My Favourite 20th Century war Films
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- DirectorJ. Lee ThompsonStarsJohn MillsAnthony QuayleSylvia SymsDuring World War II in North Africa, a medical field unit must cross the desert in their ambulance in order to reach the British lines in Alexandria.
- DirectorKen AnnakinAndrew MartonGerd OswaldStarsJohn WayneRobert RyanRichard BurtonThe events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
- DirectorRobert AldrichStarsLee MarvinErnest BorgnineCharles BronsonDuring World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsWilliam HoldenAlec GuinnessJack HawkinsBritish POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsJim CaviezelSean PennNick NolteAdaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsCharlie SheenTom BerengerWillem DafoeChris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
- DirectorRobert AldrichStarsJack PalanceLee MarvinEddie AlbertIn 1944, an American Infantry company sets up an artillery observation post, but tensions between Captain Cooney and Lieutenant Costa run high.
- DirectorJ. Lee ThompsonStarsDavid NivenGregory PeckAnthony QuinnA team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
- DirectorChristian CarionStarsDiane KrugerBenno FürmannGuillaume CanetIn December 1914, an unofficial Christmas truce on the Western Front allows soldiers from opposing sides of the First World War to gain insight into each other's way of life.
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsLew AyresLouis WolheimJohn WrayA German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
- DirectorFred ZinnemannStarsBurt LancasterMontgomery CliftDeborah KerrAt a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his commanding officer's wife and top aide begin a tentative affair.
- DirectorGuy HamiltonStarsMichael CaineTrevor HowardHarry AndrewsIn 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to a possible Axis invasion of the U.K.
- DirectorJoseph VilsmaierStarsDominique HorwitzThomas KretschmannJochen NickelThe story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.
- StarsAndrew BuchanKen DukenLindsay DuncanDramatisation of the true story of the sinking of the liner Laconia by a German U-boat in 1942 through the eyes of six survivors.
- DirectorKeith GordonStarsPeter BergKevin DillonArye GrossThe Ardennes Forest, December 1944. A squad of six US infantrymen is sent to occupy a house to use as an observation post as the German Army is expected to advance through that area. However, the Germans seem oddly friendly.
- DirectorKen AnnakinStarsHenry FondaRobert ShawRobert RyanA dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II.
- DirectorMichael AndersonStarsRichard ToddMichael RedgraveUrsula JeansDrama based on the attempt by the RAF to destroy six dams in Germany during World War II.
- DirectorWolfgang PetersenStarsJürgen ProchnowHerbert GrönemeyerKlaus WennemannA 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.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsPeter O'TooleAlec GuinnessAnthony QuinnThe story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
- DirectorQuentin TarantinoStarsBrad PittDiane KrugerEli RothIn Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner's vengeful plans for the same.
- DirectorSydney PollackStarsBurt LancasterPatrick O'NealJean-Pierre AumontDuring the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his remote 10th Century castle hoping a battle there against the advancing Germans will not lead to its destruction and all the heritage within.
- DirectorRichard AttenboroughStarsSean ConneryRyan O'NealMichael CaineOperation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.
- DirectorRichard FleischerKinji FukasakuToshio MasudaStarsMartin BalsamSô YamamuraJason RobardsThe story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsJohn GregsonAnthony QuaylePeter FinchIn the first major naval battle of World War II, the British Navy must find and destroy a powerful German warship.