Subgenre Sampler

Show: All FilmsRental Rental DVD Rental Blu-Ray Rental VHSSales Sales DVD Sales Blu-Ray Sales VHS

Operation Mincemeat (2021): Dir. John Madden
Feat. Colin Firth, Matthew MacFadyen, Kelly MacDonald…; Two intelligence officers use a corpse and false papers to outwit German troops in this well–appointed, old–school WWII drama based upon…
De Gaulle (2020): Dir. Gabriel Le Bomin
Feat. Lambert Wilson, Tim Hudson, Isabelle Carré…; Spectacularly mounted biographical drama depicting a crucial period in the life of French army officer Charles de Gaulle, a famous figure in modern…
Final Account (2020): Dir. Luke Holland; German documentary providing portraits of the last living generation of people to have participated in Hitler's Third Reich. A valuable project…
Love it Was Not (2020): Dir. Maya Sarfaty; Superb documentary about the incredible story of an SS officer and a Jewish prisoner who fall in love and have an affair at Auschwitz. A talented…
Outpost, The (2020): Dir. Rod Lurie
Feat. Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones, Orlando Bloom…; War movie depicting events during the War in Afghanistan in 2009, when the Taliban attacked a vulnerable US Army outpost called Combat Outpost…
Six Minutes to Midnight (2020): Dir. Andy Goddard
Feat. Eddie Izzard, Carla Juri, James D'Arcy…; A tense British period thriller loosely based on the true story of the disappearance of a school teacher at an elite girls' boarding school shortly…
1917 (2019): Dir. Sam Mendes
Feat. Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays; Immersive epic war film from director Sam Mendes (JARHEAD) which evokes the impression of a continuous take to follow two British soldiers on a…
A Hidden Life (2019): Dir. Terrence Malick
Feat. August Diehl, Matthias Schoenaerts, Valerie Pachner…; Historical drama of distinction from writer director Terrence Malick (THE THIN RED LINE), depicting the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian…
Aftermath, The (2019): Dir. James Kent
Feat. Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke, Alexander Skarsgard; Period melodrama of some distinction due to its strong cast, set in postwar Germany in 1945, where a British colonel and his wife move into a…
Catch-22 (TV Mini-series) (2019): Dir. Grant Heslov, George Clooney
Feat. Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, Daniel David Stewart…; Updated six–part adaptation of the difficult–to–adapt classic Joseph Heller novel, a WWII satire which was formerly adapted as a…
Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (2019): Dir. Kriv Stenders
Feat. Travis Fimmel, Luke Bracey, Richard Roxburgh…; Australian war film set in a Vietnamese rubber plantation in 1966, where 108 inexperienced Australian and New Zealand soldiers are fighting against…
For Sama (2019): Dir. Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts; Groundbreaking document of Syrian War, produced, directed and narrated by a journalist and political rebel under the pseudonym Waad Al–Kateab.…
Kill Team, The (2019): Dir. Dan Krauss
Feat. Nat Wolff, Adam Long, Osy Ikhile…; War drama which fictionalises events from the documentary of the same name from 2013, following a morally conflicted US Specialist whose platoon are…
Midway (2019): Dir. Roland Emmerich
Feat. Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson…; Thrilling war film set during the Battle of Midway, fought during WWII between the American and Japanese armies in the Pacific. Features a strong…
Soldiers Without Guns (2019): Dir. Will Watson; A quite remarkable tale of a team of coalition soldiers who, in 1997, landed into the heat of a 10–year civil war on the Pacific Island of…
World On Fire (TV Series) (2019): Feat. Jonah Hauer-King, Julia Brown, Helen Hunt…; Ensemble drama set during the declaration and first year of WWII and following the intertwining stories of ordinary families who are affected. Season…
12 Strong (2018): Dir. Nicolai Fuglsig
Feat. Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Pena…; An American special forces team is deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11 with a mission to track down the Taliban. A rousing tribute to American heroism…
A Private War (2018): Dir. Matthew Heineman
Feat. Rosamund Pike, Greg Wise, Alexandra Moen; Rosamund Pike is a stand out in this powerful thriller based on the true story of the fearless and celebrated war correspondent Marie Colvin. Having…
Ashes in the Snow (2018): Dir. Marius A. Markevicius
Feat. Bel Powley, Jonah Hauer-King, Martin Wallström; Coming–of–age story set during WWII, when Stalin's Red Army has invaded Lithuania and a promising young artist is deported with her…
Donbass (2018): Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
Feat. Tamara Yatsenko, Irina Zayarmiuk, Grigory Masliuk; A 13–part exploration of the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian–supported Donetsk People's Republic throughout the…
Hurricane (Mission of Honor) (2018): Dir. David Blair
Feat. Iwan Rheon, Milo Gibson, Stefanie Martini…; The tale of a Polish pilot who together with his comrades join the Hurricane Squadron 303 of the British Royal Air Force to fight during the Battle…
Overlord (2018): Dir. Julius Avery
Feat. Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier; A small group of American soldiers discover secret Nazi experiments after they are dropped behind enemy lines the day before D–day. A gleefully…
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018): Dir. Peter Jackson; Ground–breaking documentary that employs state–of–the–art technology to transform audio and moving image archive footage to…
Where Hands Touch (2018): Dir. Amma Asante
Feat. Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish…; Weighty wartime melodrama from accomplished writer–director Amma Asante (A UNITED KINGDOM), following the fate of a young African American girl…
Another Mother's Son (2017): Dir. Christopher Menaul
Feat. Jenny Seagrove, John Hannah, Julian Kostov…; Based on a true story from the German occupation of the Channel Islands, about a Jersey woman named Louisa Gould, who takes in an escaped young…
Captain, The (Der Hauptmann) (2017): Dir. Robert Schwentke
Feat. Max Hubacher, Frederick Lau, Bernd Holscher; Gripping historical drama about German soldier Willi Herold, who was fighting for survival against the Nazis until he found the uniform of a Nazi…
Churchill (2017): Dir. Jonathan Teplitzky
Feat. Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, John Slattery; Brian Cox delivers an impressive performance as iconic Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the days before the D–Day landings in June 1944.
City of Ghosts (2017): Dir. Matthew Heineman; The director of CARTEL LAND lands on Syrian soil for another risk–taking venture that documents the efforts of "Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered…
Dunkirk (2017): Dir. Christopher Nolan
Feat. Fionn Whitehead, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan…; Christopher Nolan's grandiose staging of the famous evacuation of the French port of Dunkirk in May 1940 is a departure from the fantasy pictures the…
Foxtrot (2017): Dir. Samuel Maoz
Feat. Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler; The impressive sophomore effort of director Samuel Maoz (LEBANON) is a perceptive and bold exploration of war and grief. An affluent couple living in…
Journey's End (2017): Dir. Saul Dibb
Feat. Sam Claflin, Asa Butterfield, Paul Bettany…; Adaptation of the 1928 play by war veteran R.C. Sheriff, set in the trenches in Aisne during WWI, where British officers face tensions, terror,…
Last Post, The (TV Mini-series) (2017): Dir. Jonny Campbell
Feat. Jessie Buckley, Stephen Campbell Moore, Ben Miles; Set in the mid–Sixties in the shimmering heat of Aden (Yemen), this BBC drama from the writer of THE VILLAGE centres on a unit of Royal…
Man With The Iron Heart, The (2017): Dir. Cédric Jimenez
Feat. Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Jack O'Connell…; As German fascism spreads throughout Europe, two young members of the Czech resistance in London plan to assassinate the mastermind of the "Final…
Megan Leavey (Rex) (2017): Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Feat. Kate Mara, Ramon Rodriguez, Tom Felton…; Heartfelt war drama based on the true events about the eponymous young female US Marine corporal whose unique discipline and bond with a military…
See You Up There (Au revoir là-haut) (2017): Dir. Albert Dupontel
Feat. Albert Dupontel, Nahuel Pérez Biscayar, Laurent Lafitte…; French film adaptation of the ambitious novel set a few days before the 1918 Armistice, where, among the ruins of WWI, a genius draftsman and a…
SS-GB (TV Mini-series) (2017): Feat. Sam Riley, James Cosmo, Rainer Bock…; BBC series speculating on what German occupied Britain would like like if the Nazis had won WII. Arrestingly dystopian TV, based on the…
Thank You for Your Service (2017): Dir. Jason Hall
Feat. Miles Teller, Haley Bennett, Joe Cole…; A group of US soldiers return from Iraq and face the difficulties of reintegrating into civilian society in this finely tuned drama about PTSD. Miles…
Wall, The (2017): Dir. Doug Liman
Feat. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith Nakli; Two American soldiers are trapped by an Iraqi sniper in this deadly psychological thriller. Combining impressive marksmanship with a battle of wits,…
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017): Dir. Matt Reeves
Feat. Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn; The third and final installment in the excellent Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy, with director Matt Reeves returning to complete the story that…
Yellow Birds, The (2017): Dir. Alexandre Moors
Feat. Tye Sheridan, Alden Ehrenreich, Toni Collette…; Iraq War movie featuring Alden Ehrenreich and Tye Sheridan as friends who are deployed to Iraq under a hot–headed sergeant. But after a tragedy…
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016): Dir. Michael Bay
Feat. James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini…; Michael Bay is comparatively restrained as he helms this visceral recreation of the attack on the U.S. compound in Libya.
Allied (2016): Dir. Robert Zemeckis
Feat. Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Lizzy Caplan…; Old–fashioned wartime romance between an intelligence officer and a French resistance fighter in 1942, which develops into a satisfying…
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016): Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Joe Alwyn, Vin Diesel, Kristen Stewart…; After a near escape from a violent encounter during the Iraq war, a group of eight soldiers return home to find themselves glorified as heroes on…
Dad's Army (2016): Dir. Oliver Parker
Feat. Bill Nighy, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Toby Jones…; Amiable revival of the popular sitcom has the distinctly aged Home Guard platoon dealing with a visiting female journalist and a German spy as World…
Exception, The (2016): Dir. David Leveaux
Feat. Lily James, Jai Courtney, Janet McTeer…; Romantic war drama fictionalizing the last few days in the life of exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II, played by Christopher Plummer. A German soldier tries to…
Hacksaw Ridge (2016): Dir. Mel Gibson
Feat. Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Vince Vaughn…; The true World War II story of a conscientious objector who, at the Battle of Okinawa, won the Medal of Honor for his bravery and regard for his…
Jim: The James Foley Story (2016): Dir. Brian Oakes; A moving look at the life and work of American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped and publicly executed by ISIS, directed by his childhood…
King's Choice, The (2016): Dir. Erik Poppe
Feat. Jesper Christensen, Anders Baasmo; Vibrant war–time drama set during the three days in 1940 when German forces occupied Oslo and King Haakon VII and his family went into hiding.…
Land of the Enlightened, The (2016): Dir. Pieter-Jan de Pue; A creative documentary hybrid, which stages facts and fantasy side by side to reveal an intimate and poetic portrait of Afghanistan. Reminiscent of…
My Mother and Other Strangers (TV Mini-series) (2016): Dir. Adrian Shergold
Feat. Hattie Morahan, Owen McDonnell; Five–episode mini–series set during WWII in which a family and their neighbours in a Northern Irish village come to terms with the influx…
National Bird: Drone Wars (2016): Dir. Sonia Kennebeck; A chilling expose of America's modern warfare program in which the ethics and possibilities of a deadly new technology are being determined, with…
War, A (Krigen) (2016): Dir. Tobias Lindholm
Feat. Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling; The director and leading cast of A HIJACKING turn their attention to the dilemmas of modern warfare in this gripping account of an unexpected tragedy…
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016): Dir. Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Feat. Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman…; Spiky war comedy with Tina Fey as a journalist assigned to Afghanistan at the height of the second Gulf War. Based on the acclaimed memoir "The…
25 April (2015): Dir. Leanne Pooley; An animated take on the tragic 1915 Gallipoli Campaign of WW1 told through the perspective of six New Zealanders who were involved. The voice cast…
A Perfect Day (2015): Dir. Fernando León de Aranoa
Feat. Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko…; Trenchant, satisfying black comedy about a group of aid workers struggling with the task of removing a corpse from a well at the end of the Yugoslav…
Deadline Gallipoli (TV Mini-Series) (2015): Feat. Sam Worthington, Hugh Dancy, Charles Dance…; Sam Worthington heads this impressively told tale of three journalists who accompanied troops in the ill–fated Gallipoli Campaign.
Eye in the Sky (2015): Dir. Gavin Hood
Feat. Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi…; Provocative drama that examines the perils of drone warfare with Helen Mirren as a military officer in command of a mission to capture terrorists in…
Gallipoli (TV Mini-series) (2015): Dir. Glendyn Ivin
Feat. Kodi Smit-McPhee, Nicholas Hope, Harry Greenwood…; Commissioned to mark the centenary of the ill–fated military expedition, this epic drama follows the fortunes of four young Australian boys who…
Heavy Water War, The (The Saboteurs) (2015): Dir. Per-Olav Sørensen
Feat. Espen Klouman-Høiner, Soren Pilmark, Anna Friel…; Thrilling Norwegian mini–series tells the story behind Hitler's plan for obtaining the atomic bomb during WW2, and the heavy water sabotages in…
Land of Mine (Under sandet) (2015): Dir. Martin Zandvliet
Feat. Roland Møller, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard; Multi award–winning historical drama following a unit of captured German soldiers who are put to work disabling Hitler's munitions by an…
Only the Dead (2015): Dir. Bill Guttentag, Michael Ware; Graphic, but never exploitative account of the invasion of Iraq as captured by the lens of Australian war correspondent Michael Ware.
Son of Saul (2015): Dir. László Nemes
Feat. Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn; Masterful, but deeply disturbing glimpse into the horror of Auschwitz seen through the perspective of a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his…
Testament of Youth (2015): Dir. James Kent
Feat. Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington, Taron Egerton…; Vera Brittain's acclaimed coming–of–age memoir is given the cinematic treatment in this fine adaptation, with Alicia Vikander (EX…
When We Go To War (TV Mini-series) (2015): Feat. Ido Drent, Sophia Huybens; Historical saga that tells the story of six young men and women whose plans for the future are thwarted as New Zealand enters World War I. Events…
Why ANZAC with Sam Neill (Tides of Blood) (2015): Feat. Sam Neill; Sam Neill examines the enduring myths of the Anzac legend, sharing his family's war stories and uncovering forgotten truths. From the Gallipoli…
1864 (TV Series) (2014): Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Pilou Asbæk, Jacob Oftebro, Sidse Babett Knudsen…; The most expensive Danish TV series made to date, this lavish historical war drama is based on two books by Tom Buk–Swienty about the Second…
300: Rise of an Empire (2014): Dir. Noam Murro
Feat. Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey…; A second wave of sword and sandal gore, with Greek general Themistokles, outnumbered but determined, leading the charge against another massive…
American Sniper (2014): Dir. Clint Eastwood
Feat. Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Kyle Gallner…; Clint Eastwood helms this controversial biopic of the most decorated sniper in U.S. military history and his struggle to adjust to civilian life.
Crimson Field, The (TV Mini-series) (2014): Dir. David Evans
Feat. Kerry Fox, Jack Gordon, Suranne Jones…; A vivid and emotive epic British drama set in the tented field hospitals of WW1. Centred around an experienced nurse who arrives at an overcrowded…
Diplomacy (2014): Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Andre Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaussner…; A thematically rich and expertly staged historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of…
Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond (TV Mini-Series) (2014): Dir. Mat Whitecross
Feat. Dominic Cooper, Lara Pulver, Lesley Manville…; The colourful and perilous adventures of Ian Fleming are liberally brought to life in this wartime spy romp pitched as the making of James Bond.
Fort Bliss (2014): Dir. Claudia Myers
Feat. Michelle Monaghan, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Pablo Schreiber…; After returning home from an extended tour in Afghanistan, a decorated U.S. Army medic and single mother struggles to rebuild her relationship with…
Fury (2014): Dir. David Ayer
Feat. Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman…; An Allied tank on a deadly mission behind enemy lines finds itself outnumbered and outgunned in this heavy duty WWII vehicle for Brad Pitt, more…
Good Kill (2014): Dir. Andrew Niccol
Feat. Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Zoe Kravitz…; Andrew Niccol (GATTACA) writes and directs this thought–provoking drama with Ethan Hawke as a drone pilot beginning to question the ethics of…
Kajaki: Kilo Two Bravo (2014): Dir. Paul Katis
Feat. David Elliot, Mark Stanley, Scott Kyle; Nerve–wracking thriller, based on a true story, finds a unit of British paratroopers stranded in a minefield left over from the Soviet invasion.
Korengal (2014): Dir. Sebastian Junger; Follow–up to RESTREPO picks up where it left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the…
Last Days in Vietnam (2014): Dir. Rory Kennedy; An exhaustive, Oscar–nominated documentary directed by the daughter of Robert Kennedy about the final panicked days of the Vietnam War as the…
Monuments Men, The (2014): Dir. George Clooney
Feat. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray…; George Clooney directs and stars in this stirring WWII adventure based on the deeds of a team of Allied art historians who go behind enemy lines to…
Nancy Wake: Gestapo's Most Wanted (2014): The heroics of Wellington–born Nancy Wake, aka 'The White Mouse', are given a pulpy treatment in this doco–drama celebrating the famed…
Our Girl (TV Series) (2014): Feat. Lacey Turner; Lacey Turner stars in this acclaimed drama as a young woman on her first deployment as a serving army medic against the backdrop of the British…
Parer's War (2014): Dir. Alister Grierson
Feat. Matthew Le Nevez, Adelaide Clemens; A fine companion piece to KOKODA (also directed by Alister Grierson), this biopic honours Australia's first Oscar winner, war photographer Damien…
Unbroken (2014): Dir. Angelina Jolie
Feat. Jack O'Connell, Takamasa Ishihara, Domhnall Gleeson…; Angelina Jolie directs this biopic of Olympian Louis Zamperini who survived a harrowing 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before being by the…
War Story (2014): Dir. Mark Jackson
Feat. Catherine Keener, Hafsia Herzi, Ben Kingsley…; A war photographer who recently endured a brutal detainment in Libya holes up in Sicily to come to terms with her ordeal.
War That Changed Us, The (2014): Commissioned by the ABC to mark the centenary of the First World War, this series draws on the personal testimonies of six Australians – revealed…
Water Diviner, The (2014): Dir. Russell Crowe
Feat. Jai Courtney, Olga Kurylenko, Russell Crowe…; An Australian man travels to Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli to try and locate his three missing sons.
William Kelly's War (2014): Dir. Geoff Davis
Feat. Tony Bonner; Low budget Australian WWI film following two brothers who enlist and are sent to Europe, fighting from the trenches of Gallipoli to the Western…
A Hero's Choice (A Farewell to Fools) (2013): Dir. Bogdan Dreyer
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Harvey Keitel, Laura Morante; A heaving production of Titus Popovici's famous novella 'The Death of Ipu' out of Romania, this WWII morality tale stars Gerard Depardieu as a madman…
A Thousand Times Goodnight (2013): Dir. Erik Poppe
Feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Juliette Binoche, Maria Doyle Kennedy…; Juliette Binoche stars as a war–zone photojournalist whose dedication to her dangerous job places her at odds with her family.
Bluestone 42 (TV Series) (2013): Feat. Oliver Chris, Kelly Adams, Matthew Lewis; Excellent British dramedy combines realism with levity in its chronicle of a British bomb disposal detachment in Afghanistan. Series One: 9…
Book Thief, The (2013): Dir. Brian Percival
Feat. Sophie Nelisse, Heike Makatsch, Geoffrey Rush…; Earnest wartime drama about a foster child who begins stealing books and sharing them with a Jewish refugee hiding in her basement in Nazi Germany.
Canopy (2013): Dir. Aaron Wilson
Feat. Khan Chittenden; An Australian pilot shot down over wartime Singapore forms an uneasy alliance with a Chinese resistance fighter in this immersive survival story.
Dirty Wars (2013): Dir. Rick Rowley; Chilling docu–drama follows journalist Jeremy Scahill and the trail of secrets and lies he uncovers while investigation America's covert wars.
Generation War (TV Mini-Series) (2013): Feat. Volker Bruch, Miriam Stein, Ludwig Trepte…; Hugely popular in Germany this mini–series examines the second World War from the German perspective. Told through the eyes of five friends as…
Kill Team, The (2013): Dir. Dan Krauss; Difficult but important expose of 21–year–old soldier Adam Winfield's attempts to alert his military superiors to heinous war crimes…
Last Resort (TV Series) (2013): Feat. Andre Braugher, Scott Speedman, Autumn Reeser…; Tense military drama set on board a U.S. submarine which refuses to carry out an order to fire launch nuclear ballistic missiles at Pakistan. 13…
Lone Survivor (2013): Dir. Peter Berg
Feat. Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch…; Mark Wahlberg portrays Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the eponymous lone survivor of a covert mission against al–Qaeda gone wrong, in this powerful…
Railway Man, The (2013): Dir. Jonathan Teplitzky
Feat. Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Hiroyuki Sanada…; Tormented by his experience as a prisoner of war, a former British Army officer confronts one of his torturers in civilian times this haunting…
Tangerines (2013): Dir. Zaza Urushadze
Feat. Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen; Immeasurably moving drama set durng the war in Georgia in which an Estonian man stays behind to harvest tangerines and care for a wounded fighter.
Unknown Known, The (2013): Dir. Errol Morris; Controversial former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in…
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? (2013): Dir. Sebastian Junger; Sebastian Junger offers a moving tribute to his late co–director on RESTREPO, Tim Hetherington, with added reflection on the state of…
Wind Rises, The (2013): Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
Feat. Hideaki Anno; Hayao Miyazaki's glorious swansong is the poignant story of aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi and his dreams of designing the perfect flying machine…
Wipers Times, The (2013): Dir. Andy De Emmony
Feat. Ben Chaplin, Michael Palin; The horrors of trench warfare are matched with alleviating gallows humour in this strangely moving tale of a satirical newspaper published on the…
1612 (2012): Dir. Vladimir Khotinenko
Feat. Pyotr Kislov; Bloated Russian 'historical' epic renders the 17th century civil war that ravaged the divided country as a Peter Jackson–esque battle fantasy.…
Birdsong (TV Mini-Series) (2012): Dir. Philip Martin
Feat. Eddie Redmayne, Clemence Poesy, Matthew Goode; The horrific experiences of an English soldier fighting in northern France are juxtaposed against his fond, but haunted memories of a forbidden love…
Bomb Girls (TV Series) (2012): Feat. Meg Tilly, Jodi Balfour, Ali Liebert…; A first–rate Canadian drama centred on the lives of women on the home–front who were recruited to work in dangerous munitions factories…
Emperor (2012): Dir. Peter Webber
Feat. Matthew Fox, Tommy Lee Jones, Eriko Hatsune; Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones play Generals Bonner Fellers and Douglas MacArthur respectively in this solid dramatisation of the aftermath of the…
Gallipoli From Above (2012): An Australian–centred 'corrective' history of the Gallipoli landing, which focuses on the scale and achievement of the ANZAC's deployment of…
In the Fog (2012): Dir. Sergey Loznitsa
Feat. Vladislav Svirskiy, Vladislav Abashin; Intense, slow burning Russian drama exploring the moralities of war through the story of a man wrongly accused of collaboration with the German…
Into the White (2012): Dir. Petter Naess
Feat. Florian Lukas, Rupert Grint, David Kross…; Gentle anti–war drama with downed German and English pilots taking refuge in the same cabin in snow–bound Norway. Based on a true story.
Lincoln (2012): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn…; Daniel Day–Lewis portrays the famed U.S. President between 1861 and 1865 as he dealt with personal demons and politics during the Civil War in…
Private Peaceful (2012): Dir. Pat O'Connor
Feat. Jack O'Connell, George MacKay, Alexandra Roach…; This sensitive, small scale contrast to Spielberg's WAR HORSE (also from a Michael Morgpurgo novel) centres on two brothers who are compelled to put…
Restless (TV Mini-Series) (2012): Dir. Edward Hall
Feat. Hayley Atwell, Rufus Sewell, Michelle Dockery…; A fine small screen adaptation of William Boyd's espionage novel, about a young woman who learns that her mother was recruited as a spy during World…
Suskind (2012): Dir. Rudolf van den Berg
Feat. Karl Markovics, Jeroen Spitzenberger; A serious, respectful historical dramatisation of the deeds of Walter Sueskind, a Jewish industrialist in Amsterdam who used his leverage as an…
Third Half, The (2012): Dir. Darko Mitrevski
Feat. Katarina Ivanovska, Sasko Kocev; A Macedonian football club hires a German coach to galvanize the team as Nazis prepare to enter the country in this wartime occupation drama.
Twice Born (2012): Dir. Sergio Castellitto
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Emile Hirsch; The memory of a passionate love affair with an American photographer and its harrowing aftermath is rekindled when a woman returns to Sarajevo with…
Untold History of the United States, The (TV Series) (2012): Dir. Oliver Stone; Oliver Stone is the voice and reasoning behind this fascinating, if contentious revisionist Cold War history through American foreign…
War Witch (Rebelle) (2012): Dir. Kim Nguyen
Feat. Rachel Mwanza; A remarkable magical realist portrayal of the tragedy of child soldiering in one of Africa’s many civil wars, with the phenomenal Rachel Mwanza as…
White Tiger (2012): Dir. Karen Shakhnazarov
Feat. Aleksey Vertkov, Vitaliy Kishchenko, Valeriy Grishko; A Red Army sergeant becomes obsessed with a mysterious white Tiger tank responsible for the destruction of his battalion.
