Subgenre Sampler

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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.…
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…
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.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
Soldier of Orange (1977): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbe, Derek De Lint…; Dutch WWII film by Paul Verhoeven, following several young students during the German occupation of the Netherlands, and the different paths each of…
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…
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…
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…
Third Part of the Night (Trzecia czesc nocy) (1971): Dir. Andrzej Zulawski; A World War II film told as a feverish abstract nightmare. Set in Nazi–occupied Poland, the story follows a young man who joins the resistance…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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.…
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…
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…
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…

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