It feels like a pretty sure thing to state that of all the wars in history, the one that’s had the most movies made about it is World War II. It’s formally recognized as having been fought between 1939 and 1945, but there were conflicts that began before 1939 that either bled into – or are associated with – what most understand as World War II. It was a huge conflict. Things got complicated.
And World War II movies are also complicated. Some aren’t great, while others get most things right, but might fall short in some areas. All that’s to say that genuinely perfect World War II movies are rare, but if you want a rundown of a few that pretty much achieve that level quality-wise, it’s well worth checking out the following.
10
‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ (2006)
Letters from Iwo Jima was one part of a duology, alongside Flags of Our Fathers. Clint Eastwood directed both of them, and the two films focus on the same event: the Battle of Iwo Jima. Only Letters from Iwo Jima shows the Japanese defense of the island, and the eventual loss of the battle from their perspective, while Flags of Our Fathers depicts an American victory, yet further problems arising later for some of those soldiers who survived – and were haunted by – what happened.
The one that’s essential here is Letters from Iwo Jima, though there is even more to be gained from it if you watch Flags of Our Fathers, too. That other one isn’t perfect, but it is interesting, whereas Letters from Iwo Jima is genuinely hard to fault as an anti-war movie, and one that does a remarkable job of showing things from a perspective many English-speaking viewers of war films may not be so familiar with.
9
‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ (1957)
David Lean made some of the most ambitious movies of the 20th century, with The Bridge on the River Kwai being one of them. This World War II film focuses on prisoners of war and some surprising things that happen when they’re told to build a bridge for their enemy captors. Well, the really interesting things happen when other Allied forces try to destroy the bridge, but then there’s conflict, because the captives have taken pride in what they’ve done.
That all might sound convoluted, but The Bridge on the River Kwai lays it all out very effectively, utilizing its lengthy runtime well. It also never feels boring, and it manages to keep things very intense for a movie of its age. As an epic, it’s all-around impressive, and as a World War II movie made when the war itself was still fairly fresh in people’s memories, it’s one of the very best.
8
‘The Longest Day’ (1962)
It’s called The Longest Day, and it is one of the longest of the mainstream World War II movies, too. The Longest Day wants to be comprehensive in its depiction of the Normandy landings, which occurred in 1944 and marked a turning point in the overall Second World War. The event involved a few different groups, and so The Longest Day tries to be comprehensive by showcasing the day in question from a few different viewpoints.
In a lesser film, it would feel gimmicky, but the execution makes it work, and it’s also quite realistic and grounded for a war film of its time. The structure or broad approach feels like it might’ve influenced the more recent Dunkirk, too, though that one was more of a thriller, had even less by way of characterization and dialogue, and also played around with time quite a bit, whereas The Longest Day keeps things largely linear.
7
‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998)
It would feel a little strange to call Saving Private Ryan action-packed or exciting, since so much of the combat is intended to be horrific, and indeed succeeds at being horrific. It is fast-paced, though, or at least well-paced, and that might sound a bit like calling it action-packed or exciting, but that’s not the intent. It’s cleanly and efficiently written, and then Steven Spielberg (a clear pro at the whole directing thing well before 1998) also seemed in total control here.
It’s a movie about a guy named Private Ryan who needs saving, but then also a lot more than that, with it depicting the Normandy landings, like The Longest Day. It doesn’t spend as much time on them, but the opening scenes focused on that side of things are visceral and intense, even for a war film. It puts its most affecting scene forth quite early, but then the rest of Saving Private Ryan is also gripping, and eventually/inevitably emotional, too.
6
‘Das Boot’ (1981)
If you ever find yourself feeling too claustrophobic while watching movies with particularly confined settings, then you might want to stay away from Das Boot. It’s a German World War II movie about people living and trying to survive on a submarine, which is shown to be often boring, usually unnerving, and occasionally outright terrifying, once an enemy sub is eventually encountered.
Das Boot can make for a massively anxious viewing experience, to say the least, but it’s all in service of cinematically depicting a certain kind of warfare that was fought during World War II.