5 Days Of War (2011): Dir. Renny Harlin
Feat. Rupert Friend, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Richard Coyle…; Mediocre propaganda piece in which an American journalist, his cameraman, and a Georgian native get caught in the crossfire in the war between Russia…
Blood and Country (There Be Dragons) (2011): Dir. Roland Joffe
Feat. Charlie Cox, Wes Bentley, Dougray Scott…; Roland Joffe (THE KILLING FIELDS) directs this epic, if overambitious Spanish Civil War drama spread across three different storylines: two…
Bomber, The (Ballada o bombere (Ballad Of A Bomber)) (2011): Dir. Vitaliy Vorobyov
Feat. Nikita Efremov, Ekaterina Astakhova, Aleksandr Davydov; Hum–drum war film – originally a television series – has a Russian aircraft crashing in Nazi occupied territory and the three…
Fall of the Innocent (The Butcher of Prague) (2011): Dir. Petr Nikolaev
Feat. Karel Roden, Zuzana Fialova, Zuzana Bydzovska; WWII drama about the Nazi massacre and destruction of the Czech village of Lidice. The main protagonist is a man from the village who is sent to…
Flowers of War, The (2011): Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Paul Schneider; Dir. Zhang Yimou tackles the Nanking massacre with equal parts grim realism and stylish melodrama – befitting of a lavish wartime epic, less so…
Front Line, The (2011): Dir. Hun Jang
Feat. Ha-kyun Shin, Soo Go; Big battles clash with big themes in this sizable war epic set during the last days of the Korean war, where soldiers from both the North and South…
Hell and Back Again (2011): Dir. Danfung Dennis; Photojournalist Danfung Dennis captures both the intensity of combat and the despair of life back home in this incredible insight into the realities…
In Darkness (2011): Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Robert Wieckiewicz, Agnieszka Grochowska, Kinga Preis; A stirring, endlessly suspenseful wartime resistance drama from dir. Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, EUROPA), about the ordinary men and women surviving…
Long March to Freedom, The (2011): A brutal chapter towards of end of WWII is given its due in this harrowing documentary on the 'long march' of British, American and Commonwealth POWs…
My Best Enemy (2011): Dir. Wolfgang Murnberger
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Georg Friedrich, Ursula Strauss; A Jewish man switches places with his Nazi best friend in order to survive, in this dark WWII drama.
My Way (2011): Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Jang Dong-Gun, Joe Odagiri, Bingbing Fan; The director of BROTHERHOOD OF WAR raises the stakes with this louder, bloodier, more spectacular WWII epic, centred on the true story of rival…
Personal War, A (The Kiwi Who Saved Britain) (2011): Three short dramatic accounts of war stories as a memorial to all those who have fought and lost their lives for New Zealand as soldiers. THE KIWI…
Remembrance (Die Verlorene Zeit) (2011): Dir. Anna Justice; A powerful, decades long Holocaust tale of two lovers who endure the horrors of concentration camps, only to be separated by the chaos of the war.
Resistance (2011): Dir. Amit Gupta
Feat. Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wlaschiha; A restrained, understated war drama shot through the lens of an alternate history, where the Germans have gained the upper hand and begun to invade…
Sinking of the Laconia, The (TV Mini-Series) (2011): Dir. Uwe Janson
Feat. Andrew Buchan, Brian Cox, Franke Potente; Gripping reenactment of the events surrounding the ill–fated Laconia, a British ocean liner crippled by a German U–boat, who in turn…
War Horse (2011): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson…; Steven Spielberg revives the magic of Old Hollywood with this rousing saga of a plucky farm stallion who goes on to inspire soldiers and citizens…
Wunderkinder (2011): Dir. Markus Rosenmüller
Feat. Gedeon Burkhard, Natalia Avelon; A history of Germany in broad strokes, this heartrending coming–of–age tale charts the upheaval of WWII through the eyes of three child…
20 Cigarettes (2010): Dir. Aureliano Amadei
Feat. Vinicio Marchioni, Carolina Crescentini, Giorgio Colangeli; Wry autobiographical story about an assistant director who receives an offer to fly to Iraq in order to shoot a film, surprisingly sincere.
A Film Unfinished (2010): Dir. Yael Hersonski; Filmmaker Yael Hersonski interrogates the veracity of the Nazis' unfinished ghetto film project, with the surviving footage of the Warsaw…
A Marine Story (2010): Dir. Ned Farr
Feat. Dreya Weber, Paris Pickard, Christine Mourad; Set against the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the US Military, a Marine officer, who has unexpectedly returned home from Iraq, is recruited to…
Armadillo (2010): Dir. Janus Metz; Dir. Janus Metz chronicles the changing personalities and life–altering experiences of a platoon of Danish soldiers fighting out of the…
Bang Bang Club, The (2010): Dir. Steven Silver
Feat. Ryan Phillippe, Malin Akerman, Taylor Kitsch…; Lacerating portrait of the notorious group of war photographers who made their name during South Africa's turbulent transition out of Apartheid.…
Beneath Hill 60 (2010): Dir. Jeremy Sims
Feat. Brendan Cowell, Gyton Grantley, Harrison Gilbertson…; Gripping, untold story of Australian daring beneath the trenches of WWI concerns a group of rag–tag engineers charged with sabotaging the…
Green Zone (2010): Dir. Paul Greengrass
Feat. Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Brendan Gleeson…; Action ace Paul Greengrass deploys Bourne leading man Matt Damon in this frenetic, politically pointed thriller focused on the hunt for Weapons of…
Home By Christmas (2010): Dir. Gaylene Preston
Feat. Tony Barry, Martin Henderson, Chelsie Preston-Crayford; The director of WAR STORIES returns to the subject for this deeply personal yet affecting docu–drama focusing this time on a single story…
Jackboots on Whitehall (2010): Dir. Edward McHenry, Rory McHenry
Feat. Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant…; Batty puppet caper set in a Britain under Nazi rule, and only a rag–tag bunch of yokels and a Frenchman stand in the way. An anarchic…
Pacific, The (TV Series) (2010): Feat. Joseph Mazzello, James Badge Dale, John Seda…; Searing, no–expense–spared follow–up to the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg–produced BAND OF BROTHERS shifts its epic perspective…
Restrepo (2010): Dir. Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger; A visceral and ground–breaking war documentary that gives us a frontline POV of the stand against the Taliban from a strategically placed…
Rise and Fall (Jew Suss) (2010): Dir. Oskar Roehler
Feat. Tobias Moretti, Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu; Wrenching true story about German actor Ferdinand Marian who, despite being married to a Jewish woman chose to play lead in the antisemitic…
Round Up, The (La Rafle) (2010): Dir. Rose Bosch
Feat. Jean Reno, Mélanie Laurent, Gad Elmaleh…; A sensitive recreation of the tragic events and personal stories surrounding the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of 1942, where some 13,000 French Jews were…
Strike Back (TV Series) (2010-2017): Feat. Andrew Lincoln, Richard Armitage, Michelle Lukes…; An high–octane action series centred on the intersecting operations of an SAS Sergeant (Armitage) and an SIS Agent (Lincoln) over the course of…
Tillman Story, The (2010): Dir. Amir Bar-Lev; Complex portrait of NFL defensive lineman Pat Tillman, who attracted both admiration and controversy by abandoning a professional football career to…
War You Don't See, The (2010): Dir. John Pilger; Famed journo–activist John Pilger traces the history of ‘embedded’ and independent reporting, from WWI through to Afghanistan and current…
Way Back, The (2010): Dir. Peter Weir
Feat. Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell…; A small group of multi–national prisoners escape a Siberian Gulag and make their way across five countries on foot in this survivalist epic…
A Courageous Heart (The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler) (2009): Dir. John Kent Harrison
Feat. Anna Paquin, Marcia Gay Harden, Goran Visnjic…; Moving account of the young Polish social worker who smuggled over 2,000 children out of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009): Brilliantly remastered footage (all in colour, often augmented with sound effects) and an exhaustive chronological of events make this…
Army of Crime, The (2009): Dir. Robert Guediguian
Feat. Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen; Part of a recent wave of prestigious WWII resistence dramas, this one reconstructs events around a group of Paris–based resistance fighters,…
Attack on Leningrad (2009): Dir. Aleksandr Buravsky
Feat. Gabriel Byrne, Mira Sorvino, Armin Mueller-Stahl; A soaring, action–packed journey of heroism and sacrifice as one crusading journalist desperately fights to uncover the horrors buried within…
Battlefield Mysteries (2009): Dir. Paul Kilback; Seemlessly mixing CGI animation with historical footage, this four part documentary series sheds light on some of history's most significant battles.…
Betrayal (2009): Dir. Hakon Gunderson
Feat. Lene Nystrøm, Götz Otto, Kåre Conradi; Deceit and opportunism are the currencies traded in this passable wartime thriller, recommended for fans of MAX MANUS. Lene Nystrøm (of 90’s pop…
Brothers (2009): Dir. Jim Sheridan
Feat. Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire…; Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire star in this remake of Susanne Bier's wrenching Danish drama, about two sibling's lives torn apart by war.
City of Life and Death (2009): Dir. Chuan Lu
Feat. Ye Liu, Yuanyuan Gao, Hideo Nakaizumi; This first serious depiction of the atrocities wrought on Chinese refugees and soldiers during the occupation of Nanking is a harrowing, expertly…
City of War (John Rabe) (2009): Dir. Florian Gallenberger
Feat. Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Bruhl, Steve Buscemi…; Riveting dramatisation of an unlikely true story in which a Nazi industrialist conspires to save the lives of 200,000 Chinese during the infamous…
Hitler's Bodyguard (TV Series) (2009): 13–part documentary series offering a thorough, at times incredible, examination of the men who protected Adolf Hitler against numerous…
Inglourious Basterds (Inglorious Bastards) (2009): Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Feat. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Eli Roth…; A cocky, revisionist war epic channeling spaghetti westerns and the Dirty Dozen, Quentin Tarantino’s long–time pet project is perhaps his…
Into the Storm (2009): Dir. Thaddeus O'Sullivan
Feat. Brendan Gleeson, Janet McTeer, James D'Arcy…; Enthralling sequel to HBO's acclaimed THE GATHERING STORM focuses on Winston Churchill's challenging term as Prime Minister during the war, followed…
Lancaster at War (2009): WWII documentary extolling the 'Avro Lancaster' and its part in the controversial bombing campaign of Germany.
Land Girls (TV Series) (2009): Feat. Summer Strallen, Christine Bottomley, Jo Woodcock…; Four Women's Land Army recruits experience the highs and lows of wartime service in this stirring BBC drama which pays tribute to the lives of…
Lebanon (2009): Dir. Samuel Maoz
Feat. Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen…; Intense, multi–faceted battle thriller set during the height of the Israeli–Lebanon conflict in 1982 in which four young soldiers sent by…
Man Who Will Come, The (L'uomo che verrà) (2009): Dir. Giorgio Diritti
Feat. Maya Sansa, Alba Rohrwacher, Greta Zuccheri Montanari; Moving Italian war drama told through the eyes of an eight–year–old mute, who witnesses the brutal struggle between Italian partisans and…
Memories of Anne Frank (2009): Dir. Alberto Negrin; Moving Italian–made biopic on the relationship between Anne Frank and (the surviving) Hanneli Goslar, whose close childhood friendship and…
Men Who Stare at Goats, The (2009): Dir. Grant Heslov
Feat. George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor…; George Clooney stars as a tell–all Special Forces operative in this mind–boggling, fact–based military farce based on the U.S.…
Message, The (2009): Dir. Kuo-fu Chen, Qunshu Gao
Feat. Bingbing Li, Xun Zhou, Zhiwen Wang…; Sino–Japanese tensions are foregrounded in this enthralling cat and mouse thriller, set in a clifftop mansion during the height of World War…
Messenger, The (2009): Dir. Oren Moverman
Feat. Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Jena Malone…; Ben Foster plays a troubled Iraq War veteran reassigned to the military's Casualty Notification Office in this affecting study of war on the home…
Occupation (TV Mini-series) (2009): Dir. Nick Murphy
Feat. James Nesbitt, Stephen Graham, Warren Brown…; Insightful, character–driven alternative to HBO's GENERATION KILL, this follows the lives of three British soliders during and after the 2003…
Paris 1919 (Un traité pour la paix) (2009): Dir. Paul Cowan
Feat. David Lowe, Paul Bandey, Yan Brian; History–drenched docudrama merging archival footage with live action, examining the tricky negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty…
Simon Schama's Rough Crossings (2009): Docu–drama presented by revered historian Simon Schama (A HISTORY OF BRITAIN) which charts the astonishing story of thousands of…
This is War (Severe Clear) (2009): Dir. Kristian Fraga; Grungy self–portrait of life shot on mini–dv by a marine in Iraq that captures with visceral immediacy life in the front line.
Triage (2009): Dir. Danis Tanovic
Feat. Colin Farrell, Paz Vega, Christopher Lee…; An absorbing Colin Farrell performance carries this pensive, unexpectedly subdued drama from the director of NO MAN'S LAND. Farrell plays a battered…
Un Village Francais (TV Series) (2009-2017): Feat. Robin Renucci, Audrey Fleurot; Confronting the difficult subject of French collaboration with the Germans during WW2, this series details the lives of the people of a fictional…
Within the Whirlwind (2009): Dir. Marleen Gorris
Feat. Emily Watson, Ulrich Tukur, Ian Hart…; The memoirs of Eugenia Ginzburg, a Russian academic sentenced to ten years labor in a Siberian Gulag, are brought to life in this harrowing account…
World War II in Colour (TV Series) (World War 2 in Colour) (2009): Featuring rare and previously unseen colourized archive footage, this 13–part series is one of the most comprehensive documentaries ever made…
Adam Resurrected (2008): Dir. Paul Schrader
Feat. Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi…; Troubling tale of a former Jewish circus entertainer who was spared from the gas chamber by serving as the camp commandant's pet dog. Based on…
Admiral, The (2008): Dir. Andrei Kravchuk
Feat. Konstantin Khabensky, Elizaveta Boyarskaya, Sergey Bezrukov; Sweeping war time biopic of Russian war hero Admiral Kolchak covers the last years of his life focusing on his bravery in the face of insurmountable…
Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, The Nazis and The West (2008): Six–episode BBC/PBS documentary series on the role of Joseph Stalin and German–Soviet relations before, during, and after World War II…
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The (2008): Dir. Mark Herman
Feat. Asa Butterfield, Zac Mattoon O'Brien, Vera Farmiga…; Emotive wartime parable set in Nazi Germany where the young son of a concentration camp commander befriends a Jewish boy on the other side of the…
Bridge, The (Die Brücke) (2008): Dir. Wolfgang Panzer
Feat. Franke Potente, François Goeske, Lars Steinhöfel; Inferior remake of the 1959 film based on the true story of a group of German teenagers who fight to defend a bridge from the approaching allied…
Bulletproof Salesman (2008): Dir. Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker; This documentary provides a different slant on the business of war as it introduces us to Fidelis Cloer – a German armoured vehicle salesman…
Bush's War (2008): Dir. Michael Kirk; Extensive two–part documentary chronicling the Iraq War from the post 9/11 murmurings and "Weapons of Mass Destruction" allegations through to…
Carrier, The (TV Mini-series) (2008): Immersive 10–part miniseries following the deployment of a United States Navy aircraft carrier in 2005, from the USA to the Middle East and…
Children Of The Silk Road (The Children of Huang Shi) (2008): Dir. Roger Spottiswoode
Feat. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Chow Yun-Fat…; Inspired by real events, this solid WWII epic reveals the story of a young British journalist and Australian nurse who led sixty orphans to safety…
Defiance (2008): Dir. Edward Zwick
Feat. Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell…; Edward Zwick (GLORY) delivers big, earnest moments in this true story of four brothers who launch an all–Jewish resistance against the Nazis…
Edge of Love, The (2008): Dir. John Maybury
Feat. Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy…; Atmospheric wartime romance based on the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Rhys) and his love for two free–spirited women who become firm…
Female Agents (Les femmes de l'ombre) (2008): Dir. Jean-Paul Salome
Feat. Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain…; Substantial, exciting WWII espionage thriller following an all–female commando unit of the French Resistance recruited to rescue a British…
Flame and Citron (2008): Dir. Ole Christian Madsen
Feat. Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade…; Lavishly–appointed wartime thriller based on the true story of contrasting Danish resistance fighters as they take vengeance on the occupying…
Generation Kill (TV Mini-series) (2008): Feat. Alexander Skarsgard, James Ransone, Lee Tergesen…; Superlative HBO series from the makers of THE WIRE following the U.S. Marine reconnaissance battalion in the first year of the Iraq invasion.…
Giovanna's Father (2008): Dir. Pupi Avati
Feat. Silvio Orlando, Francesca Neri, Alba Rohrwacher…; Set during the second world ward this is a sad character study of a naive father who covers for his daughter's terrible crime.
Hurt Locker, The (2008): Dir. Kathryn Bigelow
Feat. Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty…; Nerve–jangling Iraq War set drama follows a gung–ho bomb disposal expert with a seeming addiction to adrenaline. The most…
In Tranzit (2008): Dir. Tom Roberts
Feat. John Malkovich, Vera Farmiga, Thomas Kretschmann…; Bleak POW drama set in Soviet Russia during the aftermath of World War 2. With the prisons overflowing makeshift accommodation is found for German…
Living With the Enemy (2008): Thorough and absorbing History Channel series examines the five year period after the end of World War II, accounting for the events and decisions…
Lucky Ones, The (2008): Dir. Neil Burger
Feat. Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, Michael Pena; Low–key drama sees Robbins, McAdams and Pena play three soldiers who go on an unexpected road–trip together through the USA after…
Max Manus: Man of War (2008): Dir. Joachim Roenning, Espen Sandberg
Feat. Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch…; Rousing wartime actioner chronicles the exploits of irrepressible Norwegian resistance hero Max Manus, whose sabotaging of the Nazi’s stampede…
Miracle at St. Anna (2008): Dir. Spike Lee
Feat. Derek Luke, John Turturro, Joseph Gordon-Levitt…; A messily formed, though nonetheless vital piece of corrective history, with Spike Lee directing this recreation of the feats of the…
Nazi Number One: Herman Göring (2008): Dir. Guido Knopp; German director Guido Knopp continues his straightforward, biography–centric investigations into all things Nazi with this documentary on…
Objective, The (2008): Dir. Daniel Myrick
Feat. Jonas Ball, Michael Williams; Supernatural horror set in the all–too–real territory of Afghanistan follows a bunch of US Special Ops who get lost in a terrifying…
Passchendaele (2008): Dir. Paul Gross
Feat. Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas; Paul Gross (DUE SOUTH) directs and stars in this impressive wartime drama based on the exploits of the 1st Canadian Division during WWI.
Rambo: Reloaded (2008): Dir. Sylvester Stallone
Feat. Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden…; Rambunctious, ultra–violent Sylvester Stallone–directed actioner sees Sly reprising his ammo–strapped role (this time in…
Red Baron, The (Der rote Baron) (2008): Dir. Nikolai Müllerschön
Feat. Maxim Mehmet, Til Schweiger, Joseph Fiennes…; Biographical melodrama focused around Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the celebrated showboating WW1 pilot. Thrilling airborne set–pieces make up…
Sauna (2008): Dir. Antti-Jussi Annila
Feat. Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko; Something of a hybrid of the historical epic and ghost story, this unique genre entry from Finland concerns two brothers haunted by a young girl whom…
Sky Crawlers, The (2008): Dir. Mamoru Oshii; Mamoru Oshii’s (GHOST IN THE SHELL) latest head–scratcher conceives an alternate World War II–reality around another conceptually dense…
Standard Operating Procedure (2008): Dir. Errol Morris; To see or not to see: that is the question posed by acclaimed director Errol Morris as he attempts to understand what took place inside the walls of…
Stop-Loss (2008): Dir. Kimberly Peirce
Feat. Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum…; Sincerely handled melodrama from the director of BOYS DON'T CRY, dealing with a disillusioned Texan soldier (Phillippe) who goes AWOL after returning…
Three Blind Mice (2008): Dir. Matthew Newton
Feat. Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz, Matthew Newton; Playful Australian drama focused around three young Navy officers who hit the town in Sydney for one last night before they're shipped off to fight…
Tropic Thunder (2008): Dir. Ben Stiller
Feat. Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jnr., Jack Black…; Ferociously funny action comedy from actor–director Ben Stiller, following a group of pretentious actors on a mission to create the biggest…
Tunnel Rats (2008): Dir. Uwe Boll
Feat. Wilson Bethel, Michael Pare, Mitch Eakins; Inept Vietnam War pic with U.S Special Forces sent into an elaborate underground maze to kill the Vietcong. By consensus this is Boll's "best"…
Un Secret (2008): Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Cecile De France, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu…; Graceful, poignant French wartime drama centred on the son of a Jewish family who uncovers a piece of unsettling family history at the time of the…
Valkyrie (2008): Dir. Bryan Singer
Feat. Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson…; Hollywood crosses enemy lines with Tom Cruise perversely cast as a disaffected Nazi officer who leads a plot to assassinate Hitler. Dispensing…
Waltz With Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) (2008): Dir. Ari Folman; This striking hybrid animation is an audacious attempt to recall, through anecdote, dream, and documentary, the 1982 Israeli–Lebanon war.…
War, Inc. (War Inc.) (2008): Dir. Joshua Seftel
Feat. John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei…; Hit–and–miss satire with Cusack as a weary hitman sent to assassinate an oil minister in a Middle Eastern country occupied by an American…
Winning World War 1 (The Western Front Diaries) (2008): Crucial documentary telling the story of the Australian battalion's influence and impact on winning World War 1 on the Western Front, based on the…
Winter in Wartime (2008): Dir. Martin Koolhoven
Feat. Martijn Lakemeier, Yorick van Wageningen, Jamie Campbell Bower…; Sensitively handled account of a thirteen year old boy who joins the Dutch resistance at the tail end of World War II.
Army Wives (TV Series) (2007): Feat. Brian McNamara; Ensemble drama series focused on a group of women, and one guy, who reside with their families on an Army Base and attempt to lead fulfilling lives…
Assembly (2007): Dir. Feng Xiaoning
Feat. Hanyu Zhang; Searing Chinese war drama set during the country's last days of Civil war, in which a courageous army captain fights tooth and nail to stave off a…
Atonement (2007): Dir. Joe Wright
Feat. James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai…; Keira Knightley and James McAvoy play out a twisted, unrequited wartime love in this Bafta–adorned tragic–romance from the dir. of PRIDE…
Battle For Haditha (2007): Dir. Nick Broomfield
Feat. Elliot Ruiz, Yasmine Hanani, Matthew Knoll; No ordinary Iraq war flick, this powerful dramatic feature from the inscrutable Nick Broomfield proves no less fearless and 'realistic' than his…
Battle of the Little Bighorn, The (2007): Ideal introduction to the famous battle where General Custer made his last stand, featuring expert commentary and skillful re–enactments.
