch, the filmmakers in effect force audiences to behave no differently from the Nazis in the story.

[12] The 2005 book Projecting the Holocaust Into the Present, though acknowledging the generally negative critical reviews, opines that "Young's depiction of the ethical vacuum that the Nazis devised at Auschwitz makes the movie disturbing and effective.