Best World War II-Movies!
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- 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.
- StarsScott GrimesDamian LewisRon LivingstonThe story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord to V-J Day.
- StarsJames Badge DaleJoseph MazzelloJon SedaThe Pacific Theatre of World War II, as seen through the eyes of several young Marines.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsJim CaviezelSean PennNick NolteAdaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
- DirectorSamuel FullerStarsLee MarvinMark HamillRobert CarradineA hardened sergeant and the four core members of his infantry unit try to survive World War II as they move from battle to battle throughout Europe.
- 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.
- DirectorBernhard WickiStarsVolker BohnetFritz WepperMichael HinzIn 1945, Germany is being overrun, and nobody is left to fight but teenagers.
- 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.
- 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.
- DirectorDavid L. CunninghamStarsRobert CarlyleKiefer SutherlandCiarán McMenaminDuring World War II, four Allied POWs endure harsh treatment from their Japanese captors while being forced to build a railroad through the Burmese jungle.
- DirectorSam PeckinpahStarsJames CoburnMaximilian SchellJames MasonGerman commander Hauptmann Stransky places a squad in extreme danger after Sergeant Rolf Steiner refuses to lie for him.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsRichard BurtonRod SteigerHelmut GriemIn 1944 a German sergeant gets involved in an anti-Hitler conspiracy, and saves the life of an American colonel.
- DirectorGérard OuryStarsBourvilLouis de FunèsClaudio BrookSeveral ordinary Frenchmen go on an epic voyage through the occupied country to the free zone as they help British pilots avoid German captivity.
- 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.
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsRichard WidmarkJack PalanceReginald GardinerA company of Marines races against the clock to find a Japanese rocket base.
- DirectorPaul MayStarsJoachim FuchsbergerHelen VitaPaul BösigerShortly before the outbreak of World War II: Private Asch and gunner Vierbein belong to the same unit but could not be more contrary.
- DirectorGéza von RadványiStarsO.E. HasseEva BartokHannes MessemerAfter the battle of Stalingrad, battalions of German prisoners were taken to concentration camps. To the 5110/47 comes the military medical Fritz Böhler. He tries to improve the prisoners' conditions, sometimes risking his life.
- 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.
- 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.
- DirectorOliver HirschbiegelStarsBruno GanzAlexandra Maria LaraUlrich MatthesTraudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsHanna SchygullaGiancarlo GianniniMel FerrerIn 1938, a German singer falls in love with a Jewish composer in Zurich, who helps Jews flee Nazi Germany. She wants to help but is forced back to Germany. Her song "Lili Marleen" becomes a hit with soldiers and the Nazi top brass.
- DirectorVolker SchlöndorffStarsDavid BennentMario AdorfAngela WinklerIn 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsJohn BelushiDan AykroydTreat WilliamsHysterical Californians prepare for a Japanese invasion in the days after Pearl Harbor.
- 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.
- DirectorBryan SingerStarsTom CruiseBill NighyCarice van HoutenA dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.
- DirectorMichael BayStarsBen AffleckKate BeckinsaleJosh HartnettA tale of war and romance mixed in with history. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsTimothy BottomsNick TateGeorge TakeiA group of war prisoners from the Kwai bridge building camp undertake a harsh journey to Japan.
- DirectorClint EastwoodStarsKen WatanabeKazunari NinomiyaTsuyoshi IharaThe 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.
- DirectorClint EastwoodStarsRyan PhillippeBarry PepperJoseph CrossThe life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in World War II.
- DirectorJoseph VilsmaierStarsDana VávrováWerner StockerIvana ChýlkováFelix Zeiler doesn't return after the end of World War II. His wife - alone with 2 little children - meets Hans and they are slowly getting closer.
- DirectorMichael VerhoevenStarsLena StolzeMartin BenrathWulf KesslerDuring the Second World War, a small group of students at Munich University begin to question the decisions and sanity of Germany's Nazi government. The students form a resistance cell which they name the "White Rose" after a newsletter that is secretly distributed to the student body. At first small in numbers and fearful of discovery, the White Rose begins to gain massive support after a Nazi Gauleiter nearly incites a student riot after a provocative speech. At this point, the matter is taken over by the Gestapo, who pledge to hunt down and destroy the members of the White Rose.
- DirectorMarc RothemundStarsJulia JentschFabian HinrichsAlexander HeldA dramatization of the final days of Sophie Scholl, one of the most famous members of the German World War II anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose.