Black Belt (Kuro-obi) (2007): Dir. Shunichi Nagasaki
Feat. Akihito Yagi, Tatsuya Naka; Defence meets attack in this measured martial arts drama set in 1930s Japan, in which two karate experts (played by real–life karate pros) take…
Charlie Wilson's War (2007): Dir. Mike Nichols
Feat. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman…; Tom Hanks spearheads this crisp, ever–timely political sideswipe, about a real–life Texas congressman who, together with the financial…
Closing the Ring (2007): Dir. Richard Attenborough
Feat. Shirley Maclaine, Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton…; Richard Attenborough–directed romance set both in the '40s and present–day, following the wartime history of a ring and an unbreakable…
Counterfeiters, The (Die Fälscher) (2007): Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
Feat. Karl Markovics, Devid Striesow; An Oscar–winner for Best Foreign Language film, this taut German thriller reconstructs the story of a Jewish fraudster forced to assist the…
Eichmann (2007): Dir. Robert Young
Feat. Thomas Kretschmann, Troy Garity, Franke Potente…; Middling account of Adolf Eichmann's confessions as the architect of Hitler's plan for the final solution. German Kretschmann is strong in the title…
Gallipoli: Brothers In Arms (2007): Dir. Andrew Denton; Andrew Denton filmed this as part of his ENOUGH ROPE series to find out what draws so many Australians to the shores of Gallipoli each year, painting…
Hunting Party, The (2007): Dir. Richard Shepard
Feat. Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, James Brolin…; Action–packed serio–comic political thriller in the spirit of THREE KINGS centres on the shaggy dog story of an intrepid trio of…
I Have Never Forgotten You (The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal) (2007): Dir. Richard Trank; Confronting documentary tracing the life of Jewish man Simon Wiesenthal who embarked on a personal crusade to track down Nazi war criminals and…
In the Valley of Elah (2007): Dir. Paul Haggis
Feat. Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon…; Calculated military mystery from the director of CRASH, concerning an out–of–touch dad (Jones) searching for his missing son who has gone…
Joy Division (2007): Dir. Reg Traviss
Feat. Ed Stoppard, Tom Schilling, Bernadette Heerwagen…; Ed Stoppard, son of Sir Tom, stars as a young German boy who becomes a KGB agent in this ambitious wartime saga that sweeps from WWII to swinging,…
Katyn (2007): Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Żmijewski, Pawel Malaszynski; Andrzej Wajda cements himself as Poland’s greatest director with this late–career triumph, a war story addressing the eradication of some…
Kite Runner, The (2007): Dir. Marc Forster
Feat. Khalid Abdalla, Homayon Ershadi, Shaun Toub…; The ravages of Afghanistan and its effect on an American 'refugee' forms the basis of Khaled Hosseini's best–selling book, here given due…
Last Legion, The (2007): Dir. Doug Lefler
Feat. Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Aishwarya Rai; CGI fantasy dramatising the plight of Rome's last emperor, the child Romulus Augustus, and his protectors – Firth, Kingsley, and Bollywood star…
Lions for Lambs (2007): Dir. Robert Redford
Feat. Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise; A contemporary 'hot potato' issue is tackled from political, academic, militaristic and journalistic viewpoints, drawing an ultimately powerful…
Little Traitor, The (2007): Dir. Lynn Roth
Feat. Alfred Molina, Ido Port; Coming–of–age drama about a spirited young Israeli boy and his unlikely friendship with a British sergeant in Palestine in…
Lust, Caution (Se, Jie) (2007): Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Joan Chen, Wei Tang…; Dir. Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) returns to the mainland to present a slow–burn, psychologically dense and provocative spy thriller, based on…
Mark of Cain, The (2007): Dir. Marc Munden
Feat. Leo Gregory, Matthew McNulty, Gerard Kearns…; Based on real first–person accounts, this fictional British war drama explores the effects of the Iraq conflict on two young soldiers who can…
Mongol (2007): Dir. Sergei Bodrov
Feat. Tadanobu Asano; A fiercely–mounted early history of Genghis Khan, from the Mongol leader’s childhood years through to his all–conquering warpath across…
Music Within (2007): Dir. Steven Sawalich
Feat. Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen…; Inspirational biopic based on the true story of a Vietnam War soldier sent home after losing his hearing who embarks on a mission to help fellow…
My Boy Jack (2007): Dir. Brian Kirk
Feat. David Haig, Daniel Radcliffe, Kim Cattrall…; Haunting WW1 drama based on Rudjard Kipling's poem of the same name based on Kipling's own experience of guilt and consequences after insisting his…
No End in Sight (2007): Dir. Charles Ferguson; Devastating documentary that comprehensively examines the negligence and political mis–steps that led to the Iraq war. "Traces the…
NZSAS: First Among Equals (TV Series) (2007): Eye–opening insider’s guide to the SAS offers a unique tour of duty in recruitment and training for the elite special forces, through to…
Redacted (2007): Dir. Brian De Palma
Feat. Patrick Carroll; In typically melodramatic, unorthodox and ironic fashion, Brian De Palma returns with this wartime drama based on the true story of a group of…
Suicide Killers (2007): Dir. Pierre Rehov; Based on interviews, this documentary examines the psychopathology of suicide bombers, with particular focus on the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The…
Time of Our Lives, The (2007): Dir. Gaylene Preston; Kiwi documentarian Gaylene Preston joins 32 war veterans en route to London, selected to inaugurate the erection of a New Zealand War Memorial in…
War, The (TV Series) (2007): Dir. Ken Burns; Seven–part documentary series, directed by respected filmmaker Ken Burns, addressing the horrors of WW2 from the perspective of American…
Warlords (TV Series) (Untold Stories of World War II) (2007): Well–reviewed UK documentary series analyses WWII's big players from a psychological perspective: Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and…
300 (2006): Dir. Zack Snyder
Feat. Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West…; Brawny, unapologetic war mongering from the imagination of Frank Miller (SIN CITY), this ancient warrior epic indulges heavily in CGI effects and a…
Above and Beyond (TV Mini-Series) (2006): Dir. Sturla Gunnarsson
Feat. Jason Priestley, Joss Ackland, Kenneth Welsh…; Commendable mini–series based on the true story of the Atlantic Ferry Operation in WW2 – a last–ditch aerial attack from Canada's…
Battle Of Long Tan / He's Coming South (2006): Dir. Damien Lay; Two insightful documentaries that each explore particular episodes in Australasia's war history. THE BATTLE OF LONG TAN tells the incredible story…
Battleplan (TV Series) (2006): A comprehensive history and analysis of military strategies, combat tactics, and the art of modern warfare. Across eighteen episodes, historical…
Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Carice Van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman; A Jewish singer goes deep undercover for the Dutch resistance in this splashy, larger–than–life WWII yarn set in Nazi–occupied…
Bombshell (TV Series) (2006): Dir. Jim Loach
Feat. Zoe Lucker; Gritty television series set amidst the conflicts of a modern army troop starring Zoe Lucker from FOOTBALLER'S WIVES as an army sergeant in charge of…
Crossing the Line (2006): Dir. Daniel Gordon; Documentary on the extraordinary defection of James Dresnok, an American military deserter to North Korea in 1962, who now resides permanently in the…
Days of Glory (Indigènes) (2006): Dir. Rachid Bouchareb
Feat. Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Bernard Blancan…; Epic Algerian WW2 drama focused on a determined group of Algerian soldiers fighting to defend France with little acknowledgement of their sacrifices…
Etoile Du Soldat, L' (Star of the Soldier) (2006): Dir. Christophe de Ponfilly
Feat. Sacha Bourdo, Philippe Caubere, Hanns Zischler; Maladroit war drama based on the true story of a Russian soldier captured by the Mujahedin in Afghanistan who becomes enthralled by his freedom…
Flags of our Fathers (2006): Dir. Clint Eastwood
Feat. Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach…; Part one of Clint Eastwood’s Pacific double–bill trades unrelenting battle scenes for an insightful and crucially honest back–story…
Flyboys (2006): Dir. Tony Bill
Feat. James Franco, Martin Henderson, Jean Reno; Soaring, occasionally hokey aviation adventure recalling the true–life exploits of the Lafayette Escadrille, a French fighter squadron patched…
Haunted Airman, The (2006): Dir. Chris Durlacher
Feat. Robert Pattinson; Blatant cash–in on the popularity of TWILIGHT'S Robert Pattinson sees the heartthrob play an injured WW2 pilot, who must recuperate in a…
Housewife, 49 (2006): Dir. Gavin Millar
Feat. Victoria Wood, David Threlfall, Christopher Harper…; Emmy–nominated British TV movie set in WW2 England that follows a housewife finding new purpose in her life through volunteer work for the war…
I Served the King of England (2006): Dir. Jiri Menzel
Feat. Julia Jentsch, Oldrich Kaiser, Ivan Barnev; Whimsical yet biting Czech farce centres on the exploits of an endearingly opportunistic waiter, whose thrifty wiles propel him into all manner of…
Journey From the Fall (2006): Dir. Ham Tran
Feat. Kieu Chinh; Emotionally charged, stylishly filmed historical drama follows the twin fortunes of an incarcerated Vietnamese man and his refugee family forced to…
Kiss Me Baby (Baciami Piccina) (2006): Dir. Roberto Cimapnelli
Feat. Neri Marcore, Vincenzo Salemme, Elena Russo; Elegant blend of love–story, witty road movie and historical drama tells the story of a couple on their honeymoon at the most unlikely of times…
Letters From Iwo Jima (2006): Dir. Clint Eastwood
Feat. Ken Watanabe; Reading from the letters of fallen comrades, Clint Eastwood crosses enemy lines in the second part of his Pacific War twofer, encapsulating the…
Life Under Napoleon (TV Series) (2006): Dir. Georg Schiemann; Broad, challenging historical overview of late 18th/early 19th century Europe, informed by the legacy and reign of French Emperor Napoleon.…
Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del fauno) (2006): Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Feat. Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez…; A stunning, sinister netherworld fantasy that parallels an equally compelling story of uprising against a fascist military unit in WWII Spain, this…
Rape of Europa, The (2006): Dir. Bonni Cohen, Nicole Newnham; Documentary about the huge amount of European art that was tragically stolen and damaged by Nazi Germany, and the effort by the Allies to return and…
Rescue Dawn (2006): Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies; In dramatizing the unforgettable true story of Dieter Dengler – heroic subject matter of doco LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY – Werner Herzog…
Situation, The (2006): Dir. Philip Haas
Feat. Damian Lewis, Connie Nielsen, Mido Hadama; A noted fictional dramatisation of the Iraq conflict and its many complex participants and victims, this film interweaves a love triangle with…
Tiger and the Snow, The (2006): Dir. Roberto Benigni
Feat. Roberto Benigni, Jean Reno, Nicoletta Braschi…; Italian jester Roberto Benigni unites comedy and tragedy within the throws of the Iraq war, playing a poet who follows his true love (real life…
Unknown Soldier, The (2006): Dir. Michael Verhoeven; A sobering documentary exploration of the reaction to a museum exhibit in Munich detailing the war crimes and atrocities committed by Nazi Germany's…
War of the World: The New History of the 20th Century (2006): Eye–opening historical documentary, presented by acclaimed historian Professor Niall Ferguson, challenging how we view and assess the arch of…
War Years, The - 1939-1945 (2006): Five part documentary series made with unique and previously unseen archive film and photographs, tells the story of World War ll in the European…
Wind That Shakes the Barley, The (2006): Dir. Ken Loach
Feat. Cillian Murphy, Liam Cunningham, Gerard Kearney; Thoroughly gripping Cannes winner from "kitchen sink" exponent Ken Loach, retelling with parochial force Ireland's tumultuous twenties, where the…
9th Company (2005): Dir. Fyodor Bondarchuk
Feat. Artur Smolyaninov, Aleksey Chadov , Konstantin Kryukov; A muscular, at times brutal, war film set during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan follows a regiment from training to ill–fated combat with…
Airlift, The (2005): Dir. Dror Zahavi
Feat. Heino Ferch, Ulrich Tukur, Bettina Zimmerman; Sweeping historical drama set in post–WWII Berlin with the love affair between a German single mother and an American General complicated by…
Blood of My Brother (2005): Dir. Andrew Berends; A revealing, often eye–opening Iraqi War perspective, shot through director Berends’ unprecedented access to the Mehdi Army and citizens…
Churchill's Bodyguard (2005): Imposing, unprecedented memoir of the life and times of Winston Churchill, adapted from the diaries of his stoic bodyguard, Walter H.…
Colditz (TV Mini-series) (2005): Dir. Stuart Orme
Feat. Damian Lewis, Sophia Myles, Laurence Fox…; Respectable mini–series focusing on the WW2 'Colditz' story of three British officers escaping a notoriously impenetrable POW camp to begin a…
Escape to the Legion (2005): Feat. Bear Grylls; Action man Bear Grylls (MAN VS WILD) tackles the grueling assault courses and brutal training regime of the French Foreign Legion in this rare…
Fateless (Sorstalanság) (2005): Dir. Lajos Koltai
Feat. Marcell Nagy, Aron Dimeny, Daniel Craig; Harrowing and distilled vision of the Holocaust adapted from a novel by concentration–camp survivor and Nobel prize–winning author Imre…
Gallipoli: The Frontline Experience (2005): Dir. Tolga Ornek; Devastating documentary which revises traditional treatments of the notorious WW1 Gallipoli Campaign, to present the experience from the perspective…
Great Raid, The (2005): Dir. John Dahl
Feat. Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Connie Nielsen…; Forthright retell of one of WWII's most daring missions, where a group of US Army Rangers plotted to rescue 511 American POWs from a Japanese prison…
Guy X (2005): Dir. Saul Metzstein
Feat. Jason Biggs, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Northam; Low–key comedy starring Jason Biggs as a soldier mistakingly sent to a base deep in the frozen wasteland of Greenland during the…
I Know I'm Not Alone (2005): Dir. Michael Franti
Feat. Michael Franti; Michael Franti, the African–American songwriter of politically–charged American band Spearhead (and formerly the Disposable Heroes of…
Jarhead (2005): Dir. Sam Mendes
Feat. Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard; An arresting and grimly ironic vision of the 1991 Gulf War, based on the memoir of ex–marine Anthony Swofford, and depicting the experiences of…
Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) (2005): Dir. Christian Carion
Feat. Ian Richardson, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl; Fact–based WWI drama centred around how, on Christmas Eve, 1914, opposing French, German and British soldiers called a temporary ceasefire amid…
Kokoda (2005): Dir. Alister Grierson
Feat. Jack Finsterer, Simon Stone, Travis McMahon…; Visceral, against–the–odds WWII flick revisits the legendary story of inexperienced Aussie battlers taking on the mighty Japanese army in…
La Maison de Nina (2005): Dir. Richard Dembo
Feat. Agnes Jaoui, Sarah Adler, Katia Lewkowicz; Quietly accomplished French drama focused on the relationships within the fragile structures of the 'houses of hope': houses run by surrogate mothers…
Last Drop, The (2005): Dir. Colin Teague
Feat. Billy Zane, Michael Madsen, Sean Pertwee…; Competent, if not exactly scintillating, suspenser in which a group of allied soldiers are airdropped into Europe to steal gold and other treasures…
Lord Of War (2005): Dir. Andrew Niccol
Feat. Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan…; A thoughtful though heavy–handed thriller about an intelligently amoral Ukrainian–American (Cage), who dedicates himself to the world…
Nomad - The Warrior (2005): Dir. Sergei Bodrov, Ivan Passer
Feat. Kuno Becker, Mark Dacascos, Jason Scott Lee; Historical war epic set in Kazakhstan centred around the life of the prophesied warrior destined to unite the Kazakh peoples. With its awkwardly…
Oil Factor, The (2005): Dir. Audrey Brohy, Gerard Ungerman; Another addition to the panoply of anti–Iraq War documentaries, this attempts to draw the links between the Western World's over–reliance…
Over There (TV Series) (2005): Feat. Josh Henderson, Luke MacFarlane, Erik Palladino; Demanding Iraqi War excursion from Steven Bochco (NYPD BLUE) focuses on a US army unit’s dispatch to Iraq. Light on politics, this nevertheless…
Sometimes in April (2005): Dir. Raoul Peck
Feat. Debra Winger, Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero; A worthy HBO dramatisation of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which around one million ethnic 'Tutsis' were slaughtered by ethnic 'Hutu' military and…
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005): Dir. March Rothemund
Feat. Julia Jentsch; An interesting and worthy companion piece to the excellent DOWNFALL, this necessarily grim drama looks at the trial of 21–year–old…
Speer And Hitler: The Devil's Architect (2005): Dir. Heinrich Breloer
Feat. Sebastian Koch, Tobias Moretti; Painstaking docu–drama attempts to reevaluate the war crimes of one Albert Speer, Third Reich celebrity and Hilter’s personal architect…
Ten Days To Victory (2005): Dir. Tim Conrad; Two–part TV documentary depicting the final days of WWII, from the perspective of ten individual storylines. Combines occasionally violent…
Why We Fight (2005): Dir. Eugene Jarecki; Matching THE FOG OF WAR in terms of impact and cogency, this Sundance–winning doco investigates the long history of American involvement in…
Birthday Boy (2004): Dir. Sejong Park; Oscar–nominated animation set around a young boy who wanders through his deserted village in the midst of the Korean War. Comparable to GRAVE…
Brotherhood of War (Tae Guk Gi) (2004): Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Jang Dong-Gun, Won Bin, Lee Eun-Joo; Deemed as one of the most graphic and violent war films ever made, this tells the story of two South Korean brothers (Bin and Dong–Gun) who…
Colour of War: The ANZACs (2004): Dir. Paul Rudd, Ben Ulm
Feat. Russell Crowe; Russell Crowe hosts this documentary TV series about the Australian and New Zealand military experience from the 1930s to Vietnam, utilising colour…
Control Room (2004): Dir. Jehane Noujaim; An important documentary that tunes in to the other side of the Iraq War through the "Control Rooms" of both the leading Arab TV station, 'Al…
Dead Birds (2004): Dir. Alex Turner
Feat. Henry Thomas, Nicki Lynn Aycox, Isaiah Washington…; After a botched bank robbery during the American Civil War, a group of Confederate outlaws hole up in an abandoned plantation, finding themselves the…
Death in Gaza (2004): Dir. James Miller; A powerful, if not devastating, study of two children and a teenager growing up in the fractious and perilous Gaza Strip, where attacks by Israel and…
Downfall (Der Untergang) (2004): Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Bruno Ganz, Thomas Kretschmann, Juliane Kohler…; Widely acclaimed for its claustrophobic intensity, intelligence and detail, this vivid re–enactment of the last ten days in the life of Adolf…
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): Dir. Michael Moore
Feat. Michael Moore; In his gravest comedy yet, the fearless Michael Moore dissects the credibility of the Bush administration since the election controversy of 2000 and…
Gladiators Of World War Two - The Anzacs (2004): A special look at the contributions of the Australian and New Zealand ANZAC troops during WWII, covering the Greek, African, Italian and Pacific…
Head in the Clouds (2004): Dir. John Duigan
Feat. Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz, Stuart Townsend; Set in the turmoil of 1930s Europe, this cloudy melodrama involves an irresponsible French–American socialite (Theron) who becomes a…
Hotel Rwanda (2004): Dir. Terry George
Feat. Don Cheadle, Nick Nolte, Sophie Okonedo…; A deeply affecting expose of the Rwandan conflict of the early 1990s that matches its political conscience with vivid staging and terrific…
Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004): Dir. Robert Harmon
Feat. Tom Selleck, James Remar, Timothy Bottoms…; Historical war dramatization of the three months leading up to Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, and how General Dwight Eisenhower…
Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes) (2004): Dir. Luis Mandoki
Feat. Carlos Padilla, Leonor Varela; The tumultuous upheaval of civil war is witnessed through the eyes of a terrified 12–year–old boy, whose approaching teenage years spell…
Island at War (TV Mini-Series) (2004): Dir. Peter Lydon
Feat. James Wilby, Saskia Reeves, Philip Glenister…; Above par made–for–television drama, set during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in World War II, with the struggle of three…
Land Mines - A Love Story (2004): Dir. Dennis O'Rourke; Articulate documentary from the director of CUNNAMULLA , presenting the realities of life for Afghani people living with the effects and threat of…
Life is a Miracle (Zivot je cudo) (2004): Dir. Emir Kusturica
Feat. Slavko Stimac, Natasa Solak; Another feverish, frenetic and heartfelt vision from Balkan dir. Emir Kusturica (UNDERGOUND), attempting here to fathom and unknot the bloody Bosnian…
Operation Valkyrie (Stauffenberg) (2004): Dir. Jo Baier
Feat. Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hardy Kruger…; Highly credible Germanic take on the failed 'Valkyrie' plot to assassinate Hitler favors sobering realism over Hollywood heroism. Made for German…
President Versus David Hicks, The (2004): Dir. Curtis Levy; Timely, if 'difficult' documentary which follows the efforts of the father of 'Australian Taliban' fighter David Hicks, to free his son from US…
Shake Hands With the Devil (The Journey of Roméo Dallaire) (2004): Dir. Peter Raymont; Arresting account of the deplorable Rwandan genocide, told through the eyes of one of the most controversial figures surrounding the 1994 massacre,…
Soundtrack to War (2004): Dir. George Gittoes; A decidedly oblique, ground–level view of the war in Iraq (post –9/11) which takes the musical listening habits and creations of US…
Straight Into Darkness (2004): Dir. Jeff Burr
Feat. Ryan Francis, Scott MacDonald, Linda Thorson; Grimy horror/war mishmash focused on two American soldiers on the run in Nazi–occupied France. Unapologetically violent, and made with a…
Sun, The (2004): Dir. Alexandr Sokurov
Feat. Robert Dawson, Issey Ogata; A lucid, painstaking portrait of Emperor Hirohito, whose authority over Japanese troops during WWII is contrasted against intimate scenes of…
Trilogy 1: The Weeping Meadow (To Livadi pou dakryzei) (2004): Dir. Theo Angelopoulos; The first part of an intended trilogy of films dealing with 20th century Greece, this monumental epic depicts the travails of a Greek refugee family…
Troy (2004): Dir. Wolfgang Petersen
Feat. Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom…; Homer's epic is cranked up to full fury in this Hollywood CGI–ed adaptation, depicting the seige of Troy by the vengeful Greek army and the…
Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) (2004): Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Feat. Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif; The first widely–released film to emerge from post–Hussein Iraq, this wrenching tale concerns a raucous gang of children who scratch out…
Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War (2004): Dir. Robert Greenwald; Born out of a personal "rage" against the Bush administration's justification for the pre–emptive war in Iraq, film–maker Robert…
Very Long Engagement, A (Long dimanche de fiançailles, Un) (2004): Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Clovis Cornillac…; Another crowd–pleasing favourite from the dir. of AMELIE, which uses the Great War as setting for the fairytale search by Audrey Tatou for her…
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception (2004): Dir. Danny Schechter; Media–commentator Schechter presents an angry analysis of the narrative of Western media complicity in the official 'line' on the US invasion…
As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2003): Dir. Hardy Martins; Based on the novel by Josef Martin Bauer, this film recounts the harrowing true story of Clemens Forell, the German POW who escaped a Siberian labour…
Augustus (TV Mini-Series) (2003): Dir. Roger Young
Feat. Peter O'Toole, Charlotte Rampling; Peter O'Toole takes on the role of Augustus Caesar in this refreshing series focusing on the time when Augustus stepped into his adopted father's…
Battlefield Britain (TV Series) (2003): Dir. Mary Cranitch; Father–and–son team Peter and Dan Snow explore the history of Britain through a detailed investigation into 8 epoch–making battles…
Bon Voyage (2003): Dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Feat. Isabelle Adjani, Gerard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen…; A plushly–mounted, grander–than–life romantic farce from director of "Cyrano De Bergerac". It's June 1940, when a group of…
Cold Mountain (2003): Dir. Anthony Minghella
Feat. Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger…; Prestige historical epic set in the closing days of the American Civil War, with a wounded confederate soldier (Law) deserting the ranks to rejoin…
Fog of War, The (2003): Dir. Errol Morris; A perfectly–formed, Oscar–winning documentary about the life and career of Robert S McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense under…
Helen of Troy (Mini Series) (2003): Dir. John Harrison
Feat. Rufus Sewell, Stellan Skarsgard, John Rhys-Davies…; Combining various Greek legends into a grand composite tale, the stories of Helen, Agamemnon, Paris and Troy are reasonably well–served in this…
Hitler - The Rise of Evil (2003): Dir. Christian Duguay
Feat. Robert Carlyle, Stockard Channing, Peter O'Toole…; Somewhat controversial account of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, attempting to fathom his potential for evil–doing. An only…
Holy War, Inc. (2003): National Geographic's TV 'special' on Osama Bin Laden and his 'al–Qaeda' organisation, that presents a straight–forward account till…
In Search of the Afghan Girl (2003): Renowned TV documentary follows the attempts to find out what has happened to the Afghani refugee whose startling features graced the cover of…
Killing Hitler (TV Mini-series) (2003): Dir. Jeremy Lovering
Feat. Peter McDonald, Kate Ashfield, Kenneth Cranham…; Accurate docu–drama merging archival footage with recreations and educated interview to portray and dissect 'Operation Foxley' – a secret…
Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World (2003): Dir. Peter Weir
Feat. Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'Arcy; Vivid sea–chase yarn, set during the Napoleonic Wars, with Crowe commanding the screen as the sympathetic captain of a British frigate…
Napoleon (TV Mini-series) (2003): Dir. Yves Simoneau
Feat. Christian Clavier, Gerard Depardieu, John Malkovich…; A handsomely staged French (though English language) production of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Clavier) from his youthful antics, military…
Plan Colombia - Cashing-In on the Drug War Failure (2003): Dir. Gerard Ungerman, Audrey Brohy
Feat. Noam Chomsky; A punchy expose of the US Government's 'Plan Colombia', which was purportedly designed to fight drug cartels in the South American country. However,…
Triple Agent (2003): Dir. Eric Rohmer; A measured and discrete exercise in espionage cinema from octagenrian dir. Rohmer (AN AUTUMN TALE), eschewing his usual air of cordial romance for an…
Unlikely Heroes (2003): Dir. Richard Trank; Inspirational documentary tracing the little–known stories of Jewish men and women who displayed acts of extraordinary courage during the…
Vietnam War with Walter Cronkite (2003): Collection of CBS Documentaries narrated by broadcaster Walter Cronkite revealing the graphic inside story of the Vietnam War through the medium of…
World War 1 In Colour (2003): Dir. Jonathan Martin; Documentary using computer colourised archive footage from worldwide sources including Russia, Germany, France, Italy, the USA and Britain’s own…
Zelary (2003): Dir. Ondrej Trojan
Feat. Anna Geislerova, Gyorgy Cserhalmi; A layered tale of war and romance set around the 1943 purge of the Czech resistance by the occupying Nazis, and a young nurse's flight to…
Amen. (2002): Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Muhe; An unusual WW2 drama concerning the true story of SS officer Kurt Gerstein (Tukur), who invented the chemical Zyklon–B not knowing it was to be…
Antwone Fisher (2002): Dir. Denzel Washington
Feat. Denzel Washington, Derek Luke; From a uniquely autobiographical screenplay by the real Antwone Fisher, Denzel Washington takes the helm and stars as a US Navy psychiatrist who…
Ararat (2002): Dir. Atom Egoyan
Feat. Arsinee Khanjian, Charles Aznavour, Christopher Plummer…; A challenging dramatic meditation on the 'forgotten' genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey during WWI, moulded into an epic of history and…
Broken Silence (2002): Dir. Andrzej Wajda, Pavel Chukhrai, Luis Puenzo; Five 55–minute films concerning the Holocaust, and its role in the history of five respective countries. 'Some Who Lived' (dir. Puenzo)…
Charlotte Gray (2002): Dir. Gillian Armstrong
Feat. Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon; WWII France is the backdrop for a love–triangle in this well–made, though sappy war–romance, Cate Blanchett providing a compelling…
Children of Gallipoli (2002): Dir. Anna Cottrell; Interesting documentary interviews the grandchildren of four combatants in the ANZAC Gallipoli campaign of WWI – involving Turkish and New…
Cuckoo, The (Kukushka) (2002): Dir. Aleksandr Rogozhkin
Feat. Anni-Kristiina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, Viktor Bychkov; An earthy drama of non–communication set amid the frozen WW2 battleground of Lapland, where a pacifist Finnish soldier, a survivalist Russian…
Daughter from Danang (2002): Dir. Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco; A moving and troubling documentary about Heidi Bub, the daughter of an American serviceman and a poor Vietnamese woman, born in Danang and raised in…
Finest Hour (2002): Dir. Nick Read; In–depth and atmospheric study of the ‘Battle of Britain’, the crucial air war of WWII fought over England in 1940. Gripping…
Four Feathers, The (2002): Dir. Shekhar Kapur
Feat. Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Kate Hudson; The British Army copes with an uprising in Sudan in 1875, while one officer must redeem himself from a charge of cowardice – which earned him…
Foyle's War (TV Series) (2002-2015): Feat. Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, Anthony Howell; A distinguished drama series of mysteries set at the dawn of World War II, from the makers of Midsomer Murders. Michael Kitchen stars as charismatic…
Gathering Storm, The (2002): Dir. Richard Loncraine
Feat. Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Jim Broadbent…; Critically acclaimed telemovie depicts the life of Winston Churchill during his 'wilderness years', the turbulent 1930s, centred by a mighty…
Gods and Generals (2002): Dir. Ronald F. Maxwell
Feat. Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang, Robert Duvall…; Prequel to GETTYSBURG, this American Civil War drama follows the career of Confederate general 'Stonewall' Jackson. Filled with the same epic…
House of Fools (Dom Durakov) (2002): Dir. Andrei Konchalovsky; Based around the true story of a Chechen mental hospital which was abandoned by staff during the recent civil war, with patients left to fend for…
K19 - Widowmaker (2002): Dir. Kathryn Bigelow
Feat. Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson; Solid actioner revisits the long–censored account of a Russian super–submarine which had a disastrous reactor meltdown…
Live From Baghdad (2002): Dir. Mick Jackson
Feat. Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter, Joshua Leonard…; Media drama set in war–time Iraq tracking a gutsy group of CNN journalists who are among the few to choose to remain in Baghdad to capture the…
Pianist, The (2002): Dir. Roman Polanski
