SS officer Ralf (David Thewlis) and his wife Elsa (Vera Farmiga) have a 12-year-old girl, Gretel (Amber Beattie), and an 8-year-old son, Bruno (Asa Butterfield). The father is promoted to Obersturmbannfuhrer & the new house is near a Nazi concentration camp, and Ralf is the new commandant. Bruno, living in Berlin, is uprooted to rural occupied Poland with his family. Bruno dislikes it as there are no other children to play with. The boy notices an extermination camp near the back garden from his bedroom window, but believes it to be a farm. From his bedroom window, Bruno spots a barbed wire fence with people in "striped pajamas" behind it. Bruno is forbidden by his father to mingle with the people in the "Farm". Bruno sneaks into the woods, arriving at a barbed wire fence surrounding the camp. Bruno becomes friends with a Hebrew boy, named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) who is also Bruno's age, whom he meets at the fence. Shmuel tells Bruno that he is a Hebrew and that the Hebrew people have been imprisoned here by soldiers. Bruno meets Shmuel regularly, sneaking him food. Bruno is confused and doubts his father being a good person. Later, he is relieved after seeing a propaganda film about the camp depicting the camp's conditions as positive. The friendship between Bruno and Shmuel grows. An elderly Hebrew man named Pavel (David Hayman) is a servant in the family home. He is treated rudely by Ralf's adjutant, Lieutenant Kurt Kotler (Rupert Friend). Formerly a doctor, Pavel mends Bruno's cuts when he falls off his homemade tire swing. Ralf hires Herr Liszt (Jim Norton) to tutor Gretel and Bruno, & he is brainwashing them with anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. This, along with Gretel's crush on Lieutenant Kurt Kotler, makes her fanatical in her support for the Nazi agenda. Bruno struggles to adjust to the rhetoric in the teaching after Pavel, a doctor-turned-family slave, comes to Bruno's aid after he sustains a minor injury. Elsa inadvertently discovers from Kurt that the smell from the camp is in fact burning prisoners, and she angrily confronts her husband. Ralph blames Kotler of anti-nationalism because his father migrated to Switzerland before the war to avoid national service. Embarrassed, Kurt viciously beats Pavel for spilling a glass of wine. Shmuel appears in the house as a new servant and, in his joy, Bruno gives him a cake to eat. However, Kotler starts yelling at Shmuel for speaking with Bruno and stealing food. Shmuel tells the officer that Bruno is his friend and that he gave him the cake. Frightened, Bruno denies, adding that he does not know Shmuel. The soldier tells Shmuel that they will later have "a little chat about what happens with rats who steal". Shmuel is not seen in the house anymore, and at first not at the fence either. Finally, Shmuel is at the fence again, with an injured right eye. Bruno apologizes. Shmuel soon forgives Bruno, and they become friends again. Kotler is later sent to the front for not advising his superiors of his father's opposition to the Nazi regime. Angered, Elsa reveals the reason for his transfer was because he had initially not alerted the authorities about his father. In Berlin, Ralf's mother Nathalie (Sheila Hancock), who disapproves of the Nazi regime, is killed by an Allied bombing raid. At the funeral, Elsa tries to remove a wreath from the Fuhrer out of respect for Nathalie and her beliefs, but Ralf stops her, causing them to fall out after the service. Elsa informs Ralf she does not want the children living in the vicinity of the camp. So, Ralf then informs Bruno and Gretel their mother is taking them to live with their extended family until the war is over. Bruno does not want to leave anymore, because of his friend Shmuel. Bruno visits Shmuel before he leaves. Shmuel tells Bruno that his father is missing. Bruno gives him the bad news that he will be moving away for good the next day after lunch. Wanting to make up for letting Shmuel down and unaware that his father has likely been murdered, Bruno agrees to help Shmuel to find his father, and returns the next day with a shovel to dig a hole under the fence to get into the camp, while Shmuel will bring an extra set of camp clothing. Shmuel provides Bruno with a prisoner's striped outfit and a cap to cover his unshaven head, then Bruno digs under the fence to join him. Shmuel's suggestion that he could leave the camp through the hole is rejected by Bruno, who focuses on the target of finding the father. Bruno changes his clothes and wiggles under the fence and is now in the camp with Shmuel. Bruno comes to realize that the camp is completely the opposite of what he saw in the propaganda film and wants to return, but Shmuel encourages him to continue helping to find his father. While they look in Shmuel's hut a group of guards and Kapos arrive and march all those inside (including Bruno and Shmuel) to a low concrete building. The men and boys are made to undress, supposedly for a shower, packed together into a gas chamber, where pesticide pellets are poured from a hole in the ceiling, filling the chamber with toxic gas. In the meantime, Elsa warns Ralf, who is in a meeting about increasing the capacity of the crematorium, that Bruno is missing. With Gretel, they run to the camp and try to find him. A search is launched and a dog tracks Bruno's scent to his discarded clothing. They find Bruno's clothes next to the hole under the fence. Ralf runs throughout the camp and discovers an empty hut, and, reaching the gas chamber, concludes that Bruno has been brought to the gas chamber with a group of Hebrews. Pavel is also seen undressing near the boys, and he looks at them and then turns away. When Ralf arrives, the boys are already dead, and he is devastated. Upon hearing Ralf's cry of "Bruno!" Elsa and Gretel realize what has happened and are equally devastated.
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