WWII Watchlist (fiction)
by magnum98 | created - 03 Jul 2018 | updated - 20 Mar 2019 | PublicWorld War 2 films I must watch in preparation for "Honour and Purity".
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1. The Great Dictator (1940)
G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Votes: 237,411 | Gross: $0.29M
2. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
PG-13 | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
When an open-minded Jewish waiter and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.
Director: Roberto Benigni | Stars: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Giustino Durano
Votes: 743,413 | Gross: $57.60M
3. Das Boot (1981)
R | 149 min | Drama, War
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
Votes: 264,402 | Gross: $11.49M
4. Allied (2016)
R | 124 min | Action, Drama, Romance
In 1942, a Canadian intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris, Vincent Ebrahim
Votes: 169,793 | Gross: $40.10M
5. Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
R | 135 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in World War II.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Barry Pepper, Joseph Cross, Jesse Bradford
Votes: 129,271 | Gross: $33.60M
6. Patton (1970)
GP | 172 min | Biography, Drama, War
The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong
Votes: 107,976 | Gross: $61.70M
7. Enemy at the Gates (2001)
R | 131 min | Action, Drama, War
A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud | Stars: Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz
Votes: 277,675 | Gross: $51.40M
8. April 9th (2015)
93 min | Drama, History, War
On April 9, 1940 Germany invaded Denmark. Based on real events - in Southern Jutland a military unit on bicycles was sent south to help hold back the Germans until reinforcement.
Director: Roni Ezra | Stars: Pilou Asbæk, Lars Mikkelsen, Ari Alexander, Joachim Fjelstrup
Votes: 6,474
9. Empire of the Sun (1987)
PG | 153 min | Drama, War
A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers
Votes: 134,342 | Gross: $22.24M
10. Hamsun (1996)
Not Rated | 159 min | Biography, Drama, War
Norwegian Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun's controversial support for the Nazi regime during World War II and its consequences for the Hamsun family after the war.
Director: Jan Troell | Stars: Max von Sydow, Ghita Nørby, Anette Hoff, Gard B. Eidsvold
Votes: 1,715
11. Lída Baarová (2016)
TV-14 | 106 min | Biography, Drama, History
A biographical film about the black-and-white era Czech actress Lída Baarová and her doomed love affair with one of the Third Reich's most powerful men: the Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.
Director: Filip Renc | Stars: Tatiana Pauhofová, Karl Markovics, Gedeon Burkhard, Simona Stasová
Votes: 2,482
12. Black Book (2006)
R | 145 min | Drama, Thriller, War
In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance.
Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn
Votes: 80,518 | Gross: $4.40M
13. The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Approved | 180 min | Biography, Drama, Family
During World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters, Joseph Schildkraut, Richard Beymer
Votes: 13,692 | Gross: $5.01M
14. Stalingrad (2013)
R | 131 min | Action, Drama, War
A group of Russian soldiers fight to hold a strategic building in their devastated city against a ruthless German army, and in the process become deeply connected to two Russian women who have been living there.
Director: Fedor Bondarchuk | Stars: Mariya Smolnikova, Yanina Studilina, Pyotr Fyodorov, Thomas Kretschmann
Votes: 17,718 | Gross: $1.01M
15. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Approved | 170 min | Drama, Romance, War
Three World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March, Teresa Wright
Votes: 70,564 | Gross: $23.65M
16. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
R | 141 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryô Kase
Votes: 170,076 | Gross: $13.76M
17. The Heroes of Telemark (1965)
Approved | 131 min | Action, Drama, History
Norwegian resistance tries to stop German efforts to produce an atomic bomb component during World War II.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson, Michael Redgrave
Votes: 8,067
18. Where Eagles Dare (1968)
M | 158 min | Action, Adventure, War
Allied agents stage a daring raid on a castle where the Nazis are holding American brigadier general George Carnaby prisoner, but that's not all that's really going on.
Director: Brian G. Hutton | Stars: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark
Votes: 62,932
19. Kampen om tungtvannet (1948)
Not Rated | 107 min | Action, Drama, War
A factual reconstruction of the sabotage which took place to prevent Germany from getting the heavy water needed to make an atomic bomb during World War II.
Directors: Jean Dréville, Titus Vibe-Müller | Stars: Raoul Dautry, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Lew Kowarski, H.H. Halban
Votes: 628
20. USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)
R | 128 min | Action, Drama, History
During World War II, an American navy ship is sunk by a Japanese submarine leaving 890 crewmen stranded in shark infested waters.
Director: Mario Van Peebles | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, Matt Lanter
Votes: 14,335
21. My Honor Was Loyalty (2016)
PG-13 | 95 min | Drama, War
Untersharführer Ludwig Herckel (Leone Frisa), is a devoted and patriotic soldier of the elite 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. As the action begins, we follow a small ... See full summary »
Directors: Leone Frisa, Alessandro Pepe | Stars: Leone Frisa, Francesco Migliore, Paolo Vaccarino, Albrecht Weimer
Votes: 1,219
22. Naked Among Wolves (2015 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, History, War
As WWII comes to an end, a group of Buchenwald's emaciated prisoners risk their lives for the safety of the camp's youngest inmate: a four-year-old Auschwitz-born Jewish prisoner. Is there a future for the Buchenwald boy?
Director: Philipp Kadelbach | Stars: Florian Stetter, Peter Schneider, Sylvester Groth, Sabin Tambrea
Votes: 4,186
23. Atonement (2007)
R | 123 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Director: Joe Wright | Stars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Brenda Blethyn, Saoirse Ronan
Votes: 299,912 | Gross: $50.93M
24. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Not Rated | 121 min | Drama, War
In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo | Stars: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash
Votes: 65,681 | Gross: $0.06M
25. The Counterfeiters (2007)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, History
The story of the Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history, carried out by Germany during World War II.
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky | Stars: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Martin Brambach
Votes: 47,179 | Gross: $5.48M
26. The Thin Red Line (1998)
R | 170 min | Drama, History, War
Adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo
Votes: 199,643 | Gross: $36.40M
27. The 12th Man (2017)
Unrated | 135 min | Drama, History, Thriller
They were 12 saboteurs. The Nazis killed 11 of them. This is the true story of the one that got away.
Director: Harald Zwart | Stars: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen
Votes: 29,221
28. The Unknown Soldier (2017)
132 min | Drama, War
A film adaptation of Väinö Linna's best selling novel The Unknown Soldier (1954) and the novel's unedited manuscript version, Sotaromaani.
Director: Aku Louhimies | Stars: Eero Aho, Johannes Holopainen, Jussi Vatanen, Aku Hirviniemi
Votes: 12,914
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