Feat. Adrien Brody, Frank Finlay; Boldly visualised, fact–based drama concerning the Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who evaded Poland’s Nazi authorities during WW2, living…
Prisoner of Paradise (2002): Dir. Malcolm Clarke, Stuart Sender; Justly acclaimed examination of an unusual chapter in the Holocaust, in which the Dutch–Jewish comic actor Kurt Gerron was forced to make a…
Quiet American, The (2002): Dir. Phillip Noyce
Feat. Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Rade Serbedzija; True to the spirit of Graham Greene’s novel, this cautionary tale of American interference in 50s French Vietnam is an involving,…
Tomb of the Unknown Warrior (2002): A four–hour special on the opening of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Wellington, New Zealand. This monument was planned to commerate the…
Vietnam's Unseen War - Pictures from the Other Side (2002): National Geographic documentary focuses on the unusual perspective of North Vietnamese photojournalists who covered the Vietnam War from the…
We Were Soldiers (2002): Dir. Randall Wallace
Feat. Mel Gibson, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein…; Big–budget, lavish re–enactment of America’s curtain–raiser in the Vietnam War, the fierce battle of la Drang, with an…
Windtalkers (2002): Dir. John Woo
Feat. Nicolas Cage, Christian Slater, Adam Beach…; Based on a little–known chapter of WWII – the use by the US army of Navajo Indians for their ‘unbreakable’ language to help…
Yossi and Jagger (2002): Dir. Eytan Fox
Feat. Ohad Knoller; Subversive, sweetly–natured gay drama set amid the close–quarters comraderie of the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) where a commanding…
Aimee and Jaguar (2001): Dir. Max Farberbock
Feat. Maria Schrader, Juliane Kohler; A forbidden love story that crosses both ethnic and sexual lines, inspired by a true love affair between a role–model Nazi mother and a…
Anne Frank (2001): Dir. Robert Dornhelm
Feat. Ben Kingsley, Brenda Blethyn, Lili Taylor; Comprehensive and authentic retelling of the Anne Frank diaries, this paints a grittier, less–than–sentimental picture of the family’s…
Band of Brothers (TV Series) (2001): Dir. Phil Alden Robinson, Richard Loncraine, Mikael Salomon
Feat. David Schwimmer, Ron Livingston; The brainchild of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, this excellently–produced WWII mini–series follows the fortunes of ‘Easy Company’,…
Behind Enemy Lines (2001): Dir. Jason Moore
Feat. Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman; Beyond–credibility gungho actioner which has fighter–pilot Owen Wilson shot down over Bosnia because he’s witnessed a Serb…
Black Hawk Down (2001): Dir. Ridley Scott
Feat. Sam Shepard, Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett…; Intense, eardrum–battering re–enactment of a street–battle during the US campaign in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, painting the…
Bunker, The (2001): Dir. Rob Green
Feat. Jason Flemyng; Unpretentious and mostly effective horror, unusually set around a Nazi platoon during WW2, who are retreating across the Ardennes in 1944. Taking…
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001): Dir. John Madden
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage…; A melodiously played costume–drama, that unfolds on the Greek island of Cephalonia during WWII. Occupation by Italian and later German…
Conspiracy (2001): Dir. Frank Pierson
Feat. Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth; Presenting the planning of the Nazi’s ‘Final Solution’ of the jews as the matter of a simple business luncheon in 1942 of fifteen men, presided…
Dark Blue World (Tmavomodry Svet) (2001): Dir. Jan Sverak
Feat. Krystof Hadek, Ondrej Vetchy, Charles Dance…; From the dir. of KOLYA and based on the story of Czech pilots who fled the Nazis in WW2 to fly alongside the RAF, this is an unsentimental, yet…
Divided We Fall (2001): Dir. Jan Hrebejk
Feat. Boleslav Polivka, Anna Siskova, Jaroslav Dusek; In WW2 Czechoslovakia, couple Bolek Polívka and Anna Sisková shelter their Jewish neighbour during the Nazi Occupation, with much absurd comedy…
Enemy at the Gates (2001): Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud
Feat. Jude Law, Ed Harris, Rachel Weisz…; A big–budget recreation of the crucial WWII battle of Stalingrad, in which Germans and Russians fought it out till there was a toll of over 1…
Enigma (2001): Dir. Michael Apted
Feat. Kate Winslet, Dougray Scott, Jeremy Northam…; Superior period–thriller, loosely set around the dedicated cryptanalysts of Bletchley Park who led the race to crack the Nazi’s Enigma code…
Hart's War (2001): Dir. Gregory Hoblit
Feat. Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Bruce Willis; Deserving invigoration of the POW–film, set amongst a troop of American soldiers incarcerated behind Nazi barbed–wire in WWII. When a…
In Shifting Sands (2001): Dir. Scott Ritter
Feat. Scott Ritter; A pertinent, compelling though rather schizophrenic film–diary directed by the former Chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Exploring the…
No Man's Land (2001): Dir. Danis Tanovic
Feat. Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Katrin Cartlidge…; Snaring the 2002 Best Foreign Film Oscar, this black comedy set in the wartime trenches of mid–1990s Bosnia plays like a satirical diagram of…
Pearl Harbour (2001): Dir. Michael Bay
Feat. Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett…; Overblown, but technically impressive rendition of the 1941 Japanese surprise–attack on Pearl Harbour in which a sizable proportion of the US…
Sword of Honour (2001): Dir. Bill Anderson
Feat. Daniel Craig, Megan Dodds, Katrin Cartlidge; Ambitious attempt to depict the entire "Sword of Honour" trilogy of novels by Evelyn Waugh in one large television film. A Catholic man joins the…
Taking Sides (2001): Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgard, Moritz Bleibtreu; The ambiguities of Germany during the Nazi era are interrogated with skill in this taut examination of the case of famed classical conductor Dr…
Tigerland (2001): Dir. Joel Schumacher
Feat. Colin Farrell, Clifton Collins Jr., Matthew Davis…; The dir. of recent Hollywood gloss forsakes stars for a gritty, admired character piece set in a Vietnam War–bootcamp in Louisiana, 1971.…
To End All Wars (2001): Dir. David L Cunningham
Feat. Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland, Ciaran McMenamin; Underrated drama based around the infamous building of the bridge over the River Kwai by allied POWs during WW2, 'encouraged' by their Japanese…
Uprising (2001): Dir. Jon Avnet
Feat. Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria, David Schwimmer…; An above–par telemovie that depicts the clearing of the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII by the Nazis. Treading similiar territory to SCHINDLER'S…
War Photographer (2001): Dir. Christian Frei; A clear–minded documentary on acclaimed war–photographer James Nachtwey, who began his career in 1980s on the battlefields of the Third…
Zookeeper, The (2001): Dir. Ralph Ziman
Feat. Sam Neill, Gina McKee, Ulrich Thomsen…; A quiet, little–seen drama set in a wartorn Communist country in Eastern Europe, with a zookeeper (Neill) struggling to care for the animals…
Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace (2000): Dir. Eric Till
Feat. Ulrich Tukur, Johanna Klante; The historical enigma of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a religious adviser to the Nazi Party – is examined into this informative, though thoroughly minor…
Fighter (2000): Dir. Amir Bar-Lev
Feat. Arnost Lustig, Jan Wiener; A powerfully affecting documentary that juxtaposes two compelling stories: Jan Wiener’s thrilling escape from Nazi–occupied Czechoslovakia to…
Grey Zone, The (2000): Dir. Tim Blake Nelson
Feat. David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel…; Earnest examination of one of the 'greyest' moral zones of the Holocaust – the role of the Jewish Sonderkommandos in concentration camps, who…
Harrison's Flowers (2000): Dir. Elie Chouraqui
Feat. Andie MacDowell, David Strathairn, Adrien Brody…; Andie MacDowell searches for her photojournalist husband (David Strathairn), presumed dead in the 1991 Serbian siege of Vukovar, with the aid of…
Into the Arms of Strangers - Stories of the Kindertransport (2000): Dir. Mark Jonathan Harris; Sombre journey into one of the dark corridors of the Holocaust, revealing the stories of Jewish children rescued in the months before WWII from Nazi…
John Pilger's No Middle Ground in the Middle East (Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq; Palenstine is Still the Issue; Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror) (2000-2003): Dir. John Pilger, Alan Lowery
Feat. John Pilger; Three of journalist John Pilger’s most recent and cogent illustrations of the plight of the Middle East, with Iraq, foreign policy, Israel and…
Monsignor Renard (TV Mini-series) (2000): Dir. Malcolm Mowbray
Feat. John Thaw, Cheryl Campbell, Dominic Monaghan; ITV drama starring John Thaw as a humble parish priest who returns home to his French village to join the resistance during WWII after a twenty year…
Nuremberg (2000): Feat. Alec Baldwin, Jill Hennessy, Brian Cox…; This two part miniseries follows the Chief Prosecutor through the Nuremberg Trials of 1945–46.
Paragraph 175 (2000): Dir. Robert Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman; An uneasy delve into past atrocities, this bitter–tasting but necessary document of Nazi war crimes goes beyond the oft–told persecution…
Patriot, The (2000): Dir. Roland Emmerich
Feat. Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson…; Mel Gibson transplants the patriotic, anti–English fervour of BRAVEHEART into an American Revolutionary setting, playing real–life…
Rules of Engagement (2000): Dir. William Friedkin
Feat. Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, Guy Pearce…; Colonel Samuel L. Jackson interprets the 'rules' when the US Embassy in Yemen is attacked by terrorists. But after the smoke has cleared 83…
Sunshine (2000): Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Deborah Kara Unger; Expansive and immaculately crafted epic of the last 100 years of Hungarian history, with Ralph Fiennes playing three roles – Grandfather,…
They Filmed the War in Colour: France is Free! (Ils ont filmé la guerre en couleur) (2000): Dir. Rene-Jean Bouyer; Rewarding TV documentary (made in France) which combines rediscovered colour footage of the German occupation of France during WW2, with interviews…
U-571 (2000): Dir. Jonathan Mostow
Feat. Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton…; World War 2: Matthew McConaughey and his submarine crew snatch a vital German spy machine, then find themselves trapped on a U–boat where all…
World War 2 In Colour (2000): Two part series that presents previously unseen global footage, from pre–war Germany to the end of the war in Africa, and the atomic bomb.
Beautiful People (1999): Dir. Jasmin Dizdar
Feat. Rosalind Ayres, Julian Firth, Bobby Williams…; Set in London 1993 when the Balkan Wars were in full flight, this lively, panoramic drama reaches its ambitions in witnessing turbulence of the…
Cabaret Balkan (The Powder Keg) (1999): Dir. Goran Paskaljevic
Feat. Nikola Ristanovski; Troubling split–portrait of the Serbian psyche, depicting a series of often violent incidents over the course of a single night in Belgrade,…
Crossing, The (1999): Dir. Robert Harmon
Feat. Jeff Daniels, Roger Rees, Sebastian Roche; Acclaimed telemovie recreation of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware during the American War of Independence. Jeff Daniels lives up to the…
Emperor and the Assassin, The (Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang) (1999): Dir. Chen Kaige
Feat. Gong Li, Zhang Fenyi; Vast, gilded historical spectacle set in the 3rd Century BC, centred on China's legendary first Qin emperor's struggle to consolidate a unified…
Gloomy Sunday (Ein Lied Von Liebe Und Tod) (1999): Dir. Rolf Schubel
Feat. Joachim Krol, Erika Marozsan, Ben Becker…; Captivating drama which pivots around the apocryphal origins of the classic melancholy song 'Gloomy Sunday' in pre–WW2 Budapest. An amiably…
Jakob the Liar (1999): Dir. Peter Kassovitz
Feat. Alan Arkin, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Robin Williams; In this second version of Jurek Becker's novel, Robin Williams plays a café–owner in Nazi–occupied Poland who capitalises on an unearned…
Last Days, The (1999): Dir. James Moll; Accompanied by return visits to their homeland and the Nazi death camps, five Hungarian survivors of the Holocaust recount their remarkable stories…
New Zealand Wars, The (1999): Dir. James Belich
Feat. James Belich; Praised, yet inevitably controversial documentary series on New Zealand's 19th century history, in particular the various land–wars between…
Second World War in Colour, The (TV Mini Series) (1999): The first of the various TV specials which replayed the events of WW2 utilising newly discovered colour film footage, lending an added new dimension…
Three Kings (1999): Dir. David O. Russell
Feat. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice-Cube…; A refreshingly irreverent view of the US Military translated into a box–office hit for this unpredictable black–comedy that puts a…
Trench, The (1999): Dir. William Boyd
Feat. Paul Nicholls, Daniel Craig, Danny Dyer…; WWI film set in the 48 hours leading up to the Battle of the Somme, in which the British Army lost the greatest number of soldiers in a single day of…
15 Amore (1998): Dir. Maurice Murphy
Feat. Steve Bastoni, Lisa Hensley; Set in the Australian hinterland during the closing months of WWII, this outlines a domestic drama of forbidden attractions with a gratifyingly light…
Goodnight Mister Tom (Goodnight Mr. Tom) (1998): Dir. Jack Gold
Feat. John Thaw; Touching tele–adaptation of the beloved wartime novel about a young boy relocated during London’s air raids to live with an old hermit in the…
Hornblower (TV Series) (1998-2003): Feat. Ioan Gruffudd; Lavish, high–end production of C. S. Forester's legendary Horatio Hornblower, with Ioan Gruffudd staunchly portraying the British Naval…
Land Girls, The (1998): Dir. David Leland
Feat. Catherine McCormack, Rachel Weisz, Anna Friel; Gently romantic look at the lives of three young women serving old Blighty during World War II as members of the nearly forgotten Women's Land Army.…
Life Is Beautiful (La vita e bella) (1998): Dir. Roberto Benigni
Feat. Roberto Benigni; Winner of both Best Foreign Film and Best Actor Oscars (a first for an actor speaking a foreign tongue) as well as the top prize at Cannes, Roberto…
Men with Guns (1998): Dir. John Sayles
Feat. Frederico Luppi; Criminally denied a theatrical release, this masterful study of Third World realities is arguably prolific indie dir. John Sayles most accomplished…
Regret to Inform (1998): Dir. Barbara Sonneborn; A moving and haunting doco which analyzes the Vietnam War from the point of view of the American and Vietnamese women who lost the men they loved to…
Saving Private Ryan (1998): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns…; Tom Hanks commands a squad assigned to retrieving a single man from behind German lines in WWII France. With 'sacrifice' the key theme,…
Soldier (1998): Dir. Paul Anderson
Feat. Kurt Russell, Gary Busey, Jason Scott Lee; Military sci–fi adventure wherein Kurt Russell utters terse words as an out–moded fighting machine grasping at a few straws of humanity…
Thief, The (1998): Dir. Pavel Chukhrai
Feat. Vladimir Mashkov, Yekaterina Rednikova, Misha Philipchuk; Serious–minded trek across the landscapes and mindsets of post–WWII Russia that's been compared to BURNT BY THE SUN for dramatic impact.…
Thin Red Line, The (1998): Dir. Terrence Malick
Feat. Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas…; A studiously arthouse rendition of WWII, isolating a crucial battle of the Pacific campaign (Guadacanal) as a minutely observed microcosm of humanity…
Welcome to Sarajevo (1998): Dir. Michael Winterbottom
Feat. Stephen Dillane, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei…; A moving, disturbing depiction of modern–day conflict, shot on location in Bosnia amid real–life shelling and loss of life. Based on a…
Woundings (1998): Dir. Roberta Hanley
Feat. Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Lloyd…; In a near–future world, after a debilitating military campaign for Great Britain (reminiscent of the Falkland Islands conflict), a unit of…
Brylcreem Boys, The (1997): Dir. Terence Ryan
Feat. Gabriel Byrne; The ubiquitous face of Irish cinema, Gabriel Byrne, slicks his hair back in a neutral POW camp in WWII Ireland, bunking with a variety of allied and…
GI Jane (1997): Dir. Ridley Scott
Feat. Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Anne Bancroft; A staunch, suede–headed Demi Moore is enlisted in a US Army commando squad in a call for equal–opportunity by stylist dir. Ridley Scott. …
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997): Dir. Werner Herzog; Another quirky yet significant doco from Werner Herzog, whose remarkable subject here is expatriot German Dieter Dengler, who returns to the Vietnam…
Lucie Aubrac (1997): Dir. Claude Berri
Feat. Carole Bouquet, Klaus Barbie; French Resistance true–story from the period–eye of dir. Claude Berri (JEAN DE FLORETTE), offering a romantic sub–plot between…
Paradise Road (1997): Dir. Bruce Beresford
Feat. Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett…; A group of European woman, incl. Glenn Close and Frances McDormand, are captured in Singapore during WWII by the Japanese. They alleviate the…
Regeneration (Behind the Lines) (1997): Dir. Gillies MacKinnon
Feat. Jonathan Pryce, James Wilby, Jonny Lee Miller…; An exploration of the mental trauma of trench–warfare in WWI, adapted from the novel by Pat Barker and set in a Scottish Hospital where…
Russia's War - Blood Upon The Snow (1997): Exhaustive 10–part series that traces Stalin's rise to power, his association with Hitler and Soviet involvement in the Second World War,…
Second Civil War, The (1997): Dir. Joe Dante
Feat. Denis Leary, James Earl Jones, James Coburn; Fairly realistic speculation of an American Civil War, occurring when present–day Idaho cedes from the Union, painted over with the lighter…
Truce, The (1997): Dir. Francesco Rosi
Feat. John Turturro, Rade Serbedzija; The aftermath of WWII locates Auschwitz survivor John Turturro on a difficult, redemptive journey back to his home town. Based on Primo Levi's…
Vietnam War - Unknown Images (1997): Dir. Isabelle Clarke; Recently declassified military footage gives a harrowing new look into the years of the Vietnam War. Three episodes – 'Secrets of War',…
Andersonville (TV Mini-series) (1996): Dir. John Frankenheimer
Feat. Frederic Forrest, Ted Marcoux, Jarrod Emick; TV western set during the American Civil War, about a group of Union soldiers who are sent to a Confederate prison camp near Andersonville, Georgia…
Betrayal, The (1996): Dir. John Anderson
Feat. Allen O'Leary; A dynamic mix of documentary, rare achive footage, and vivid dramatic recreations tells the extraordinary adventures of Kiwi Ron Jeffrey in wartime…
Blade, The (1996): Dir. Tsui Hark
Feat. Xin Xin Xiong, Moses Chan, Man Cheuk Chiu; Honour and retribution are the key themes in this densely–plotted, straight–faced actioner set in a mythic–historical setting.…
Courage Under Fire (1996): Dir. Edward Zwick
Feat. Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan; Conscience–troubled colonel Denzel Washington investigates the death of a fellow officer (Meg Ryan) during 'Desert Storm', but differing…
English Patient, The (1996): Dir. Anthony Minghella
Feat. Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche; The unsurprising Oscar sweeper of '97 – a shoe–in considering they left out no ingredient – epic length, exotic locales, period…
Fiesta (1996): Dir. Pierre Boutron
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gregoire Colin; Biting, rigorously intelligent parable of the Spanish Civil War, watches unblinking as a young soldier is intiated into the brutalities by his…
Garden of Redemption (1996): Dir. Thomas Donnelly
Feat. Anthony LaPaglia, Embeth Davidtz; A saga of challenged faith and endurance set in Nazi–occupied Italy, where the village priest assists with the local resistance while besotted…
In Love and War (1996): Dir. Richard Attenborough
Feat. Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock, Margot Steinberg; Semi–biographical account of the young, manful Ernest Hemingway's WWI romance/Florence Nightingale complex, based on Agnes von Kurowsky's…
Land and Freedom (1996): Dir. Ken Loach
Feat. Ian Hart, Rosana Pastor, Iciar Bollain; British realist director Ken Loach changes tack with this period melodrama about a communist lad (Ian Hart) who joins a rebel army in the Spanish…
Libertarias (1996): Dir. Vincente Aranda
Feat. Victoria Abril, Ana Belen, Miguel Bose…; Examining the Spanish Civil War from a left–wing point–of–view, this passionate war drama focuses on a trio of women – a…
Mother Night (1996): Dir. Keith Gordon
Feat. Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin…; Ambitious adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's meaty novel recounts the memoirs of an unheralded American spy – from German 'hero' to destitute…
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996): Dir. Sadjan Dragojevic
Feat. Dragan Bjelorgrlic, Nikola Kojo; Seen in flashback from a ward in triage, the Bosnian war is portrayed in a riveting counter–play of nihilism and theatre, as a band of Serbian…
Prisoner of the Mountains (1996): Dir. Sergei Bodrov
Feat. Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov Jr, Susanna Mekhraliyeva…; A Tolstoy fable is here seamlessly transposed to the Chechean conflict, with two Russian soldiers apprehended by a Chechean village elder who hopes…
Richard III (1996): Dir. Richard Loncraine
Feat. Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jnr.…; Transposed to a fascist 1930s Britain, Shakespeare's classic tale of power politics easily renews its timeless appeal. Ian McKellen commands every…
Self Made Hero, A (1996): Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz; Mattieu Kassovitz (director of LA HAINE) proves to be no slouch actor here as a WW2 idler who swats up and cheekily ascends the ranks of the…
Before the Rain (1995): Dir. Milcho Manchevski
Feat. Rade Serbedzija, Katrin Cartlidge, Gregoire Colin; The impotence of violence is the uniting theme of this masterful triptych that traverses the ravaged terrain of both Macedonia and modern London. An…
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1995): Dir. T.F. Mous; This extreme 'shocker' depicts in grisly detail the story of the massacre of 300 000 Chinese by Japanese soldiers following the invasion of Nanking…
Crimson Tide (1995): Dir. Tony Scott
Feat. Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington, Viggo Mortensen; Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington clash ethics as Captain and deputy on a US submarine entering hostile waters of a Russian renegade. Nuclear war…
Major Payne (1995): Dir. Nick Castle
Feat. Damon Wayans, Michael Ironside, Karyn Parsons; Comedy following a major in the U.S. Marine Corps who, after receiving an unwanted honourable discharge, is recruited to train a bunch of delinquent…
Promise, The (1995): Dir. Margarethe von Trotta
Feat. Corinna Harfouch, Meret Becker, August Zirner; Separated while trying to cross the Berlin Wall to the West in 1961, two lovers traverse thirty odd years of German history apart, yet faithful. This…
War Stories (War Stories our Mothers never told us) (1995): Dir. Gaylene Preston; Remarkable documentary manages to compel almost exclusively via the spoken word as seven elderly women offer candid yet articulate and boldy frank…
An Unforgettable Summer (Un été inoubliable) (1994): Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Claudiu Bleont; Spare, well–realized drama taking place in 1925 on the Romanian/Bulgarian border, where Capitaine Petre Dumitriu (Bleont) and his wife…
George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994): Dir. George Stevens; Short but powerful documentary, chiefly distinguished by its colour footage – shot by Hollywood film director George Stevens in the months…
Innocent, The (1994): Dir. John Schlesinger
Feat. Anthony Hopkins, Campbell Scott, Isabella Rossellini; Anthony Hopkins toplines WW2 espionage thriller about a British engineer (Campbell Scott) who becomes caught in the crossfire of suspicion during his…
Dambusters - The True Story (1993): An interesting overview of the legendary dambusting raids by British Lancaster bombers during WWII, which utilised the 'bouncing bombs' of Barnes…
Fatherland (1993): Dir. Christopher Menaul
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Miranda Richardson; Ambitious film posits an alternative history in which Germany controls Europe and is locked in a cold war with the U.S. twenty years after winning…
Gettysburg (1993): Dir. Ronald F. Maxwell
Feat. Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen; A truly epic screen version of the three–day American Civil War battle of 1863. The director's decade–long obsession is rich in military…
Goodnight Sweetheart (TV Series) (1993): Feat. Nicholas Lyndhurst, Dervla Kirwan, Michelle Holmes; A suffering 90's husband finds a way to travel back in time to war time 40's London where he acquires a new lady friend and must juggle his modern…
Heaven and Earth (1993): Dir. Oliver Stone
Feat. Tommy Lee Jones; Oliver Stone completes his Vietnam trilogy by shifting the focus from the US military to a story based on the autobiographies of a Vietnamese woman.…
Schindler's List (1993): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes; Spielberg deservedly swept the '94 Oscars with this compassionate, consummately–crafted tale of a prominent Nazi's precarious mission to save…
Stalag Luft (1993): Dir. Adrian Shergold
Feat. Stephen Fry, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Geoffrey Palmer…; Made–for–TV POW spoof could easily be dubbed 'The Worst Escape'; it stars Stephen Fry as a would–be escapee whose many attempts at…
Swing Kids (1993): Dir. Thomas Carter
Feat. Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley; Affecting drama about the young sub–culture of pre–war Germany, who traded Nazi–ism for American jazz culture. A rare insight into…
Temptation of a Monk (1993): Dir. Clara Law
Feat. Joan Chen, Zhang Fenyi; Graphic chronicle of blood–letting by a fierce warrior general in 7th century China, that hews to the visual traditions of the classic Japanese…
Lessons of Darkness / Fata Morgana (1992/1969): Dir. Werner Herzog; Two of dir. Herzog’s impressionistic documentaries on a double DVD. LESSONS OF DARKNESS investigates the aftermath of the Gulf War, with…
Chunuk Bair (1992): Dir. Dale G. Bradley
Feat. Robert Powell, Kevin J. Wilson, Jed Brophy; Modest, reverent account of an exhausted and shell–shocked Wellington regiment of the ANZAC forces who endeavoured to gain control of the ridge…
Map of the Human Heart (1992): Dir. Vincent Ward
Feat. Jason Scott Lee, Patrick Bergin, Anne Parillaud…; Worldly romantic adventure spanning the life of an orphaned Eskimo. A majestic achievement for local boy Vincent Ward, as much for its unique slant…
Midnight Clear, A (1992): Dir. Keith Gordon
Feat. Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Arye Gross…; A provocative, suspenseful anti–war parable about a fresh–faced American platoon assigned to an abandoned chateau near the German border…
Stalingrad (1992): Dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
Feat. Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel; Superlative evocation of WW2 tragedy from a German perspective. A unit of soldiers are posted to the front line in the merciless Russian winter to…
Absolute Hell (1991): Dir. Anthony Page
Feat. Judi Dench, Francesca Annis; Classic BBC television production based on Rodney Ackland's book of the same name: a black, bleak comedy about about a sex–addicted , boozy…
Architecture of Doom (1991): Dir. Peter Cohen; Uniquely, this study of the Nazi era concentrates on the vast creations of Adolf Hitler’s Masterplan – choreographed rallies, architecture,…
Europa, Europa (1991): Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Marco Hofschneider, Salomon Perel, Rene Hofschneider; A riveting account of the real–life ordeal experienced by German Jew Soloman Perel, who concealed his ethnicity for seven years when drafted…
Last Butterfly, The (1991): Dir. Karel Kachyna
Feat. Tom Courtenay, Brigitte Fossey, Freddie Jones; Another worthy drama based on facts surrounding Nazi death camps, stage mime Tom Courtenay is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for…
Mediterraneo (1991): Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Claudio Bigagli, Diego Abatanthono, Giuseppe Cederna; Oscar–winning tale of eight Italian soldiers who find themselves stranded on a remote Greek isle during WW2. An affecting and surprising…
Olivier Olivier (1991): Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Brigitte Rouan, Gregoire Colin; After disappearing from his country home six years earlier, a boy's mysterious return brings with it a mix of salvation and suspicion to his…
One Against the Wind (1991): Dir. Larry Elikann
Feat. Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Anthony Higgins…; Judy Davis gives a typically gutsy performance in this drama set during the Nazi occupation of France and based on the true story of a British Red…
Soldier Soldier (TV Series) (1991): Feat. Jerome Flynn, Robson Green; Accurate portrayal of military life in peace–time, that follows the daily lives of the King's Own Fusiliers regiment, through their personal…
Bullet in the Head (1990): Dir. John Woo
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Jacky Cheung, Waise Lee; John Woo's indictment of war as raw and visceral as its title. Three friends flee Hong Kong and find themselves knee deep in the corruption and…
Come See the Paradise (1990): Dir. Alan Parker
Feat. Dennis Quaid; An epic romance about a hot–headed unionist whose love affair with a Japanese American is torn apart when the state interns 100,000 Japanese…
Doctor Petiot (1990): Dir. Christian De Chalonge
Feat. Michel Serrault, Pierre Romans, Berangere Bonvoisin; A dark, expressionistic account of a depraved physician who, in occupied Paris, used his practise to facilitate emigration for hopeful Jews, only to…
Fourth War, The (1990): Dir. John Frankenheimer
Feat. Roy Scheider, Jurgen Prochnow, Harry Dean Stanton; Cold War thriller set during the early days of detente has Scheider and Prochnow as two border commanders whose friendly rivalry on the…
Incident, The / Incident In A Small Town (1990-1994): Dir. Delbert Mann, Joseph Sargent
Feat. Walter Matthau, Harry Morgan; Enjoyable made for television murder mystery set during the Second World War sees a characteristically gruff Matthau play Harmon Cobb, a small town…
Life and Nothing But (1990): Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Sabine Azema; Philippe Noiret plays a Missing–in–Action chief officer whose obsession to account for the anonymous casualties of WW1 draws him to a…
Memphis Belle (1990): Dir. Michael Caton-Jones
Feat. Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Tate Donovan…; A likeable modern war drama with a well–known, fresh–faced male cast who make up the crew of the title B–17 bomber about to…
Night of the Fox (TV Mini-series) (1990): Dir. Charles Jarrott
Feat. Michael York, George Peppard, Deborah Raffin…; An American officer is captured on German soil during WWII and a daring plot is hatched by the allies to rescue him. based on the novel by Jack…
Born On the Fourth of July (1989): Dir. Oliver Stone
Feat. Tom Cruise; Tom Cruise gives an exhilarating performance as Ron Kovic, the teenage patriot who became an embittered, paralysed Vietnam vet, to finally emerge as…
Casualties of War (1989): Dir. Brian De Palma
Feat. Sean Penn, Michael J. Fox, John Leguizamo…; A squad of soldiers become caught in the moral dilemma of wartime Vietnam. Platoon leader Sean Penn goes beyond the call of duty while Michael J.…
Farewell to the King (1989): Dir. John Milius
Feat. Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers, Frank McRae…; Half–successful attempt to fashion a mythic tale from the Japanese invasion of Borneo in WW2, with a US Army deserter (Nolte) and a British…
Five Days in June (1989): Dir. Michel Legrand
Feat. Sabine Azema, Annie Girardot, Matthieu Roze; Yet another addition to the canon of dramas based on childhood memoirs. A renowned composer takes the helm to recall five days in his life on the…
Glory (1989): Dir. Edward Zwick
Feat. Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes…; Time and place is perfectly re–created in this moving account of the plight of Negro soldiers during the American civil war.