- DirectorGerhard LamprechtStarsCharles BrauerHarry HindemithHedda SarnowAfter WWII, Berlin lies in ruins. For Gustav, Willi and their friends the rubble provides an adventurous, dangerous playground. Especially for Gustav, it helps pass the time, as he longs for his father's return from a POW camp. One day a stranger arrives, looking helpless and hopeless... Gerhard Lamprecht built his reputation during the 1920s and '30s with films like Emil and the Detectives (1931, script Billy Wilder) and socially-critical Berlin films based on the drawings of Heinrich Zille. In Somewhere in Berlin-his first postwar film, made just months after the cessation of hostilities-he portrays the people of the shattered city with precision and psychological realism.
- DirectorJo BaierStarsAaron AltarasNadja UhlHannelore ElsnerBased on the childhood memories of actor Michael Degen, the movie deals with the everyday struggle to survive as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As his father had died in 1940 after being released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Michael and his mother fear to be deported themselves. They manage to live in Berlin with false names and faked papers, hidden by several, often broken, people...
- DirectorAchim von BorriesStarsPavel WenzelAleksey GuskovIvan ShvedoffA group of Russian soldiers are sent into Northern Germany at the tail-end of WWII, where they occupy a children's home in close proximity to a larger German unit. Against these odds, a friendship forms between a German orphan and a childless Soviet captain.
- DirectorKai WesselStarsMaria FurtwänglerJean-Yves BertelootTonio ArangoIn 1944 many Germans in Eastern Prussia, like Lena von Mahlenberg, daughter of a local aristocrat, believed that Hitler would surrender and spare them from being invaded by the vengeful Russian Red Army. He didn't and they had to flee.
- DirectorJoseph VilsmaierStarsKai WiesingerValerie NiehausHeiner LauterbachGerman film loosely based on the sinking, by a Soviet submarine, of a Nazi troop-transport ship in the Baltic Sea on January 30th 1945.
- DirectorHardy MartinsStarsBernhard BettermannIris BöhmAnatoliy KotenyovA German Army officer is captured by the Soviets in World War II and sent to a labor camp in Eastern Siberia. After five years of enormous hardship he escapes, commencing an incredible, arduous, danger-filled journey.
- DirectorStanley KramerStarsSpencer TracyBurt LancasterRichard WidmarkIn 1948, an American court in occupied Germany tries four Nazis judged for war crimes.
- DirectorJonathan MostowStarsMatthew McConaugheyBill PaxtonHarvey KeitelA German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners trying to capture their Enigma cipher machine.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsWilliam HoldenDon TaylorOtto PremingerAfter two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.
- DirectorJohn SturgesStarsSteve McQueenJames GarnerRichard AttenboroughAllied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
- DirectorJud TaylorPaul WendkosStarsChristopher ReeveJudd HirschTony DenisonAllied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.
- CreatorBernard FeinAlbert S. RuddyStarsBob CraneWerner KlempererJohn BannerThe inmates of a German World War II prisoner of war camp conduct an espionage and sabotage campaign right under the noses of their warders.
- DirectorGregory HoblitStarsBruce WillisColin FarrellTerrence HowardA law student becomes a lieutenant during World War II, is captured and asked to defend a black prisoner of war falsely accused of murder.
- StarsRichard KnotekTomás VacekSidon SirovýIn the last years of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of students were evacuated from the big cities.
- DirectorFranz AntelStarsKarl MerkatzAlfred BöhmHans HoltA politically naïve Viennese butcher (Bockerer) manages to survive the unification of Germany and Austria and the Second World War.
- DirectorThorsten NäterStarsYvonne CatterfeldRosemarie FendelStephan Luca"Germany, 1945: The 25-year-old Ellen is active in the resistance movement against the Nazis. When she meets Robert, a charismatic English secret agent, the two begin to have an affair. "Ellen is ordered to spy on the German naval officer Hans. He is scheduled to serve as Chief Officer aboard the submarine U 864, which has been given a secret mission. Against her will, Ellen falls for Hans. Although he is engaged to another woman, Hans is strongly attracted to her as well. "Eventually, Ellen succeeds in delivering critical information the submarines precise route to Japan. The English had suspected that Hitler planned to deliver his ominous wonder weapon to the weakened Japanese. The U 864 leaves its port. Because the war has been going badly for the Germans, the mood onboard is grim. "Meanwhile, Ellen learns from Hans that he has broken off his engagement and wants to marry her as soon as he returns from Japan. Ellens excitement rapidly turns to panic when she finds out the English have changed their plan instead of capturing the sub, they now want to sink it. What has she done?" From: Red Arrow International GmbH www.redarrowinternational.tv/fiction/events_unlimited/adventure/fateful_love.php
- DirectorJean-Jacques AnnaudStarsJude LawEd HarrisJoseph FiennesA Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad.
- DirectorMel BrooksStarsZero MostelGene WilderDick ShawnA stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.