Since the characters in Das Boot get jerked around between all these states of being, so too are the viewers. It can make for a massively anxious viewing experience, to say the least, but it’s all in service of cinematically depicting a certain kind of warfare that was fought during World War II. It’s hard to know exactly how realistic it all is, unless you’ve been in a similar situation, but what can be said by a non-combatant is that Das Boot sure as hell feels realistic.
5
‘The Thin Red Line’ (1998)
It can be tempting to compare The Thin Red Line with the aforementioned Saving Private Ryan, given that they came out in 1998, they’re both quite long, and they’re also both ambitious. The Thin Red Line is a very different kind of World War II film, though, and not just because the fighting here takes place in the Pacific Theater, rather than the European theater of World War II.
And then, with The Thin Red Line, there isn’t really any goal beyond survival, or maybe, more abstractly, the internal journey on the part of a few characters to try and reckon with the idea of war itself, and what they’re doing caught up in it. It’s like a more arthouse war movie, but it handles these lofty and sometimes more abstract ideas without ever feeling too pretentious, and it’s not a difficult movie to feel deeply, either.
4
‘Schindler’s List’ (1993)
Another Spielberg film set during World War II, Schindler’s List is perhaps less of a war film than Saving Private Ryan, but the war is an important part of the story being told here. It’s focused on the Holocaust, which was carried out during the Second World War, with the central character being an industrialist named Oskar Schindler, with the narrative being about him using his fortune to save as many lives as he can from concentration/death camps.
There is some hope here, and a desire to celebrate what Schindler did, but Spielberg doesn’t shy away from the horrors of the Holocaust in the way that, arguably, Roberto Benigni did in the sometimes moving but often tonally chaotic Life Is Beautiful. Not everyone likes the balance struck by Schindler’s List, but it does feel ultimately respectful and sobering when it needs to be, and it’s easy to see it as a necessary document (or re-enactment) of one of the most shocking occurrences of the 20th century.
3
‘Come and See’ (1985)
With Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, you get moments of absolute horror contrasted with acts of heroism and sacrifice, but then in Come and See, you really just get horror. There are ways those other movies showcase World War II’s horrors, yet some balance thanks to heroic characters or good things achieved among terrible events. But then Come and See shows you can make a World War II movie about just horror.
Some might argue it’s proper or better to only focus on the bad, and that a true anti-war movie can only really be anti-war if literally none of the scenes can be interpreted in any way approaching some kind of positive emotion. Here, there’s a young boy who wants to fight, then he suffers tragedy after tragedy, and then getting close to the action destroys him completely on the inside, so that he’s a barely walking (and seemingly drastically aged) shell of a person by the end of it. You’ve probably heard a good deal about how unrelentingly harrowing Come and See is, and it does indeed live up to that reputation it has.
2
‘The Great Escape’ (1963)
Like The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Great Escape is also about soldiers experiencing life as prisoners of war, but the difference here is that such soldiers are infamous for their escape attempts. So they’re rounded up and put inside a rather small prison that’s supposed to be inescapable, but then the bunch of them rise to the challenge and indeed try to plan and execute an escape of the great variety.
It’s not without its heavy or more realistic moments (it was based on a true story, after all, so it couldn’t be completely Hollywood), but there is more excitement and entertainment value to be found in The Great Escape compared to, say, Das Boot and Come and See. It’s also an epic of sorts, clocking in at nearly three hours all up, but it’s that wonderful sort of long movie where you really don’t feel the runtime in any sort of detrimental way.
1
‘Casablanca’ (1942)
Well, if you want to get technical, Casablanca isn’t a full-on war movie, though it does have to score some points on account of it actually being made and released while World War II was still being fought. It involves a pair of lovers who are separated, and then reconnect once the war has intensified, but they’re in a situation where, to put it mildly, massive consequences would ensue if they got together again.
That all sounds melodramatic, but Casablanca has one of the best and most timeless screenplays ever, so it balances drama, romance, war-related stuff, and a surprising amount of comedy, all at once. It’s such an efficiently assembled and paced movie, and one that really hasn’t had any of its best qualities feel diminished, in any way, in the now 80+ years since its release.