Jeweller's Shop, The (1989): Dir. Michael Anderson
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Olivia Hussey, Ben Cross; Charming, low–key adaptation of a play by Pope John Paul the Second. Burt Lancaster in his last film role plays a jeweller in 1930's Poland…
Sandwich Years (Les années sandwiches) (1989): Dir. Emile Ghigo
Feat. Michel Aumont, Clovis Cornillac; In post–war France, a young Jewish boy befriends an elderly op–shop owner after his parents are arrested.
Triumph of the Spirit (1989): Dir. Robert M. Young
Feat. Willem Dafoe; Harrowing tale of a Greek–Jewish boxer (Willem Dafoe) who is deported to Auschwitz during WW2.
Welcome Home (1989): Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
Feat. Kris Kristofferson, JoBeth Williams, Sam Waterston…; Fairly tepid post–Vietnam War drama has Kris Kristofferson play a pilot shot down over Cambodia and was rescued by a Khmer Rouge woman, whom he…
And the Violins Stopped Playing (1988): Dir. Alexander Ramatu
Feat. Horst Buchholz; At times distressing, this true–life account of a gypsy family’s entanglement in the Holocaust, is the only film to depict this…
Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988): Dir. John Erman
Feat. Mary Steenburgen, Paul Scofield; Well–remembered telemovie depiction of the well–known story of Anne Frank, who with her Jewish family was hidden from the Nazis during…
Bat 21 (1988): Dir. Peter Markle
Feat. Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, Jerry Reed…; Gene Hackman is shot down over enemy lines deep in war–torn Vietnam; Danny Glover is the Air Force pilot charged with saving his skin. Expect…
Beast, The (the Beast Of War) (1988): Dir. Kevin Reynolds
Feat. George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Stephen Baldwin…; Laying aside the usual sympathies, this American war–drama pursues a tense running–battle between a Soviet tank–crew and Afghani…
Biloxi Blues (1988): Dir. Mike Nichols
Feat. Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken; Famed scriptwriter Neil Simon (THE GOODBYE GIRL) here gives a semi–autobiographical account of his experiences in boot–camp during WW2,…
China Beach (TV Series) (1988): Feat. Dana Delany, Michael Boatman, Nan Woods; TV series set at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam War, following the unique perspectives of a range of characters including US Army doctors…
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (1988): Dir. Bill Couturie; Intensely moving docudrama of the Vietnam experience in which some of Hollywoods most famed actors read soldier's letters sent home to their…
Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka) (1988): Dir. Isao Takahata; Modest 'classic' of Japanese anime that tells the story of two children caught up in the devastating fire–bombing of Kobe in WW2. Amid the…
Hanussen (1988): Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer; Klaus Maria Brandauer adds to his list of distinctive roles in this allegedly true tale of an Austrian soldier who recovers from shotgun wounds and…
John Pilger's Return Ticket (South Africa: Apartheid Did Not Die; Frontline: In Search Of Truth In Wartime; Vietnam: The Last Battle) (1988-1995): Dir. Alan Lowery, David Munro
Feat. John Pilger; John Pilger revisits the remnants of war, stained politics, and social injustice in this fifth volume of his hard–hitting documentary…
Last Stop Paradise (Terminus paradis) (1988): Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Costel Cascaval, Dorina Chiriac, Gheorghe Visu; French/Romanian drama set against the outskirts of Budapest, centered around the ill–fated love affair between a waitress and a young pig…
Rambo 3 (1988): Dir. Peter MacDonald
Feat. Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna; The belated finale to the RAMBO series sees the human battletank John Rambo (Stallone) dropped into Afghanistan to rescue his mentor (Crenna). In…
War and Remembrance (Mini-Series) (1988): Dir. Dan Curtis
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Jane Seymour, Hart Bochner…; Sequel to THE WINDS OF WAR follows trials and tribulations of the Henry and the Jastrow families amid the events after the USA's entry into World War…
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987): Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto, Francine Racette…; Dir. Malle has transformed a childhood memoir into a powerful and vivid account of a catholic schoolboy who unknowingly witnesses anti–semitism…
Debajo Del Mundo (Underground) (1987): Dir. Beda Docampo Feijóo
Feat. Oscar Ferrigno Jr., Gabriel Rovito; Intense WW2 drama focused on a Polish family who make the drastic decision to bury themselves underground to hide from the Nazis. Based on a true…
Empire of the Sun (1987): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson…; A much–admired Spielberg epic in which a young boy witnesses the Japanese invasion of China in WWII. Based on the memoirs of sci–fi…
Escape From Sobibor (1987): Dir. Jack Gold
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Alan Arkin, Joanna Pacula; An unsettling and chilling account of an attempt by Jews to escape the Sobibor concentration camp in Eastern Poland in 1944. Originally made for…
Fortunes of War (TV Mini-series) (1987): Dir. James Cellan Jones
Feat. Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Alan Bennett…; An under–appreciated historical epic focused on the personal experience of war, starring then–English glamour couple Kenneth Branagh and…
Full Metal Jacket (1987): Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Feat. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio…; Disturbing account of the recruitment, training and combat of young Americans in Vietnam. A powerful indictment of the senselessness of war, superbly…
Going Hollywood - The War Years (1987): Dir. Julian Schlossberg
Feat. Vivian Blaine, Dane Clark, Jackie Cooper…; A glance back at Hollywood attitudes, movies and stars during the WW2 years 1941–1945. Compromising movie clips, newsreel footage and…
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987): Dir. Barry Levinson
Feat. Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker; Robin Williams tour–de–force performance as an irreverant, rebel radio–jock stationed in Saigon during the Vietnam War. The funny…
Hamburger Hill (1987): Dir. John Irvin
Feat. Anthony Barrile, Don Cheadle, Courtney B. Vance…; Matter–of–fact depiction of a particularly costly battle of the Vietnam War, in which US troops repeatedly tried to capture 'Hill 937' in…
Hope and Glory (1987): Dir. John Boorman
Feat. Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Geraldine Muir; Well–crafted account of Dir. Boorman's childhood in wartime London.
Kitchen Toto, The (1987): Dir. Harry Hook
Feat. Edwin Mahinda, Bob Peck, Phyllis Logan; Rewarding drama set in Kenya, during the Mau Mau insurrection.
Lighthorsemen, The (1987): Dir. Simon Wincer
Feat. Peter Phelps, Jon Blake, Sigrid Thornton…; Gung–ho and melodrama collide in this WWI adventure of Australian–mounted infantry (and a few Gallipoli veterans) in Palestine. The tone…
Tour of Duty (TV Series) (1987-1988): Feat. Terence Knox, Stephen Caffrey; A much–admired chronicle of U.S. soldiers grappling with combat, friendship, and ethics in Vietnam. One of several popular Vietnam War…
Assault, The (1986): Dir. Fons Rademakers
Feat. Derek De Lint, Marc Van Uchelen, Monique Van de Ven; Exceptional near–epic tale of a young boy who witnesses the murder of a Nazi collaborator. Fine direction won this powerful drama the Best…
Falklands Collection, The (The Falklands Play, Tumbledown) (1986): Dir. Michael Samuels
Feat. Patricia Hodge, Colin Firth; A collection of two BBC dramas focused around the controversial Falklands Campaign of 1982 during Margaret Thatcher's reign. The Falklands Play:…
Heartbreak Ridge (1986): Dir. Clint Eastwood
Feat. Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason, Everett McGill…; Eastwood stars as a rugged drill sergeant assigned to a platoon of raw recruits in order to whip them into shape. Lesser Eastwood effort is also…
Monocled Mutineer, The (TV Mini-series) (1986): Dir. Jim O'Brien
Feat. Paul McGann, Robert Fellows; A four–part BBC historical drama depicting the life of Private Percy Toplis, who supposedly led a British army mutiny against training officers…
Platoon (1986): Dir. Oliver Stone
Feat. Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen; This film won the Best Picture Oscar for its compelling and sincere account of the Vietnam, also ushering the era of 1980s film reappraisals of the…
ANZACS (TV Series) (1985): Dir. John Dixon, George Miller, Pino Amenta
Feat. Paul Hogan, Andrew Clarke, Jon Blake…; An exemplary depiction of a group of ANZAC soldiers in WWI as they progress through the horrors of the war in Europe. Told mainly from the Australian…
Biggles - Adventure in Time (1985): Dir. John Hough
Feat. Peter Cushing, Alex Hyde-White; Curious, though effective recasting of the 'Biggles' stories by W.E. Johns, in which a NYC office–worker travels through time back to WWI to…
Colonel Redl (1985): Dir. Istvan Szabo
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer; Klaus Maria Brandauer offers another tour–de–force performance for the second in Szabo's WW2 trilogy (between MEPHISTO and HANUSSEN)…
Come and See (1985): Dir. Elim Klimov
Feat. Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Lauciavicius; Shattering film that chronicles the devastating effect the Nazi occupation had on Russian peasantry, focusing on one impoverished youth. The brutal…
Dunera Boys, The (Mini-series) (1985): Dir. Ben Lewin
Feat. Bob Hoskins, Warren Mitchell, Julia Blake; WW2 set mini–series following a group of suspected Jewish spies sent from England to a POW camp in NSW, Australia. Nicely balanced historical…
Eleni (1985): Dir. Peter Yates
Feat. John Malkovich, Kate Nelligan, Linda Hunt; John Malkovich plays a U.S. reporter in Greece trying to find the long–lost truth about his mother's political execution.
Flesh and Blood (1985): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh; Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh are mercenary soldier and captive who fall in love amid rampant flesh and blood–letting in medieval…
Mussolini - The Untold Story (1985): Dir. William A. Graham
Feat. George C. Scott, Gabriel Byrne, Robert Downey Jnr.…; Based on the memoirs of his eldest son this memorable mini–series begins with Mussolini's rise to power in 1922 and follows his political and…
Mussolini and I (1985): Dir. Alberto Negrin
Feat. Bob Hoskins, Anthony Hopkins, Susan Sarandon…; The last days of Il Duce as embodied by Bob Hoskins in this strong Italian miniseries.
North and South (TV Series) (1985): Dir. Richard T. Heffron
Feat. Patrick Swayze, James Read, Kirstie Alley…; Heavyweight Civil War tome starring Patrick Swayze and James Read as young men caught up in the winds of American revolution, conflict and…
Rambo 2 (1985): Dir. George Pan Cosmatos
Feat. Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Charles Napier; Iconic actioner in which traumatised commando John Rambo (Stallone) returns to Vietnam to rescue imprisoned G.I.s. Simplistic and violent, but a key…
Ran (1985): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai; The title translates to 'chaos'; it is Kurosawa's vast and bloody interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Grandiose in every sense – a…
Revolution (1985): Dir. Hugh Hudson
Feat. Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, Nastassja Kinski…; Disastrous epic with Pacino almost committing career suicide as a fur trapper caught in the upheaval of the American Revolution. Some handsome…
Sacred Hearts (1985): Dir. Barbara Rennie
Feat. Anna Massey; Earnest drama set in a repressive convent (run by Anna Massey) during the Blitz.
Shoah (1985): Dir. Claude Lanzmann; Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary on the Holocaust – 10 years in the making – is everything Resnais' 'Night and Fog' isn't; rough,…
Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985): Dir. Lamont Johnson
Feat. Richard Chamberlain, Alice Krige, Kenneth Colley…; The true story of Hungarian diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who risked his own life manufacturing protective passports for thousands of Jews in exile…
A Soldier's Story (1984): Dir. Norman Jewison
Feat. Howard Jr. Rollins, Adolph Caesar, Art Evans…; In charge of an inquiry into the murder of a black sergeant on an army base in 1944, investigator Howard E Rollins Jnr uncovers a knot of racial…
Birdy (1984): Dir. Alan Parker
Feat. Matthew Modine, Nicolas Cage; Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage star in this complex yet compelling tale of a disturbed war veteran's descent into believing he is a bird. A bold and…
Killing Fields, The (1984): Dir. Roland Joffe
Feat. Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich…; Devastating and award–winning account of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia.
Last Bastion, The (1984): Dir. Chris Thomson
Feat. Bill Hunter, Ray Barrett, Robert Vaughn…; Australia's involvement in World War II is explored from behind closed doors in this dramatisation of the decisions made by politicians and generals…
Missing in Action (1984): Dir. Joseph Zito
Feat. Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh; Simplistic but iconic 80s actioner, with Norris as a RAMBO–figure, a Vietnam Vet who returns to liberate POWs from their jungle hellholes.…
Purple Hearts (1984): Dir. Sidney J Furie
Feat. Ken Wahl, Cheryl Ladd, R. Lee Ermey…; Vietnam War set romance with Wahl and Ladd as love struck medics.
Razor's Edge, The (1984): Dir. John Byrum
Feat. Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliott; Bill Murray is in early dramatic mode as a despondent WWI vet. embarking on a spiritual walkabout through India and the Himalayas. Written by…
Red Dawn (1984): Dir. John Milius
Feat. Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Harry Dean Stanton…; Playing out the US fear/fantasy of Commie invasion, this sees a high–school football team (led by Patrick Swayze) make for the hills and wage…
Threads (1984): Dir. Mick Jackson
Feat. Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale; A disturbing vision of a nuclear attack on Sheffield, which comes across as an English THE DAY AFTER, with more focus on the grim details of such a…
By the Sword Divided (TV Series) (1983): Feat. Sharon Maughan, Andrew MacLachlan , Lucy Aston; Classic BBC period drama following the aristocratic Lacey family, whose lives are thrown into turmoil as their political allegiances split during the…
Hong Kong 1941 (Dang doi lai ming) (1983): Dir. Po-Chi Leong
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Alex Man, Kien Shih…; One of Chow Yun–Fat's early classics, this portrays the disturbing invasion of Hong Kong by the Japanese in 1941, which disrupts the dreams and…
Keep, The (1983): Dir. Michael Mann
Feat. Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jurgen Prochnow…; German soldiers camping in a Romanian castle are visited by various ghoulies in Michael Mann's off–beat supernatural yarn set during WWII,…
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983): Dir. Nagisa Oshima
Feat. David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano; David Bowie endures the hardships of a Japanese POW camp in WWII. Stylish melodrama, memorably scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Ploughman's Lunch, The (1983): Dir. Richard Eyre
Feat. Jonathan Pryce, Tim Curry; Complex dissection of British motives during the Falklands War.
Scarlet and the Black, The (1983): Dir. Jerry London
Feat. Gregory Peck, Christopher Plummer, John Gielgud…; Thrilling cat–and–mouse tale of Vatican attempts to save Allied POWs and downed Allied airman from Nazi imprisonment.
Streamers (1983): Dir. Robert Altman
Feat. Matthew Modine, David Alan Grier, George Dzundza…; Four young army recruits await in close quarters their call–up to Vietnam. Brilliantly acted by the novice cast (including Matthew Modine), it…
To Be or Not to Be (1983): Dir. Alan Johnson
Feat. Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson…; Mel Brooks features in this remake of the 1940s Ernst Lubitsch comedy.
Uncommon Valor (1983): Dir. Ted Kotcheff
Feat. Gene Hackman, Fred Ward, Reb Brown…; Gene Hackman plays an American marine who believes his son is still being held in Laos in the aftermath of The Vietnam War. From the director of the…
Under Fire (1983): Dir. Roger Spottiswoode
Feat. Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy, Gene Hackman…; A sterling drama concerning journalistic ethics in the mire of the Nicaraguan civil war. Nick Nolte is a photographer who is tempted into taking…
Winds of War, The (Mini-series) (1983): Dir. Dan Curtis
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, Jan-Michael Vincent…; Thorough and imposing wartime miniseries chronicling the width and breadth of events in the years leading up to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in…
1915 (TV Mini-series) (1982): Feat. Scott Burgess, Scott McGregor, Lorraine Bayly…; A solid recreation of the Great War era, this TV mini–series charts the experiences of several young men leaving the home–front in…
Atomic Cafe, The (1982): Dir. Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty; An insight into the American phenomenon of A–Bomb culture, which compiles cheesy propaganda flicks and newsreels with hilariously naive…
Attack Force Z (1982): Dir. Tim Burstall
Feat. Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Chris Haywood; Manly, gung–ho war vehicle stars fresh–faced Australasians Mel Gibson and Sam Neill as commandos dispatched to rescue survivors of a…
Blue and the Gray, The (TV Mini-Series) (1982): Dir. Andrew V. McLaglen
Feat. Stacy Keach, Colleen Dewhurst, Lloyd Bridges…; Handsomely staged mini–series views the Civil War throught the eyes of a Southern war correspondent bearing witness to the war's key events.
How Many Miles to Babylon? (1982): Dir. Moira Armstrong
Feat. Daniel Day-Lewis, Sian Phillips; Daniel Day–Lewis plays a Protestant whose friendship with a fellow Catholic solider is severely tested during the harsh realities of WWI in…
Privates On Parade (1982): Dir. Michael Blakemore
Feat. John Cleese; John Cleese stars in this perky adaptation of the play about a gay Song and Dance Unit of the Brtish army stationed in 1940s Singapore.
Sophie's Choice (1982): Dir. Alan J. Pakula
Feat. Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline; Master of many accents Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her role as a European refugee of the Nazi death–camps whose uneasy relationship with…
Bunker, The (1981): Dir. George Schaefer
Feat. Anthony Hopkins, Richard Jordan, Cliff Gorman…; Absorbing account of Hitler's last days spent hiding under Berlin with Hopkins giving one of his finest performances. Somber adaptation of James P.…
Das Boot (The Boat) (1981): Dir. Wolfgang Petersen
Feat. Jurgen Prochnow; Nail biting, meticulous and realistic account of a German U–boat's prowlings through the North Atlantic. The most expensive German film to…
Eye of the Needle (1981): Dir. Richard Marquand
Feat. Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, Christopher Cazenove; Donald Sutherland plays a German agent with a deadly secret in this above–average WW2 suspense yarn that builds to an impressive,…
Gallipoli (1981): Dir. Peter Weir
Feat. Mel Gibson, Mark Lee; Well–crafted, intoxicating depiction of the Gallipoli landings in WWI with a boyish Mel Gibson and Mark Lee as youthful idealists who enlist as…
Genocide (1981): Dir. Arnold Schwartzman; A harrowing recount of the atrocities enacted by Hitler's regime during WW2 as told by the survivors of his infamous death camps. Narrated by…
Kessler (TV Mini-series) (1981): Feat. Clifford Rose, Alan Dobie; Six–part sequel to the terrific WW2 series SECRET ARMY sees former SS member Ludwig Kessler (Rose) living in 'present day' and on the run from…
Private Schulz (1981): Feat. Michael Elphick, Ian Richardson, Billie Whitelaw…; Gleefully macabre farce focuses on the scheming titular character who convinces the Nazis to mass counterfeit millions of five pound notes in a bid…
Tenko (TV Series) (1981-1984): Feat. Stephanie Cole, Jean Anderson; Memorable British drama in which a group of English women, shipwrecked while fleeing the invasion of Singapore in 1941, are captured by the Japanese…
Victory (Escape to Victory) (1981): Dir. John Huston
Feat. Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow; Implausible yet jolly entertaining WWII story has a soccer team of assorted POWs attempting to escape a Paris stadium during a match against the Nazi…
Big Red One, The (1980): Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Lee Marvin; The best role in years for Lee Marvin, who plays the intrepid squadron leader of director Sam Fuller's WWII memoirs. Distinctive war film is…
Dogs of War, The (1980): Dir. John Irvin
Feat. Christopher Walken, Colin Blakely, Tom Berenger; Frederick Forsyth's best–seller gets reasonably good treatment here, Christopher Walken playing a hard bastard mercenary hired by Big Business…
Final Countdown, The (1980): Dir. Don Taylor
Feat. Martin Sheen, Kirk Douglas, Katherine Ross…; The nuclear–era aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, skippered by Martin Sheen, steams into a time–warp and pops up in the Pacific Ocean, just…
Kagemusha (1980): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara; A majestic 16th century saga about a petty thief who ascends to tribal leadership on account of his resemblance to a dying warlord. Shared the top…
Lili Marleen (1980): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, Mel Ferrer; Fassbinder's fact–based account of the recording of the Nazi anthem, sung by a jaded cabaret singer with a Jewish love interest.
Lion of the Desert (1980): Dir. Moustapha Akkad
Feat. Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed, John Gielgud…; An epic account of the 'David and Goliath' battle on the Libyan desert between Mussolini's all–powerful army and the Bedouin, circa 1930.
Oppenheimer (TV Mini-series) (1980): Dir. Barry Davis
Feat. Sam Waterston, Shane Rimmer, David Suchet; Excellent mini–series starring Waterson as nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who helped build the atomic bomb for the 'Manhattan…
Private Benjamin (1980): Dir. Howard Zieff
Feat. Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, Armand Assante…; Well–fashioned vehicle for Hawn's natural comic talents, she here plays a swanky socialite who joins the army on the spur of the…
Sea Wolves, The (1980): Dir. Andrew McLagen
Feat. Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, David Niven…; Salty War drama based on a real covert mission during World War II in which a group of middle–aged civilian ex–soldiers are sent by the…
Spoils of War, The (TV Series) (1980): Feat. Alan Hunter, William Lucas, Emily Moore; British drama series examining the effects of World War II on two families.
To Serve Them All My Days (TV Series) (1980): Feat. John Duttine; A shell–shocked WWI vet retreats to a teaching post in Devon, England, where he inspires students through unconventional and empowering means.…
1941 (1979): Dir. Steven Spielberg
Feat. John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Toshiro Mifune; The dir.’s only real commercial failure, this loose slapstick comedy, set in a Californian seaside town visited by a Japanese submarine in 1941,…
All Quiet on the Western Front (1979): Dir. Delbert Mann
Feat. Ernest Borgnine, Richard Thomas, Donald Pleasence…; While the 1930's film of Erich Maria Remarque's exceptional anti–war novel is undoubtedly a masterpiece, this later version should not be…
Apocalypse Now (1979): Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Feat. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall…; A harrowing account of a soldier's hazardous river journey, his mission to assasinate a renegade colonel who has gone mad in the depths of the…
Apocalypse Now Redux (1979): Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Feat. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall…; Twenty years after its release, dir. Coppola’s expressionist epic of the Vietnam War, is ‘healed’ (redux in Latin) by the re–inclusion of…
Breaker Morant (1979): Dir. Bruce Beresford
Feat. Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown; An unjust court–martial in the Boer War provides much tension in one of the great Oz dramas.
Escape To Athena (1979): Dir. George Pan Cosmatos
Feat. Roger Moore, Telly Savalas, David Niven…; Exciting WW2 tale of a group of resistance fighters sent to a German prison camp on an island off the coast of greece, fight not only for their…
From Hell to Victory (1979): Dir. Umberto Lenzi
Feat. George Peppard, George Hamilton, Horst Buchholz…; Italian exploitation hack Umberto Lenzi directs this serviceable WWII epic, about six friends who vow to reunite despite going their separate ways…
G.I. Samurai (Sengoku jieitai; Time Slip) (1979): Dir. Mitsumasa Saito
Feat. Sonny Chiba, Jun Eto; A squadron of Japanese soldiers, together with their weaponry, helicopter and gunboat, are accidentally caught in a 'time slip' and transported back…
Great Santini, The (1979): Dir. Lewis John Carlino
Feat. Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe; Exploring the internal contradictions of ex–fighter pilot Robert Duvall, stranded in post WWll peacetime with his long–suffering family,…
Henry IV - Part 1 and 2 (1979): Dir. David Giles
Feat. Jon Finch, Anthony Quayle, Tim Pigott-Smith…; Part of the BBC's excellent series of Shakespeare productions, filmed in a 'theatrical' TV environment utilising the best of English acting talent.
Ike (TV Mini-series) (1979): Dir. Boris Sagal, Melville Shavelson
Feat. Robert Duvall, Lee Remick, Dana Andrews…; Robert Duvall is expectedly good in this three–part miniseries detailing the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who commanded American forces during…
Junoon (1979): Dir. Shyam Benegal
Feat. Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah…; Indian drama set during the 1857 War of Independence, where a feudal chieftain falls for an Anglo–Indian woman and encounters bitter opposition…
Testament of Youth (Mini-series) (1979): Dir. Moira Armstrong
Feat. Cheryl Campbell, Peter Woodward, Emrys James…; Sterling adaptation of Vera Brittain's memoir recounts her early years and lost loves admidst the turmoil of the first world war.
Boys from Brazil, The (1978): Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
Feat. Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, James Mason…; Ira Levin's novel makes for an ingenious if implausible thriller with obsessed Nazi–hunter Laurence Olivier trying to scupper super–Nazi…
Boys in Company C, The (1978): Dir. Sidney J. Furie
Feat. Stan Shaw, Andrew Stevens, R. Lee Ermey…; A rugged and absurdist action film about young soldiers scarred by the horrors and blunders of war. Faintly critical of America’s involvement, this…
Coming Home (1978): Dir. Hal Ashby
Feat. Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern; A provocative weepie about the effects of the Vietnam war on the relatives at home. Jane Fonda involves herself with paraplegic veteran Jon Voight.
Deer Hunter, The (1978): Dir. Michael Cimino
Feat. Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep; A grimly realistic portrait of how the atrocities of the Vietnam war have an effect on a group of friends. Robert De Niro heads a virtuoso cast in…
Four Feathers, The (1978): Dir. Don Sharp
Feat. Jane Seymour, Beau Bridges, Robert Powell; Fine costume drama, based on A E W Mason's classic tale of a British officer charged with cowardice, who regains his honour and his love, during an…
Go Tell the Spartans (1978): Dir. Ted Post
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Craig Wasson, David Clennon…; Set in the early stages of the conflict in Vietnam, Lancaster plays a Major who, with a small band of untested soldiers, is ordered to hold a small…
Holocaust (TV Mini-series) (1978): Dir. Marvin J. Chomsky
Feat. Meryl Streep, James Woods, Michael Moriaty…; Captivating saga of a Jewish family shattered by the rise of the Nazis. One of the top–rating and best quality mini–series of the 1970s.
Inglorious Bastards (Quel maledetto treno blindato) (1978): Dir. Enzo G. Castellari
Feat. Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, Ian Bannen; Enjoyably sleazy cult war film following a group of shamed American soldiers who manage to escape their captives en route to military prison, only to…
Unknown War, The (1978): Burt Lancaster narrates this enormous 20–part documentary series on the conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Who'll Stop The Rain? (Dog Soldiers) (1978): Dir. Karel Reisz
Feat. Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty…; Classic post–Vietnam War thriller has journalist Moriarty ditching his journalistic career for heroin–smuggling, recruiting wife Weld and…
Wild Geese, The (1978): Dir. Andrew McLagen
Feat. Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris…; Trashily entertaining adventure yarn has a gaggle of middle–aged mercenaries drawn into a rescue job for a kidnapped politician in deepest…
Bridge Too Far, A (1977): Dir. Richard Attenborough
Feat. Dirk Bogarde, Robert Redford, Sean Connery…; Perhaps a battle–scene too far for some, but for afficiandos this epic account of an abortive Allied invasion of Holland is sure to provide…
Cross of Iron (1977): Dir. Sam Peckinpah
Feat. James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason…; A doomed German platoon facing annihilation at Russian hands find their instinct for personal glory greater than their instinct for…
Eagle Has Landed, The (1977): Dir. John Sturges
Feat. Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall; German commandos plot to assasinate Winston Churchill in this suspenseful thriller, apparently based on fact. Michael Caine, strangely plausible as a…
Julia (1977): Dir. Fred Zinnemann
Feat. Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards Jr.…; Dramatising the 1930s memories of playwright Lillian Hellman (THE LITTLE FOXES), this Oscar–winning classic centres on the relationship between…
Last Remake of Beau Geste, The (1977): Dir. Marty Feldman
Feat. Marty Feldman, Michael York, Ann-Margret…; Marty Feldman directs and co–writes this star–studded satire loosely based on the novel Beau Geste, a frequently–filmed story of…
MacArthur (1977): Dir. Joseph Sargent
Feat. Gregory Peck; A well–mounted political biography of the WW2 General during the Pacific wars.
Other Side of Midnight, The (1977): Dir. Charles Jarrott
Feat. Marie-France Pisier, John Beck, Susan Sarandon…; Soapy Sidney Sheldon drama follows the exploits of a young French woman who vows revenge on a ne'er do well Canadian pilot for leaving her pregnant,…
Secret Army (TV Series) (1977): Feat. Bernard Hepton; This gripping – and unlike its comedy spoof successor ALLO' ALLO!, deadly serious – BBC dramatic series focused on the exploits of a…
Aces High (1976): Dir. Jack Gold
Feat. Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, John Gielgud…; WW1 drama based on the play 'Journey's End' following a green young pilot sent off to fight the Germans in the air. Noted for its accurate portrayal…
Battle of Midway (1976): Dir. John Smight
Feat. Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston; A large–scale re–enactment of this decisive WWII naval battle. A huge all–star cast, scrap it out.
Desert of the Tartars, The (1976): Dir. Valerio Zurlini
Feat. Vittorio Gassman, Jacques Perrin, Helmut Griem…; Italian drama set in a hostile East Asian desert, where a isolated Lieutenant defends an old, unmaintained border fortress while awaiting an attack…
Mr. Klein (1976): Dir. Joseph Losey
Feat. Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau; A dark, dread–inducing moral tale, with Delon fleecing vulnerable Jews under German–occupied–France, only to be mistaken by…
Once an Eagle (TV Mini-Series) (1976): Feat. Sam Elliott, Glenn Ford, Amy Irving…; Much lauded, epic mini–series spanning the tumultuous years from WWI to the Vietnam Era, about two Army officers whose vast personal…
When The Boat Comes In (TV Series) (1976): Feat. James Bolam, James Garbutt, Jean Heywood; 'Northern' drama series set in a post–WW1 Britain, where Ex–Sergeant Jack Ford (Bolam) and his family must deal with the aftermath…
Conduct Unbecoming (1975): Dir. Michael Anderson
Feat. Michael York, Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard; Well–made, though somewhat old–fashioned version of Barry England's play about misbehaviour among the British Army in India. The stars…
Guernica Tree, The (1975): Dir. Fernando Arrabal; Final part in dir. Arrabal's cinematic trilogy (see VIVA LA MUERTE and I WILL WALK LIKE A CRAZY HORSE) is set amidst the carnage of the Spanish Civil…
Overlord (1975): Dir. Stuart Cooper
Feat. Brian Stirner; Remarkable one–off that seamlessly interweaves archival war footage and a fictional narrative, this accounts a twenty–year–old’s…
Seven Beauties (1975): Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Shirley Stoler; Wimpish Casanova Giancarlo Giannini is cast wherever the winds of WWII fling him: eventually into a German concentration camp run by Shirley Stoler…
Hearts and Minds (1974): Dir. Peter Davis; The most famous Vietnam War documentary, this ambitious project took a year to film at the cost of a million dollars, representing the catastrophe…
It Ain't Half Hot Mum (TV Series) (1974): Feat. Windsor Davies; The riotous misadventures of a concert party touring the hot and steamy jungles of Burma entertaining troops during World War II. With a typically…
Lacombe Lucien (1974): Dir. Louis Malle
Feat. Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clement; A subtle, probing study of the psychology of collaboration set in WW2 rural France, sees young peasant lad Pierre Blaise drawn into the local…
Land That Time Forgot, The (1974): Dir. Kevin Conner
Feat. Doug McClure, John McEnery, Susan Penhaligon; After ending up on a German submarine in WWI several Americans stumble across an undiscovered South American island, which holds adventure in the…
QB VII (TV Mini-Series) (1974): Dir. Tom Gries
Feat. Ben Gazzara, Anthony Hopkins, Leslie Caron…; A multiple Emmy–winning adaptation of the novel by Leon Uris (best known for "Exodus") detailing the gripping court battle between a…
Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1973): Dir. Norman Cohen
Feat. Jim Dale, Arthur Lowe; Jim Dale plays a young Spike Milligan, then an aspiring jazz musician who in 1940 reluctantly obeys his call–up and joins the Royal Artillery…
Blockhouse, The (1973): Dir. Clive Rees
Feat. Peter Sellers, Charles Aznavour, Jeremy Kemp; A crafted, though minor serious role for Sellers as one of a number of slave–labourers at work on the Nazi's Normandy defence bunkers. On…
Swastika (1973): Dir. Lutz Becker, Phillipe Mora; Consisting solely of startling archival footage, this documentary portrait of the era of Adolf Hitler's domination of Nazi Germany, eschews narration…
World At War, The (1973): Epic – both in length and scope – series that comprehensively examines the second World War. Assembling a vast array of rare footage and…
MASH (TV Series) (M*A*S*H) (1972-1983): Feat. Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Loretta Swit; Long running and much loved TV Series loosely based on Robert Altman’s 1969 film set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean…
Slaughterhouse Five (1972): Dir. George Roy Hill
Feat. Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche; Though a conservative adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's time–tripping novel, this is still a significant entry to the genre, with a wide cult…
Up the Front (1972): Dir. Bob Kellett
Feat. Frankie Howerd, Bill Fraser, Hermione Baddeley…; One of Frankie Howerd's bigscreen starring roles in a spinoff of the 'Up Pompeii' TV Series. Here he plays an WWII soldier who has invasion plans…
Winter Soldier (1972): Dir. Winterfilm Collective; An astonishing and rare document of the Vietnam War, which records how over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in…
Young Winston (1972): Dir. Richard Attenborough
Feat. Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft, Simon Ward…; The early life of Britain's greatest political leader, through his time in India, Sudan and the Boer War to his ascendancy at the House of Commons.
A Fistful of Dynamite (Duck, You Sucker!) (1971): Dir. Sergio Leone
Feat. Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Romolo Valli; Leone’s final spaghetti–western is a sprawling adventure set in the Mexican revolution, with fistfuls of action and comedy aplenty to rival…
Dad's Army The Movie (1971): Dir. Norman Cohen
Feat. Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn; The feature film is a coarser expansion of the characters and situations that endeared millions to the long–running TV show.
Hustler Squad / Wild Riders (1971-1976): Dir. Cesar Gallardo, Richard Kanter
Feat. Alex Rocco, Elizabeth Knowles, Sherry Bain…; A double feature of 70s drive–in "classics". WILD RIDERS (1971) has Alex Rocco playing a misogynistic biker who goes on a sleazy killing…
Johnny Got His Gun (1971): Dir. Dalton Trumbo
Feat. Timothy Bottoms, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards Jr.…; Excoriating anti–war statement based on the dir.'s own novel, concerns an ordinary infantryman in WW1 and his nightmare experiences. In a…
Last Valley, The (1971): Dir. James Clavell
Feat. Michael Caine, Omar Sharif, Brian Blessed; Epically framed, though a little ponderous, this action vehicle for Michael Caine is set in the final decade of the 17th century 'Thirty Years War'.…
Murphy's War (1971): Dir. Peter Yates
Feat. Peter O'Toole, Sian Phillips, Philippe Noiret; Shipwrecked off the coast of Venezuala by a U–Boat near the end of WWII, Peter O'Toole decides to recuperate a derelict seaplane and mount a…
Raid on Rommel (1971): Dir. Henry Hathaway
Feat. Richard Burton, John Colicos, Wolfgang Preiss; In 1942 Libya, a German–speaking British Intelligence officer uses former British POWs, some dressed in German uniforms, to fulfill a secret…
Catch 22 (1970): Dir. Mike Nichols
Feat. Alan Arkin, Jon Voight, Orson Welles; An acerbic anti–war statement based on the much–hailed novel about a WW2 fighter pilot's reluctance to fight, in order to preserve his…
Darling Lili (1970): Dir. Blake Edwards
Feat. Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson; Julie Andrews goes undercover as an all–singing, all–dancing German spy in this deceptively peachy WWI musical. Also starring the…
John Pilger's Documentaries That Changed the World (The Quiet Mutiny; Do You Remember Vietnam?; Year Zero; Death of a Nation) (1970-1994): Dir. David Munro, John Pilger
Feat. John Pilger; Four of journalist John Pilger's most important documentaries, that exemplify his fiercely humanist perspective which makes few concessions to…
Kelly's Heroes (1970): Dir. Brian G. Hutton
Feat. Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas…; Comic WWII yarn in which Clint Eastwood recruits a wildcat tank platoon to help rob a bank in German territory. Features one of Donald Sutherland's…
Last Grenade, The (1970): Dir. Gordon Flemyng
Feat. Sir Stanley Baker, Honor Blackman, Alex Cord…; Slam–bang action pic with Baker and Cord as opposing mercenaries duking it out in exotic Hong Kong locales, shot in scope and with a…
McKenzie Break, The (Escape) (1970): Dir. Lamont Johnson
Feat. Brian Keith, Helmut Griem, Ian Hendry; Mostly engrossing, and certainly unusual and authentic, this is a WWII POW escape yarn with a difference – here, it's Germans attempting to…
Patton (1970): Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
Feat. George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates…; George C. Scott is unnervingly convincing as the real life WW2 General with whose military convictions were indeed unnerving. Co–written by…
Too Late The Hero (Suicide Run) (1970): Dir. Robert Aldrich
Feat. Michael Caine, Cliff Robertson, Ian Bannen…; An impressive WW2 actioner from one of the experts, dir. Aldrich (ATTACK) investing a dangerous mission in the Pacific with a certain moral…
Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970): Dir. Richard Fleischer
Feat. Martin Balsam, Soh Yamamura, Jason Robards Jr.…; Elaborate account of events that led to the bombing of Pearl Harbour, told from both American and Japanese veiwpoints. Explosive finale.
Waterloo (1970): Dir. Sergei Bondarchuk
Feat. Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles; Napoleonic epic from the Russian director of WAR AND PEACE is dramatically woolly, but includes superb, sprawling battle–scenes. Rod Steiger…
Army of Shadows (L'Armée des Ombres, aka Army in the Shadows) (1969): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel…; Melville’s heavyweight masterpiece – by turns sombre, exhilarating, and tension–filled – tackles the clandestine rearguard…
Battle of Britain (1969): Dir. Guy Hamilton
Feat. Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard…; Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier head an ensemble cast of British old boys for this extravagant re–enactment of the famous aerial battle that…
Bridge at Remagen, The (1969): Dir. John Guillermin
Feat. George Segal, Robert Vaughn, Ben Gazzara…; One of the tougher, smaller 60s Hollywood depictions of war in a period otherwise dominated by epic clunkers. In the later stages of WW2, George…
Castle Keep (1969): Dir. Sydney Pollack
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont…; Anachronistic WWII film in which a ragtag squad of GI's, led by an eye–patched Burt Lancaster, hunker down in a medieval castle and try to halt…
Five For Hell (5 Per L'inferno) (1969): Dir. Frank Kramer
Feat. Klaus Kinski, John Garko, Margaret Lee; A fun–loving leader of a bunch of odd–ball G.I's are sent on a suicide mission to steal the German secret attack plans from a villa…
MASH (M*A*S*H) (1969): Dir. Robert Altman
Feat. Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt…; Dir. Robert Altman's biggest commercial success came with this irreverant and influential black comedy that spawned the more famous, but less daring…
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969): Dir. Richard Attenborough
Feat. John Rae, Corin Redgrave, Maurice Roeves…; Powerful anti–war musical adapted from the play by Charles Chilton, which depicts the mass blunder of WWI through the experiences of the poor…
Probability Zero (1969): Dir. Maurizio Lucidi
Feat. Henry Silva
Secret of Santa Vittoria, The (1969): Dir. Stanley Kramer
Feat. Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani, Hardy Kruger…; Bombastic war comedy with Quinn as a wine sodden local buffoon who through a number of contrivances becomes town mayor. When the townsfolk learn of a…
Sorrow and the Pity, The (1969): Dir. Marcel Ophuls; A Classic. Investigating life and death in the Occupied France city of Clermont–Ferrand during WWII, chiefly through interviews, this provides…
Till Death Us Do Part (1969): Dir. Norman Cohen
Feat. Warren Mitchell, Dandy Nichols; British comedy about a dysfunctional family who live together through the London blitz and in the years between the wars. Based on the BBC series of…
Virgin Soldiers, The (1969): Dir. Norman Cohen
Feat. Lynn Redgrave, Hywel Bennett, Nigel Davenport…; Comdey–drama following a squad of naive young British soldiers in 1950's Singapore who fall for the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major.
Where Eagles Dare (1969): Dir. Brian G. Hutton
Feat. Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure…; Exciting adaptation of Alistair MacLean's WW2 novel concerning British paratroopers rescue mission from an impregnable castle.
Zulu (1969): Dir. Cy Endfield
Feat. Sir Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson…; Vivid historical epic about a British army post besieged by the Zulu hordes in 19th century South Africa. Half of the film is a blow by blow recount…
Anzio (1968): Dir. Edward Dmytryk, Duilio Coletti
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Peter Falk, Arthur Kennedy…; Robert Mitchum and Peter Falk lead an international cast for this ropey war epic – an Italian–American co–production about…
Charge of the Light Brigade (1968): Dir. Tony Richardson
Feat. Trevor Howard, John Gielgud, David Hemmings; Updated version of the Mid–Victorian battle made in the sardonic spirit of the swinging sixties. Trevor Howard, John Gielgud and David Hemmings…
Damned, The (1968): Dir. Luchino Visconti
Feat. Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger; Italian dir. Luchino Visconti casts a languorous eye over the decline of a German industrialist family during the Nazi era. Heavyweight cast includes…
Devil's Brigade, The (1968): Dir. Andrew V. McLaglen
Feat. William Holden, Cliff Robertson, Vince Edwards…; Efficient actioner with an American colonel tasked with creating a special forces unit from Canadian troops and a ragtag group of American misfits.
Green Berets, The (1968): Dir. Ray Kellogg, John Wayne
Feat. John Wayne, David Janssen, Jim Hutton…; Notoriously jingoistic blockbuster designed to drum up support for America's invasion of Vietnam. The Duke leads two ace fighting teams into battle…
Hell in the Pacific (1968): Dir. John Boorman
Feat. Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune; American GI Lee Marvin encounters lone Japanese soldier Toshiro Mifune on a remote Pacific island. A series of tense confrontations unfolds, expertly…
Play Dirty (1968): Dir. Andre De Toth
Feat. Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport, Nigel Green; During the Desert War in North Africa, a group of British commandos disguised in Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital…
Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen) (1968): Dir. Werner Herzog
Feat. Peter Brogle; An early descent into madness for dir. Werner Herzog, in which a soldier charged with guarding a remote island fortress must overcome the boredom of…
Skammen (Shame) (1968): Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand; Bleak parable set against the back drop of a fictional war finds an apolitical couple aloofly living out their days on an island indulging in various…
Villa Rides (1968): Dir. Buzz Kulik
Feat. Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, Herbert Lom…; Violent western set during the Mexican revolution, with Robert Mitchum playing a corrupt Texas gunrunner and pilot who joins Pancho Villa (Yul…
Dirty Dozen, The (1967): Dir. Robert Aldrich
Feat. Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson…; A group of hardened criminals redeem themselves when recruited for a suicide mission during World War 2. An exciting adventure classic.
Far from Vietnam (1967): Dir. Agnes Varda, Joris Ivens, William Klein
Feat. Anne Bellec, Karen Blanguernon, Bernard Fresson…; A documentary essay film with seven segments each directed by seven French New Wave directors, who express their opposition to the Vietnam War and…
How I Won the War (1967): Dir. Richard Lester
Feat. John Lennon, Michael Crawford; John Lennon and Michael Crawford do service in this black satire on military lunacy.
King of Hearts (1967): Dir. Phillipe De Broca
Feat. Alan Bates, Genevieve Bujold, Pierre Brasseur; Excellently quirky mid–60s comedy that became a cult–hit in the US, has soldier Alan Bates infiltrate a French village in WWI, which has…
Night of the Generals, The (1967): Dir. Anatole Litvak
Feat. Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay…; WWII crime thriller concerning the prolonged investigation of the murder of a Polish prostitute and German agent that implicates three generals, and…
Red and the White, The (Csillagosok, katonak) (1967): Dir. Miklos Jancso
Feat. Jozsef Madaras; Russia’s bloody civil war of 1918 is lamented in this visionary war movie from influential Hungarian auteur Miklos Jancso. A formally stunning…
Secret War of Harry Frigg, The (1967): Dir. Jack Smight
Feat. Paul Newman, Tom Bosley; WWII comedy following the sorry exploits of several high ranking allied generals who are captured in Italy but refuse to take orders from each other…
Blue Max, The (1966): Dir. John Guillermin
Feat. George Peppard, Anton Diffring, James Mason…; Impressively staged, this WW1 actioner concerns the career of ace German combat pilot Bruno Stachel (Peppard). Although the human drama is fairly…
Don't Look Now We're Being Shot At (La Grande Vadrouille) (1966): Dir. Gerard Oury
Feat. Andre Bourvil, Gerard Oury, Louis de Funès; Side–splitting war caper turns a downed British bomber over Paris into a hilarious escape from German clutches. One of France’s highest…
Guerre Est Finie, La (1966): Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Genevieve Bujold…; (The War is Over). Deeply romantic film in which Spanish Civil War refugee Yves Montand tries in vain to keep alive the memory of his struggle.
Is Paris Burning? (Paris brûle-t-il?) (1966): Dir. Rene Clement
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron…; An international cast grace this lengthy war drama, set in 1944 Paris as the retreating Germans prepared to burn the city to the ground on Hitler's…
Khartoum (1966): Dir. Basil Dearden
Feat. Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Charlton Heston…; Lavishly mounted biopic of General Gordon's defeat by Arab tribesmen in 1833.
Lost Command (1966): Dir. Mark Robson
Feat. Anthony Quinn, Alain Delon, George Segal…; Atypical war movie follows Anthony Quinn's realpoliticking officer through French colonial defeats from Dien Bien Phu to Algeria. Tough action film…
Patriotism (Yûkoku) (1966): Dir. Yukio Mishima
Feat. Yukio Mishima, Yoshiko Tsuruoka; Short film directed by Japanese writer and revolutionary Yukio Mishima, based on his short story of the same name published in 1961. Set in February…
Sand Pebbles, The (1966): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Candice Bergen; An epic series of adventures on an American gunboat in the turbulent China of the 1920s, Steve McQueen giving a particularly underrated performance,…
Tobruk (1966): Dir. Arthur Hiller
Feat. Rock Hudson, George Peppard, Guy Stockwell…; This WW2 desert actioner is about the activities of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), who ran commando raids against Rommel and his Afrika…
Triple Cross (1966): Dir. Terence Young
Feat. Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard…; Minor curio concerns the real–life adventures of English safe–cracker Eddie Chapman (Plummer) who was in prison on Jersey when the Nazis…
War and Peace (1966): Dir. Sergei Bondarchuk
Feat. Lyudmila Savelyeva, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Irina Gubanova; The definitive version of Leo Tolstoy's gargantuan novel, set during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in the early 19th century. Nothing else quite…
What Did You Do In The War, Daddy? (1966): Dir. Blake Edwards
Feat. James Coburn, Dick Shawn, Aldo Ray; Deft farce set during World War II. Coburn and company charged with seizing a small Sicillian village are surprised to find its inhabitants only too…
Battle of Algiers, The (1965): Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
Feat. Brahim Haggiag; Gripping account of the Muslim uprising which led to the withdrawal of France from Algeria was shot merely four years after the revolution, and as…
Battle of the Bulge (1965): Dir. Ken Annakin
Feat. Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan…; Admirable and far from simplistic recreation of the Nazi's WW2 counter–offensive in the Ardennes in 1944, which led to a series of bitter…
Bedford Incident, The (1965): Dir. James B. Harris
Feat. Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier; Excellent Cold war navy thriller in which an US captain (Richard Widmark) treads the nuclear tightrope in obsessive pursuit of a Russian sub.
Cast a Giant Shadow (1965): Dir. Melville Shavelson
Feat. Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, Angie Dickinson…; Spectacular epic concerning the Israeli War of Independence in 1947–8, that like EXODUS somewhat romanticises events. Weaves a romance around…
Heroes of Telemark, The (1965): Dir. Anthony Mann
Feat. Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson…; Douglas and Harris are bickering leaders of an allied attempt to destroy a Nazi atom–bomb factory in the snowy wastes of Norway. Predictably…
Hill, The (1965): Dir. Sidney Lumet
Feat. Sean Connery, Ian Bannen, Roy Kinnear; Intense military stockade drama, with Sean Connery doing gruelling punishment in the Sahara.
Hogan's Heroes (TV Series) (1965-1966): Feat. Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner…; Cheeky American WW2 series centred around a motley bunch of Yankee prisoners and their haphazard endeavours to disturb the Nazi war effort and make…
In Harm's Way (1965): Dir. Otto Preminger
Feat. John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal…; Epic and stately treatment of the aftermath of Japan's WW2 attack on Pearl Harbour, with Wayne playing a sidelined Admiral who tries to claw back…
King Rat (1965): Dir. Bryan Forbes
Feat. George Segal, James Fox, Tom Courtenay…; Star–studded adaption of James Clavell's novel, set in a Japanese POW camp during WWII. At the darker end of the genre, with 'hero' George…
Morituri (1965): Dir. Bernhard Wicki
Feat. Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard…; Unusual WW2 adventure features Brando as an anti–Nazi German who tries to persuade a German freighter plying the Pacific to defect to the…
Once Before I Die (1965): Dir. John Derek
Feat. John Derek, Ursula Andress, Richard Jaeckel…; Fairly substandard drama with a good premise set in the Philippines in 1941, where a column of Americans retreats before the advancing Japanese.…
Von Ryan's Express (1965): Dir. Mark Robson
Feat. Frank Sinatra; Frank Sinatra plays an unpopular US Colonel who leads a train–bound escape from an Italian POW camp. Tension mounts to a smashing finale.
Americanization of Emily, The (1964): Dir. Arthur Hiller
Feat. James Garner, Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas…; Plucky black comedy with James Garner as the scapegoat for a wacky US admiral's grand plan to have a American naval officer be the first killed at…
Back Door to Hell (1964): Dir. Monte Hellman
Feat. Jimmie Rodgers, Jack Nicholson, John Hackett; Rousing tale of a three–man commando team as they try to knock out a Japanese communication center. Strong performances, ribald banter, and…
Culloden (1964): Dir. Peter Watkins; A groundbreaking documentary depicting the famous battle in 1746 between the English loyalists and Scottish Jacobites. Re–enacting this…
Diamonds of the Night (1964): Dir. Jan Nemec
Feat. Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova; Extraordinarily intense account, told with almost no dialogue, of two Jewish teenagers running for their lives after escaping from a train bound for…
Father Goose (1964): Dir. Ralph Nelson
Feat. Cary Grant, Leslie Caron, Trevor Howard; Wartime situational comedy with Cary Grant in his penultimate role as an uncouth South Sea beachcomber who becomes a coast watcher for the Allies,…
Guns At Batasi (1964): Dir. John Guillermin
Feat. Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Dame Flora Robson…; Set during the last days of the British Empire in East Africa, an anachronistic martinet RSM is caught in a local coup d'etat, and must use his…
Guns of August, The (1964): Dir. Nathan Kroll; A World War I documentary based on the writings of Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara Tuchman that traces the origins and actions of the…
King and Country (1964): Dir. Joseph Losey
Feat. Dirk Bogarde, Tom Courtenay, Leo McKern; Earnest, expertly acted drama in which a detached army lawyer (Dirk Bogarde) attempts to defend a working–class deserter (Tom Courtenay) during…
McHale's Navy (1964): Dir. Edward Montagne
Feat. Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway, Joe Flynn…; War–time comedy where marines are embroiled in a gambling misadventure, based on the 60's TV sitcom of the same name.
My Way Home (Igy jottem) (1964): Dir. Miklos Jancso
Feat. Andras Kozak, Sergei Nikonyenko, Janos Gorbe; In the final days of World War II, a young Hungarian is making his way home, through countryside full of the debris of war, when he is captured and…
Secret Invasion, The (1964): Dir. Roger Corman
Feat. Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Mickey Rooney…; Expedient actioner is a rare, unsensational Roger Corman flick about British intelligence using criminals behind enemy lines in WW2 Yugoslavia.
Thin Red Line, The (1964): Dir. Andrew Marton
Feat. Keir Dullea, Jack Warden; First version of James Jones' war–novel (later redone by Terrence Malick), chronicles the US invasion of Guadalcanal during WWII in grim B&W,…
Train, The (1964): Dir. John Frankenheimer
Feat. Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau…; Burt Lancaster leads the French Resistance in stopping (or at least diverting) a train used by the Nazis to steal precious French art treasures in…
Weekend at Dunkirk (1964): Dir. Henri Verneuil
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Spaak, Georges Geret…; The decimation of French and English troops who retreated to the coastal settlement of Dunkirk in 1940 is the sobering subject of this otherwise…
633 Squadron (1963): Dir. Walter Grauman
Feat. Cliff Robertson, James Clavell; WWII airmen Cliff Robertson and co maintain their staunchly British reserve as they prepare to bomb a Nazi rocket factory in Norway. Slow but with…
Donovan's Reef (1963): Dir. John Ford
Feat. John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Jack Warden…; One of dir. Ford’s more comically inclined efforts with ex–Navy buddies John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Jack Warden raising hell on the remote…
Great Escape, The (1963): Dir. John Sturges
Feat. Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough…; McQueen heads a star–studded international cast in this superb drama based on a true account of an escape from a German POW camp by a group of…
It Happened Here (1963): Dir. Kevin Brownlow, Andrew Mollo; A genuine filmic curiousity, this meticulous historical fantasy proposes that Nazi Germany invaded Britain in 1940 – leading to a lengthy…
300 Spartans, The (1962): Dir. Rudolph Mate
Feat. Richard Egan, Ralph Richardson, Diane Baker; Richard Egan leads the hardened best of Sparta into the famous battle at Thermapayle between the Greek and Persian empires in in the 5th century…
Damn the Defiant! (H.M.S. Defiant) (1962): Dir. Lewis Gilbert
Feat. Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Quayle; Naval drama set aboard a British warship during the Napoleonic wars is a defiantly good–quality effort. Script, photography (by Christopher…
Hell Is For Heroes (1962): Dir. Don Siegel
Feat. Steve McQueen, Bobby Darin, Fess Parker…; An expertly written and delivered WWII adventure, where a small squad of US soldiers, headed by Steve McQueen, must hold off an advancing German…
Ivan's Childhood (1962): Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Feat. Nikolai Burlyayev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov; A teenage spy works behind enemy lines in WW2 Germany. The Russian master's first feature is his least self–conscious and most efficient…
Longest Day, The (1962): Dir. Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki
Feat. John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum…; One the great WW2 films, with over 40 international stars. The large scale battle scenes have taken some outdoing.
McHale's Navy (TV Series) (1962-1965): Feat. Ernest Borgnine, Joe Flynn, Tim Conway; Predating MASH, Borgnine and Flynn engage in naval nonsense in this fondly remembered maritime comedy of hierarchical hi–jinks and seaman…
War Lover, The (1962): Dir. Philip Leacock
Feat. Steve McQueen, Robert Wagner, Shirley Anne Field…; WW2 drama involving two Yankee pilots in England who form a deadly duo in the air, and two sides of a love triangle on the ground. Slow–moving,…
Guns of Navarone, The (1961): Dir. J. Lee Thompson
Feat. Gregory Peck, David Niven; A great WW2 nail–biter in which Gregory Peck and David Niven lead the all–star macho cast as an elite squad assigned to destroy two giant…
Judgement at Nuremberg (1961): Dir. Stanley Kramer
Feat. Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell…; Dramatisation of the trial of the Nazi judges at Nuremberg, facing the patient integrity of Judge Spencer Tracy. Epic, gripping courtroom drama, with…
Mein Kampf (1961): Dir. Erwin Leiser; Based on the infamous diary of Adolf Hitler, this is an impressive, prudent chronicle of his life, from his formative years through the horrors of…
On the Double (1961): Dir. Melville Shavelson
Feat. Danny Kaye, Dana Wynter, Wilfrid Hyde-White; Zany action–comedy set during the Invasion of Normandy, where an American soldier and talented mimic (Danny Kaye) impersonates a British high…
Sins of Rachel Cade, The (1961): Dir. Gordon Douglas
Feat. Angie Dickinson, Peter Finch, Roger Moore; A colonel falls in love with a Protestant medical missionary in the Belgian Congo during WWII, but an American injured pilot interrupts proceedings.
Light Up the Sky! (1960): Dir. Lewis Gilbert
Feat. Ian Carmichael, Benny Hill, Dick Emery…; Ian Carmichael leads an inept searchlight unit during in this bumbling and occasionally tragic wartime comedy. Larrikins Benny Hill and Tommy Steele…
Long and the Short and the Tall, The (1960): Dir. Leslie Norman
Feat. Richard Todd, Laurence Harvey, Richard Harris…; A taut WW2 drama, based on a stageplay, set around a dysfunctional British patrol caught out behind enemy lines in Burma. Hinging on the treatment…
Sink the Bismarck (1960): Dir. Lewis Gilbert
Feat. Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Laurence Naismith…; A no–nonsense depiction of the WW2 hunt by the British navy to destroy the German super–warship Bismarck. Conveying both the allied…
Tunes of Glory (1960): Dir. Ronald Neame
Feat. Alec Guinness, John Mills, Dennis Price…; Two colonels of a Scottish regiment – one convivial, one disciplinarian – face off in a battle of wills in this drama of peacetime…
Ballad of a Soldier (1959): Dir. Grigori Chukhrai
Feat. Vladimir Ivashov; Soviet poetic realism brings a contemplative tone to the theatre of war, following a soldier’s pilgrimage back home after being granted leave for…
Danger Within (1959): Dir. Don Chaffey
Feat. Richard Attenborough; In an Italian POW camp in WW2, 400 plan to escape but one plans to betray. Can you spot the traitor? Richard Attenborough leads the cast of suspects.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959): Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada; Romance between a French actress and a Japanese architect rekindles their traumatic wartime experiences. The twin threads of despair and sensual love…
Human Condition, The (No Greater Love, Road to Eternity, A Soldier's Prayer) (1959-1961): Dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Feat. Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratana; An epic Japanese film trilogy following the life of a well–intentioned yet naïve pacifist and socialist as he tries to survive in the…
Operation Amsterdam (1959): Dir. Michael McCarthy
Feat. Peter Finch, Eva Bartok, Tony Britton; Gripping wartime drama tracking two gem specialists attempting to remove a valuable horde of diamonds from Amsterdam in 14 hours before the nasty…
Operation Petticoat (1959): Dir. Blake Edwards
Feat. Cary Grant, Tony Curtis; Submarine Capt. Cary Grant and First Mate Tony Curtis excel in this seaborne comedy.
Pork Chop Hill (1959): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn…; Given a gritty believability by Dir. Milestone ('All Quiet on the Western Front'), this recounts the bloody, meaningless conquest of a lowly hill…
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958): Dir. Douglas Sirk
Feat. John Gavin, Jock Mahoney, Don DeFore…; Bittersweet WWII melodrama finds Douglas Sirk at his gravest; John Gavin plays a returning German solider who falls in love under the shadow of war.…
Ashes and Diamonds (1958): Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzanowksa; Set on the day after WWII, the striking–looking Zbigniew Cybulski plays a Polish freedom fighter torn between wartime duties and peacetime…
Carve Her Name With Pride (1958): Dir. Lewis Gilbert
Feat. Virginia McKenna, Paul Scofield, Jack Warner…; Brit war–time romance centred on a lady living in London during WW2 who marries and has a child with a French soldier. Upon hearing of his…
Dunkirk (1958): Dir. Leslie Norman
Feat. Richard Attenborough, John Mills, Bernard Lee…; British war film set during the 1940 evacuation of French and British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, following the contrasting perspectives of a…
Hidden Fortress (1958): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; Toshiro Mifune displays astounding skill with horse and sword as the ultimate warrior in this innovative amalgam of fairy–tale and Samurai…
Hunters, The (1958): Dir. Dick Powell
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Richard Egan; Robert Mitchum portrays an aging fighter pilot in the Korean War who falls for the wife of a fellow squadron member in this aviation–romance.
I Was Monty's Double (1958): Dir. John Guillermin
Feat. Clifton James, John Mills, Leslie Phillips…; Absorbing war drama based on the true story of a man hired to imitate General Montgomery in order to hoodwink the Germans before the North Africa…
Ice Cold In Alex (1958): Dir. J. Lee-Thompson
Feat. John Mills, Anthony Quayle; After a hurried retreat from the siege of Tobruk, a band of medics and nurses in an ambulance, attempt an arduous crossing of the Libyan Sahara…
Key, The (1958): Dir. Carol Reed
Feat. William Holden, Sophia Loren, Trevor Howard; Captivating WW2 drama set around a Londonite lady (played with restrained elegance by Sophia Loren) whose liaisons with war sea captains over the…
Kings Go Forth (1958): Dir. Delmer Daves
Feat. Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood; Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis are comrades in arms who fight over Natalie Wood, but her mixed heritage arouses their bigotry instead.
Men in War (1958): Dir. Anthony Mann
Feat. Aldo Ray, Robert Ryan, Vic Morrow…; Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray play the leaders of a small detachment of American soldiers cut off and desperately trying to rejoin their division over a…
Quiet American, The (1958): Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Feat. Michael Redgrave, Audie Murphy; This early screen adaptation of Graham Greene’s cautionary novel was the first major film to address to thorny issue of Vietnam, although loses…
Run Silent, Run Deep (1958): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster; One of the best WWII submarine movies, this pits Commander Clark Gable against rebel Lt. Burt Lancaster as together they patrol the deeps.
Sea of Sand (Desert Patrol) (1958): Dir. Guy Green
Feat. Richard Attenborough, Vincent Ball, Michael Craig…; Brit war thriller about an army team sent to destroy a German petrol dump in preparation for an attack who are confronted by their enemies in the…
Young Lions, The (1958): Dir. Edward Dmytryk
Feat. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin…; Sensitive, well–mounted WW2 epic charts the effect of war on young lives from both sides. Marlon Brando as a confused German commandant…
Bitter Victory (1957): Dir. Nicholas Ray
Feat. Richard Burton, Curt Jurgens, Ruth Roman…; Superior war drama is set around a WW2 mission by British commandos in North Africa, trying to retrieve vital papers from a German HQ before…
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957): Dir. David Lean
Feat. William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins; Another rousing, grand scale production from director Lean, about a group of British POW's employed by the Japanese to build a bridge, while their…
China Gate (1957): Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Gene Barry, Angie Dickinson; In 1954, during the French Indochina War, an Eurasian female smuggler and a group of French Foreign Legion mercenaries, infiltrate the enemy…
Cranes are Flying, The (Letyat Zhuravli) (1957): Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
Feat. Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksei Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev; A Russian classic which conveys homefront anxieties during WW2 for a young bride whose original fiance has gone to the front. Pursued by his…
Enemy Below, The (1957): Dir. Dick Powell
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens, Theodore Bikel…; Naval thriller with Mitchum as a U.S. destroyer captain caught in a cat–and–mouse battle with German U–boat commander Jurgens he…
Farewell to Arms, A (1957): Dir. Charles Vidor, John Huston
Feat. Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio De Sica…; Expensive, though wooden adaptation of the Hemingway classic set around a love story on the Italian Front in WWI. Despite a Ben Hecht script, the…
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957): Dir. John Huston
Feat. Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr; Kerr and Mitchum play a nun and Marine sergeant respectively, who are stranded on a desert island during WWII – the island happens to also be…
Hellcats of the Navy (1957): Dir. Nathan Juran
Feat. Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Arthur Franz…; WW2 submarine actioner that is chiefly remembered as the only film to star both Ronald Reagan and his future wife Nancy Davis. Storywise this…
Ill Met By Moonlight (1957): Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Feat. Dirk Bogarde, Marius Goring, David Oxley; Conventional WW2 flick focused on a group of Resistance fighters in German occupied Crete who hatch a plan to kidnap the head of the German army.…
Kiss Them For Me (1957): Dir. Stanley Donen
Feat. Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield, Leif Erickson…; Very very silly war comedy with Grant and his navy buddies fighting for their right to spend their shore leave as they see fit, which inevitably…
One That Got Away, The (Einer Kam Durch) (1957): Dir. Roy Ward Baker
Feat. Hardy Kruger, Colin Gordon, Terence Alexander…; Sturdy war thriller centred on the true story of German airman Franz von Werra – the only German POW to successfully escape from allied custody…
Paths of Glory (1957): Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Feat. Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou…; Kubrick's muscular drama deals frankly with the hypocrisy and inhumanity of military ethics, based on a true incident in WWI France. Following a…
Pride and the Passion, The (1957): Dir. Stanley Kramer
Feat. Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren…; A solemn epic set around Napoleon's campaign in Spain in the early 19th century – the cast doing their sincere best with a fairly passionless…
Raintree County (1957): Dir. Edward Dmytryk
Feat. Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Eva Marie Saint…; Civil War set romance has Montgomery Clift as a schoolteacher whojoins the Union Army as they march into Georgia in the hope of finding his estranged…
Run of the Arrow (1957): Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Rod Steiger, Brian Keith, Charles Bronson…; Technicolour western set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, with Confederate veteran Rod Steiger going rogue and joining the Sioux, but…
Sad Sack, The (1957): Dir. George Marshall
Feat. Jerry Lewis, David Wayne, Phyllis Kirk…; A charming adaptation of the beloved comic strip by George Baker, with Jerry Lewis playing a hopeless soldier whose planned six weeks weeks of…
Sayonara (1957): Dir. Joshua Logan, Marlon Brando
Feat. Patricia Owens, Ricardo Montalban, Martha Scott…; An effective, well–acted version of James Michener's novel set during the Korean War, in which ace pilot Brando inconveniently falls in love…
Throne of Blood (1957): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura; Kurosawa transposes MacBeth into a Samurai setting and the result justifies his reputation. Nothing short of an awesome spectacle Shakespeare himself…
Until They Sail (1957): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, Paul Newman…; 1950s Christchurch is the novelty star of this MGM prestige picture set entirely in Canterbury, New Zealand, with landmarks such as the Christchurch…
Yangtse Incident, The (The Yangtze Incident, Battle Hell) (1957): Dir. Michael Anderson
Feat. Richard Todd; The crew of the HMS Amethyst must escape via the Yangtse river after sauntering into China on the eve of Communist takeover. A riveting dramatization…
A Town Like Alice (1956): Dir. Jack Lee
Feat. Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch; Based on Neville Shute's 1950s bestseller, this WWII drama opens with the fall of Singapore and the internment of Virginia McKenna in a Japanese POW…
Attack! (1956): Dir. Robert Aldrich
Feat. Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, Eddie Albert; Departing from the glory–day stories of WW2, Aldrich offers a hard–edged realism to the nightmare of war. Jack Palance, Lee Marvin and…
Away All Boats (1956): Dir. Joseph Pevney
Feat. Jeff Chandler, George Nader, Julie Adams…; Convincing naval drama about the captain and inexperienced crew of a Navy transport ship in World War II.
Battle of the River Plate (1956): Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressbuger
Feat. John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Peter Finch; Straight–ahead account of the British attempt to capture a gigantic German battleship in 1939 off the coast of South America.
Burmese Harp, The (Biruma no tategoto) (1956): Dir. Kon Ichikawa
Feat. Rentaro Mikuni; Another muted anti–war elegy conceived during Japan’s post–WWII recovery, this tells the journey of a Japanese private, who upon…
D-Day - The Sixth of June (1956): Dir. Henry Koster
Feat. Robert Taylor, Richard Todd, Edmond O'Brien…; Well–executed enactment of the Normandy landings in WW2, with some extravagent action scenes and solid dramatics.
Kanal (1956): Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Teresa Izewska, Tadeusz Janczar; The darkest chapter of dir. Wadja's WWII 'Trilogy', is an unremitting portrayal of the last gasps of the 1944 Warsaw uprising. With desperate…
Man Who Never Was, The (1956): Dir. Ronald Neame
Feat. Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame, Robert Flemyng…; Riveting adaptation of Ewen Montagu's book about the true story of a British Navy commander's involvement in a tricky scheme to fool the Nazis, by…
Private's Progress (1956): Dir. John Boulting
Feat. Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas…; Popular Ealing war satire finds Ian Carmichael, as the film’s spotty college freshman, conscripted to military service where he’s whipped into…
Reach for the Sky (1956): Dir. Lewis Gilbert
Feat. Kenneth More; British WW2 favourite tells the courageous true story of pilot Douglas Bader who overcame the amputation of both legs to miraculously continue his…
Above Us the Waves (1955): Dir. Ralph Thomas
Feat. John Mills, Donald Sinden, John Gregson…; Robust submarine yarn from WW2 concerns the efforts of Commander John Mills and his men to sink the deadly German battle–ship 'Tirpitz' with…
Battle Cry (1955): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Aldo Ray…; Entertaining WWII yarn concerning a squad of American marines romancing and training (in Paekakariki, New Zealand!) before heading off to action in…
Cockleshell Heroes (1955): Dir. Jose Ferrer
Feat. Jose Ferrer, Trevor Howard, Anthony Newley…; Fictionalised account of Operation Frankton, a British canoe–borne raid on Bordeaux Harbour during WWII.
Colditz Story, The (1955): Dir. Guy Hamilton
Feat. John Mills, Eric Portman, Christopher Rhodes; A compulsive and tightly wound prison yarn, set around the supposedly unescapable German POW camp. Britisher John Mills unites prisoners of various…
Long Gray Line, The (1955): Dir. John Ford
Feat. Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Donald Crisp; Engrossing true life tale of military instructors Marty Maher and his rise to the top of his profession.
Mister Roberts (1955): Dir. John Ford
Feat. Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon; Naval officer Henry Fonda yearns for combat but instead must tolerate his eccentric captain (James Cagney). Jack Lemmon won an Oscar for his funny…
Napoleon (1955): Dir. Sacha Guitry
Feat. Daniel Gelin, Raymond Pellegrin, Yves Montand…; A somewhat farcical film that suffers from being dubbed into English, over–narration, and the attempt to give a complete account of Napoleon's…
Nuit et Broulliard (Night and Fog) (1955): Dir. Alain Resnais; Haunting, influential doco on the Nazi concentration camps investigates the ways in which images of past events cause guilt for those in the present,…
To Hell and Back (1955): Dir. Jesse Hibbs
Feat. Audie Murphy; Unique war film presents Audie Murphy in his own real–life story as the most decorated US Soldier during WW2.
Wajda's War Trilogy (A Generation, Kanal, Ashes & Diamonds) (1955-1958): Dir. Andrzej Wajda; Polish visionary Wajda's trilogy of war masterworks.
Bridges at Toko-Ri, The (1954): Dir. Mark Robson
Feat. William Holden, Grace Kelly; Ace pilot William Holden is out to destroy the 'impossible' target in this excellent Korean War thriller.
Caine Mutiny, The (1954): Dir. Edward Dmytryk
Feat. Humphrey Bogart; Solid action with unstable Ship's Captain Humphrey Bogart contending with mutinies and typhoons.
Carrington V.C. (Court Martial) (1954): Dir. Anthony Asquith
Feat. David Niven, Margaret Leighton, Allan Cuthbertson; Legal drama adapted from the stage play in which a court–martial attempts to find out why, and if, an officer embezzled his unit's funds.
Dambusters, The (Dam Busters, The) (1954): Dir. Michael Anderson
Feat. Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Charles Carson; British inventor Barnes Wallis's ingenious attempts to destroy German dams during WWII forms the basis of this splendid thriller. Michael Redgrave…
Generation, A (Pokolenie) (1954): Dir. Andrzej Wajda
Feat. Roman Polanski; Fast–moving account of the Polish Resistance during WWII, as a scrappy young recruit falls in love with his unit leader. Depicts the spirited,…
Hell and High Water (1954): Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi, Victor Francen…; Cold war thriller with Widmark helming a submarine in pursuit of a Red freighter. Unexceptional by Samuel Fuller's usual standards – he was…
High and the Mighty, The (1954): Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day…; John Wayne undercuts his bravura persona as the reluctant hero piloting a stricken passenger flight over the Atlantic. Solid disaster clichés and a…
Purple Plain, The (1954): Dir. Robert Parrish
Feat. Gregory Peck, Win Min Than, Bernard Lee…; Strong psychological drama, shot in lush Technicolor, with Peck as a shell–shocked pilot stuck with wounded comrades behind enemy lines in the…
Twenty-Four Eyes (24 Eyes/Nijushi no hitomi) (1954): Dir. Keisuke Kinoshita
Feat. Hideko Takamine, Chishu Ryu; An elegiac triumph of nostalgia for youth and wartime humanism, this cherished landmark of Japanese cinema gracefully chronicles the 20–years…
British War DVD Collection, The (Ice Cold in Alex, The Cruel Sea, The Colditz Story, The Dambusters) (1953-1958): Four classic British b&w war films beautifully remastered.
Desert Rats, The (1953): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Richard Burton; No–nonsense British Army officer Richard Burton assumes command of an Australian platoon, but struggles to win their respect. Sequel to The…
Fear and Desire (1953): Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Feat. Kenneth Harp, Frank Silvera, Paul Mazursky; Kubrick's debut feature – not regarded as worthy of reconsideration by the director himself – is nonetheless a eerie allegorical war…
From Here to Eternity (1953): Dir. Fred Zinnemann
Feat. Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr…; Frank Sinatra established himself an actor alongside Burt Lancaster in this account of life at a Honolulu barracks at the time of Pearl Harbour.…
Malta Story (1953): Dir. Brian Desmond Hurst
Feat. Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Steel; A taut wee adventure set among the special forces of the British Air Force defending the island of Malta during WW2. Real–life locations and a…
They Who Dare (1953): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Dirk Bogarde; Bonus film with SLEEPING TIGER is a Dirk Bogarde WWII actioner that details a commando raid on German–controlled Aegean air fields.
Angels One Five (1952): Dir. George More O'Ferrall
Feat. Jack Hawkins, Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray…; British war film following the experience of a young fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain during WWII. Based on the book "What Are Your Angels…
Cruel Sea, The (1952): Dir. Charles Frend
Feat. Denholm Elliott; Bracing account of life aboard a British Corvette during WWII fighting German U–Boats and Atlantic storms, featuring a young Denholm Elliot…
Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits) (1952): Dir. Rene Clement
Feat. Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Laurence Badie; After her parents are killed in an air raid during WWII, a small girl makes friends with a peasant boy, and the pair gradually come to terms with the…
Hangman's Knot (1952): Dir. Roy Huggins
Feat. Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, Claude Jr. Jarman…; Handsome technicolour western with Randolph Scott leading a band of Confederate soldiers who are unaware that the war is over, and attack a wagon of…
Invasion U.S.A. (1952): Dir. Alfred E. Green
Feat. Gerald Mohr, Peggie Castle, Dan O'Herlihy; A crudely devised, but fascinating slice of early Cold War paranoia, this has the 'Land of the Free' being invaded by hordes of Russians, with…
Mutiny (1952): Dir. Edward Dmytryk
Feat. Angela Lansbury, Mark Stevens; Adventure movie set during the War of 1812, where a captain collecting a war loan of gold finds that his crew have plotted a mutiny to try to obtain…
Stalag 17 (1952): Dir. Billy Wilder
Feat. William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger…; Sophisticated WW2 film in which comedy and suspense make uneasy but fascinating bedfellows. William Holden leads imprisoned American G.Is who plan…
What Price Glory? (1952): Dir. John Ford
Feat. James Cagney, Dan Dailey, Corinne Calvet; Soldiers James Cagney and Dan Dailey take time out from the trenches of WWI for some zesty romantic rivalry over local attraction Corrinne Calvet.
Appointment with Venus (1951): Dir. Ralph Thomas
Feat. David Niven, Glynis Johns, Kenneth More; Bizarre war drama based on a true story about a small recently occupied British isle with a very important prize cow living on it that the War Office…
Desert Fox, The (1951): Dir. Henry Hathaway
Feat. James Mason, Jessica Tandy, Sir Cedric Hardwicke…; James Mason gives a definitive performance as Nazi General Rommel (which he repeated for THE DESERT RATS), whose troubles proved overwhelming despite…
Fixed Bayonets (1951): Dir. Samuel Fuller
Feat. Richard Basehart, Gene Evans, Michael O'Shea; Brassy Korean War flick with a diminished platoon struggling for survival, and Basehart as the soldier terrified of having leadership thrust upon…
Go for Broke! (1951): Dir. Robert Pirosh
Feat. Van Johnson, Warner Anderson, Don Haggerty; The story of the 442nd Regiment, a team composed of second–generation Japanese–American soldiers fighting in Italy who were heavily…
Red Badge of Courage, The (1951): Dir. John Huston
Feat. Audie Murphy, Royal Dano, Arthur Hunnicutt; A classic film version of the classic American Civil War novel by Stephen Crane, which depicts the line between courage and cowardice in the Yankee…
American Geurrilla In The Phillipines (I Shall Return) (1950): Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Tyrone Power, Micheline Presle; War film from Fritz Lang following a group of American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after a motor torpedo boat is destroyed by Japanese…
At War With The Enemy (1950): Dir. Hal Walker
Feat. Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis; After stealing the show in MY FRIEND IRMA, the duo of Martin and Lewis took centre stage here for the first time, enveloped in the potential madness…
Halls of Montezuma (1950): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, Karl Malden…; Unflashy and well–cast war film, that follows the US Marines into action on a Pacific island. Makes a fairly gung–ho contrast to dir.…
Odette (1950): Dir. Herbert Wilcox
Feat. Dame Anna Neagle, Trevor Howard, Marius Goring…; Drama based on the true story of Odette Sansom, the British Special Operations Executive agent in WWII who miraculously evaded death after being sent…
Three Came Home (1950): Dir. Jean Negulesco
Feat. Claudette Colbert, Patric Knowles, Florence Desmond…; Harrowing true life tale of a woman's imprisonment in several Japanese prisoner–of–war camps from 1941 to the end of WWII.
Wooden Horse, The (1950): Dir. Jack Lee
Feat. Leo Genn, David Tomlinson, Anthony Steel…; Allied P.O.W.'s attempt to escape a Nazi prison camp by way of an excercise vaulting horse.
Battleground (1949): Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban…; A tough depiction of WW2 combat set among an American squad during the gruelling Battle of the Bulge, that stands as something of an early classic.…
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949): Dir. Allan Dwan
Feat. John Wayne; Popular WWII saga with John Wayne as a tough Sarg, spurring his troops on in the Pacific.
Twelve O'Clock High (1949): Dir. Henry King
Feat. Gregory Peck; Gregory Peck is at his peak as a General brought in to restore morale to a squadron engaged in daily bombing raids over Germany. One of the great…
13 Rue Madeleine (1947): Dir. Henry Hathaway
Feat. James Cagney, Annabella, Richard Conte…; A group of OSS operatives penetrate behind German lines in this rough–edged WWII thriller. Seeking a secret missile site, they must also…
Germany Year Zero (1947): Dir. Roberto Rossellini; A heart–breaking depiction of life in the post–WW2 ruins of Berlin, in which a boy struggles to help his family who are forced to live in…
Silence de la Mer, Le (The Silence of the Sea) (1947): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Howard Vernon; A German officer is billeted with an elderly man and his niece during the occupation of France in this introspective and talky chamber piece, heavy…
Trial at Nuremberg (1947): Dir. Jack Kaufman; Actual footage of the historic war crime hearings in which Goering, Hess and 19 other SS Nazi leaders would be brought to trial over 217 days at the…
Captive Heart (1946): Dir. Basil Dearden
Feat. Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Frederick Leister…; An exciting story of POWs in WWII Germany. Michael Redgrave gives an acclaimed performance as a Czech prisoner masquerading as a British officer.
Paisa (1946): Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Benjamin Emmanuel; Six short films focusing on the minor victories and losses of ordinary folk during WW2. Pioneering the now–familiar use of documentary footage,…
Theirs is the Glory (Men of Arnhem) (1946): Dir. Brian Desmond Hurst
Feat. Stanley Maxted; British war movie depicting the 1st Airborne Division's involvement in the 1944 Battle of Arnhem, a battle which was also the subject of A BRIDGE TOO…
Years Between, The (1946): Dir. Compton Bennett
Feat. Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Dame Flora Robson; Michael Redgrave plays a British MI6 officer who returns home after working for the French Resistance to find that his wife, who had presumed him…
A Bell For Adano (1945): Dir. Henry King
Feat. Gene Tierney, John Hodiak, William Bendix…; Hodiak plays an army major assigned to restore order in a small Italian town in this gentle–natured drama. The luminous –and blonde…
Objective, Burma (1945): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. Errol Flynn, James Brown; A swift, gritty WW2 actioner in which Errol Flynn heads a paratroop mission to disable a Japanese radar station against considerable odds.
Rome: Open City (1945): Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi; Neo–realist war drama about resistance fighters in fascist Italy places the action right inside the everyday and humanises the heroic.…
They Were Expendable (1945): Dir. John Ford
Feat. John Wayne, Robert Montgomery; Fine tribute to the US Torpedo–boat troops who were last to retreat from the Philippines after Pearl Harbour. John Wayne and Robert Montgomery…
Walk in the Sun, A (1945): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne…; Absorbing character study of men at war set in WW2 North Africa.
Way to the Stars, The (1945): Dir. Anthony Asquith
Feat. John Mills, Michael Redgrave, Douglas Montgomery…; An RAF airfield in WWII is the setting of this unassuming war–drama, set around the lives of the ‘flyers’ and the ground–crew. Given…
Fighting Sullivans, The (1944): Dir. Lloyd Bacon
Feat. Anne Baxter, Edward Ryan; Early telling of the true story that inspired SAVING PRIVATE RYAN about five brothers who served in WWII (in reality, at Guadacanal).
Henry V (1944): Dir. Laurence Olivier
Feat. Laurence Olivier, Robert Newton, Leslie Banks; Brimming with zest, this Shakespeare adaption became an instant classic when released, featuring Laurence Olivier in full sail as the youthful…
Passage to Marseille (1944): Dir. Michael Curtiz
Feat. Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre; Distinguished by the use of flashbacks within flashbacks, this WW2 propaganda piece re–unites the director with CASABLANCA alumnae.
Pin Up Girl (1944): Dir. H. Bruce Humberstone
Feat. Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye…; Betty Grable, America's #1 pin–up during WWII, strikes a pose as a canteen girl who pretends to be broadway star in order to stay close to her…
Purple Heart, The (1944): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Farley Granger…; Watchable flag–waver from WW2 depicts the show trial of a crew of American airmen (led by Andrews) who are shot down over Tokyo in 1944. Has…
Rats of Tobruk, The (The Fighting Rats of Tobruk) (1944): Dir. Charles Chauvel
Feat. Chips Rafferty, Peter Finch; Aussie battler Chips Rafferty fight hard in the Battle of Rommel in this chest–thumping follow–up to FORTY THOUSAND HORSEMEN.
Since You Went Away (1944): Dir. John Cromwell, Andre De Toth
Feat. Joseph Cotton, Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones…; While husband Joseph Cotton is away at WWII, Claudette Colbert must hold home and family together. A lengthy dose of home–front stoicism, that…
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944): Dir. Mervyn LeRoy
Feat. Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum, Robert Walker; True life WW2 story about the first American air raids on Japan with Spencer Tracy and Robert Mitchum in his leading debut.
Uncertain Glory (1944): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. Errol Flynn, Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson; Wartime romance with Flynn playing French criminal Jean Picard who vows to make the ultimate sacrifice, only to fall in love.
Way Ahead, The (1944): Dir. Carol Reed
Feat. David Niven, Stanley Holloway, Trevor Howard…; A depleted battalion must scrub up and train a ragtag bunch of conscripts to re–fill the positions left by deceased soldiers in this morale…
White Cliffs of Dover, The (1944): Dir. Clarence Brown
Feat. Elizabeth Taylor, Roddy McDowall, Irene Dunne…; Patriotic sentiment up full–bore, this extended saga of English–American fraternising over both World Wars, has Irene Dunne and family…
Action in the North Atlantic (1943): Dir. Lloyd Bacon
Feat. Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale…; Dramatic battle scenes highlight this Oscar–nominated WW2 drama, in which Bogie portrays the first mate of a freighter travelling the…
Air Force (1943): Dir. Howard Hawks
Feat. John Garfield; Persuasive propaganda piece focusing on the crew of a B–17 bomber, quite thrilling in the hands of director Hawks.
Crash Dive (1943): Dir. Archie Mayo
Feat. Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews; A submarine lieutenant and his commander fall in love with the same girl in this thrilling propaganda piece that won the 1943 Oscar for best special…
Destination Tokyo (1943): Dir. Delmer Daves
Feat. Cary Grant; Suspenseful Cary Grant war melodrama set aboard a U.S sub encroaching Japanese waters.
Edge of Darkness (1943): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston…; Taut account of Resistance activities in Norway during WWII, has extra–good camerawork of Erroll Flynn, Ann Sheridan and Walter Huston in some…
Five Graves to Cairo (1943): Dir. Billy Wilder
Feat. Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Erich von Stroheim…; Rousing early outing for Billy Wilder; a nimble, well–executed piece of WWII propaganda exaggerating the exploits of a British corporal officer…
Flemish Farm, The (1943): Dir. Jeffrey Dell
Feat. Clive Brook, Clifford Evans, Jane Baxter; Low budget WW2 aviation drama focused on a regiment of Belgian pilots who use a Flemish farm as an airstrip with one of the injured men becoming…
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943): Dir. Sam Wood
Feat. Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman; Splendidly mounted Spanish civil–war drama, in which International Brigade–er Gary Cooper leads local guerillas, including Ingrid…
Guadalcanal Diary (1943): Dir. Lewis Seiler
Feat. Anthony Quinn, Lloyd Nolan, Preston Foster…; Filmed just after US victory in the Solomon Islands during WW2, this standard issue war–film is a reasonably solid account of a grueling…
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943): Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Feat. Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook; The numerous off–beat adventures of a British soldier are chronicled over a period of three wars, with Deborah Kerr playing all three of the…
Millions Like Us (1943): Dir. Sidney Gilliat
Feat. Patricia Roc, Gordon Jackson, Anne Crawford…; Honest dramatization of the British "home front" during the second World War focuses on a factory worker struggling to overcome her grief after the…
Sahara (1943): Dir. Zoltan Korda
Feat. Humphrey Bogart; Good WWII actioner, with Humphrey Bogart commanding a tank stuck behind enemy lines.
Silver Fleet, The (1943): Dir. Vernon Sewell
Feat. Ralph Richardson, Esmond Knight, Googie Withers…; A rousing WW2 maritime drama in which a Dutch shipping port owner decides to swindle the Nazis by agreeing to provide them with his submarines for…
We Dive at Dawn (1943): Dir. Anthony Asquith
Feat. John Mills, Eric Portman, Niall MacGinnis; Sturdy WWII actioner has a British sub sent out to sink a heavily–armed Nazi battleship with the help of three German sailors, but getting into…
Why We Fight (Prelude to War, Tunisian Victory, Know Your Enemy: Japan, War Comes to America, Battle of China, Battle of Britain, Divide and Conquer) (1943-1945): Dir. Frank Capra; Old boy Frank Capra directed seven raging propaganda films between ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE for the rhetorically–dubbed…
WWII - The John Huston Documents (Let There Be Light; The Battle of San Pietro) (1943-1947): Dir. John Huston; Two legendary war documentaries from John Huston (THE MALTESE FALCON) who participated in WWII as a combat filmmaker yet whose films are the…
Day Will Dawn, The (1942): Dir. Harold French
Feat. Hugh Williams, Griffith Jones, Deborah Kerr…; Propaganda fuelled WW2 drama about a foreign journalist reporting on German U–Boats attacking Norwegian ships who finds himself up against the…
Desperate Journey (1942): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan; Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan are stranded Allied pilots who flee the clutches of the Nazis in Boy's Own WW2 propaganda film.
First of the Few (Spitfire) (1942): Dir. Leslie Howard
Feat. Leslie Howard, David Niven, Rosamund John…; Rousing true life tale of aircraft designer R.J. Mitchell and his streamlined monoplane that led to the devolpment of the spitfire. Released with…
Goose Steps Out, The (1942): Dir. Basil Dearden, Will Hay
Feat. Will Hay, Frank Pettingell, Charles Hawtrey…; British war comedy with Hay as a bumbling teacher conveniently turns out to be the double of a German general. In the true spirit of wartime…
In Which We Serve (1942): Dir. David Lean
Feat. Sir Noel Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles…; WW2 drama contrasts the service lives of a destroyer crew with their memories of back home. Powerful film won an Oscar for writer, director and star…
Journey into Fear (1942): Dir. Norman Foster
Feat. Joseph Cotten, Dolores Del Rio, Orson Welles…; Hitchcockian suspenser set around an American engineer's adventures in WW2 Turkey. Loaded down with a maze–like plot (written by star Joseph…
Mrs. Miniver (1942): Dir. William Wyler
Feat. Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon; An unabashed patriotic war drama, so effective in that capacity it garnered political commendation as well as six Oscars, including Best Picture and…
One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942): Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Feat. Eric Portman, Bernard Miles, Hugh Williams; Brisk war–thriller about how a six man British aircrew must find their way back to England across the Occupied Netherlands. Raised above the…
Secret Mission (1942): Dir. Harold French
Feat. Michael Wilding, James Mason, Hugh Williams; Wartime propaganda piece focused around four Brit intelligence officers on a mission in France to gauge the force of the German defences while being…
Thunder Birds (Soldiers of the Air) (1942): Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, John Sutton…; Routine wartime love triangle with two fighter pilots falling for a radiant Gene Tierney, gorgeous Technicolor and ace aerial photography liven it up…
To Be or Not to Be (1942): Dir. Ernst Lubitsch
Feat. Jack Benny, Carole Lombard; Wonderful black comedy about a Polish theatre group who in the face of a German invasion, become involved in a covert operation that masquerades them…
Went the Day Well? (1942): Dir. Alberto Cavalcanti
Feat. Leslie Banks, Valerie Taylor, Marie Lohr; British pluck and courage is put to the test in this Graham Greene story, where a cosy English village is infiltrated during WWII by a truckload of…
49th Parallel (1941): Dir. Michael Powell
Feat. Laurence Olivier; A taut, effective actioner in which five German U–boat men become stranded off the Canadian coast and try to make it overland to the neutral…
Cottage to Let (1941): Dir. Anthony Asquith
Feat. Leslie Banks, Alastair Sim, John Mills…; Brit thriller focusing on an inventor in the business of bomb testing for the Air Ministry, whose supposedly innocent domestic staff is riddled with…
Dive Bomber (1941): Dir. Michael Curtiz
Feat. Errol Flynn; The life and duties of a navy doctor turned flight surgeon entering WW2 with a dashing Errol Flynn. Notable for top–flight aerial sequences.
Jean Grémillon: During the Occupation (Remorques, Lumière d'été, Le Ciel Est à Vous) (1941-1944): Dir. Jean Gremillon
Feat. Jean Gabin, Madeleine Renaud; Three character–driven dramas from the heralded French film director who has been little represented outside of his home country: Remorques…
Sergeant York (1941): Dir. Howard Hawks
Feat. Gary Cooper; A wartime classic about a real–life pacifist turned WW1 hero. Gary Cooper won an Oscar for his vivid portrayal.
They Died With Their Boots On (1941): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland; Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland lead a great cast for the life and times of General Custer. Part romantic comedy, part tragedy, done in grandest…
Fighting 69th, The (1940): Dir. William Keighley
Feat. James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, George Brent; James Cagney plays a loudmouthed braggart who alienates his comrades and officers, but the regimental chaplain (Pat O'Brien) has faith that he'll…
Forty Thousand Horsemen (40,000 Horsemen) (1940): Dir. Charles Chauvel
Feat. Chips Rafferty; This rollicking war romp depicts the deeds of the Australian Light Horse cavalry during WWI. Stars the archetypal Aussie bushman, Chips Rafferty.
Let George Do It! (1940): Dir. Marcel Varnel
Feat. George Formby, Phyllis Calvert, Garry Marsh; Ealing Studios comedy sees George Formby star as a ukulele player who unwittingly takes the wrong boat and finds himself mistaken for a British…
Mortal Storm, The (1940): Dir. Frank Borzage
Feat. Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young…; Drama set in Germany in 1933, following a group of people as they contend with the rise of the Nazi Party and the effect it has on their lives. James…
Four Feathers, The (1939): Dir. Zoltan Korda
Feat. John Clements, Ralph Richardson, Sir C. Aubrey Smith…; Best version of the much–filmed, classic A E W Mason story, where a British civilian (John Clements), accused of cowardice, must prove himself…
Spy In Black, The (U-Boat 29) (1939): Dir. Michael Powell
Feat. Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, June Duprez; The brilliant debut collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (COLONEL BLIMP, THE RED SHOES), twists an already exciting spy yarn…
War Years (1939-1945): An excellent representative selection of wartime footage shot by the National Film Unit during WW2. Originally distributed as newsreels, this…
Alexander Nevsky (1938): Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Nikolai Cherkassov, Nikolai Okhlopkov; Eisenstein's first sound film is a patriotic epic about the 13th century hero who led his people against the Teutonic Knights. Monumental battle…
Dawn Patrol, The (1938): Dir. Edmund Goulding
Feat. Errol Flynn, David Niven; Errol Flynn and David Niven play ace fighter–pilots in a tense action/drama set during WWI.
I Accuse (J'Accuse) (1938): Dir. Abel Gance
Feat. Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou; Dir. Gance’s own remake of his 1919 silent classic, in which a soldier traumatised by the slaughter of WWI attempts to prevent future…
Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion) (1937): Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim…; The heroics and hypocrasies of war are illustrated through an imprisoned French squadron in WW1 and their cultured German commandant. A hailed…
O.H.M.S (You're in the Army Now) (1937): Dir. Raoul Walsh
Feat. John Mills, Wallace Ford, Anna Lee…; Broad comedy with Ford as an American gangster who evades capture by joining the British army posing as a comedian.
Wee Willie Winkie (1937): Dir. John Ford
Feat. Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen; Charming adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's adventure story, with young Shirley negotiating between the British army and Afghani rebels.
Charge of the Light Brigade (1936): Dir. Michael Curtiz
Feat. Errol Flynn; Rousing action on the North–western frontier with Errol Flynn leading the climactic charge into certain death with fellow British cavalry men.
Crusades, The (1935): Dir. Cecil B. DeMille
Feat. Loretta Young, Henry Wilcoxon; Hollywood Heavyweight Cecil B. DeMille Directs this overblown spectacle that differs vastly from it's grisly historical origins.
Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The (1935): Dir. Henry Hathaway
Feat. Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell; Set in India during the British Raj, this rousing literary adaptation follows a British regiment struggling to retain it's stronghold in the…
All Quiet On the Western Front (1930): Dir. Lewis Milestone
Feat. Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray…; Landmark film looks at WW1 from the enemy's point of view. It remains brilliant and quite moving after all these years. Academy Award winner for Best…
Hell's Angels (1930): Dir. Howard Hughes
Feat. James Hall, Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon…; Still highly watchable, this early sound feature financed and 'directed' by the notorious Howard Hughes, boosts its melodramatic story of WWI heroics…
Napoleon (1927): Dir. Abel Gance
Feat. Albert Dieudonne; Renowned silent epic treats the life of the French general and emperor as a melodramatic spectacle of the highest order, with a…
Wings (1927): Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. Clara Bow, Charles Rogers, Gary Cooper; Renowned silent film represents the epic struggles of the allied airforces in WWI, with brilliant aerial sequences, battle recreations and several…
Great War, The: Nine million died over the four years of World War 1. This chronicles events with exclusive use of achival footage.

Main menu

Section navigation menu

Subgenre Sampler