- DirectorDani LevyStarsHelge SchneiderUlrich MüheSylvester GrothThis action comedy is set in 1944. Hitler appears in it as a physically and mentally destroyed person who takes the advice of Goebbels and goes to a Jewish concentration camp to receive lessons in eloquence to inspire the German people to continue to fight.
- DirectorKlaus Maria BrandauerStarsKlaus Maria BrandauerRebecca MillerBrian DennehyA true story about Johann Georg Elser, a quiet carpenter who tried to assassinate Hitler with an explosive device in 1939.
- DirectorJohn GuillerminStarsGeorge SegalRobert VaughnBen GazzaraAs the Allied armies close in, the Germans decide to blow up the last Rhine bridge, trapping their own men on the wrong side. But will it happen?
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsChristian BaleJohn MalkovichMiranda RichardsonA young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
- 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.
- DirectorHelmut KäutnerStarsCurd JürgensViktor de KowaKarl JohnDuring WW2, German general Harry Harras is a test pilot and chief engineer for the Luftwaffe but his contempt for the Nazis and sabotage at the aircraft plant land him in hot water with the Gestapo.
- DirectorEnzo G. CastellariStarsBo SvensonPeter HootenFred WilliamsonIn 1944 France, a group of escaped American military prisoners en route to Switzerland volunteers to steal a German V2 rocket warhead for the Allies.
- DirectorWolfgang PanzerStarsFrançois GoeskeFranka PotenteLars SteinhöfelIn this TV remake of the classic German war film, 16-year-old Walter and his friends are recruited to help defend a bridge near their town. What begins as a minor op becomes a life or death battle in which the idealistic young men confronted by the brutal reality of war.
- DirectorGeorge StevensStarsMillie PerkinsShelley WintersJoseph SchildkrautDuring World War II, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank and her family are forced into hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsSean ConneryHarry AndrewsIan BannenIn a North African military prison during World War II, five new prisoners struggle to survive in the face of brutal punishment and sadistic guards.
- 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.
- DirectorSven Unterwaldt Jr.StarsAtze SchröderOliver WnukYvonne CatterfeldIn 1944, Atze Schröder pretends to be the legendary Lieutenant Commander Roenberg when the Germans send their last available submarine, the U-900, on a secret mission from Toulon to Warnemuende.
- 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.
- DirectorGuy HamiltonStarsHarrison FordRobert ShawEdward FoxDuring World War II, several oddly assorted military experts are teamed in a mission to raid and destroy a bridge vital to enemy strategy.
- DirectorPeter HyamsStarsHarrison FordLesley-Anne DownChristopher PlummerMargaret is a nurse in England during WW2, and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls for David, an American pilot.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsLee MarvinErnest BorgnineKen WahlDuring WW2, American General Worden orders Major Reisman to pick 12 soldiers from the military prison for the dangerous mission of killing a Nazi General.
- DirectorLee H. KatzinStarsTelly SavalasErnest BorgnineVince EdwardsDuring WW2, American General Worden orders Major Wright to pick 12 condemned soldiers from the brig and parachute into occupied France where they must destroy a Nazi nerve gas facility and extricate the foreign scientists working there.
- DirectorLee H. KatzinStarsTelly SavalasErnest BorgnineHunt BlockA team of renegade soldiers in World War II tries to stop the creation of the Fourth Reich in the Middle East.
- DirectorJoseph VilsmaierStarsDana VávrováWerner StockerClaude-Oliver RudolphThis cinematic adaptation of the autobiography of Anna Wimschneider depicts her life's experiences and workaday routines as a woman born on a farm in lower Bavaria, Germany in the 1920s. Anna's mother died young in childbirth and Anna had to take her place and work very hard. At a Nazi rally she meets young Albert, who owns a farm. They realize that they both don't believe in fascism and go to a coffee bar where he starts wooing her. Against her prior decision to leave farm life as soon as possible, she agrees to marry him, hoping that her life will become easier on Albert's farm.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsSolomon PerelMarco HofschneiderRené HofschneiderA boy in Nazi Germany, trying to conceal that he is Jewish, joins the Hitler Youth.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsGeorge C. ScottKarl MaldenStephen YoungThe World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
- DirectorJo BaierStarsSebastian KochUlrich TukurHardy Krüger Jr.In 1944, in fear of a complete German defeat in the World War II, a group of high command officers plot an attempt against Hitler, and one of the leaders of the conspiracy, Stauffenberg (Sebastian Koch), goes to a meeting with the Fuhrer in charge of exploding the place. However, Hitler survives and the officers are executed. This unsuccessful operation was called "Valkyrie Operation", and this realistic movie discloses this true event.
- DirectorLawrence SchillerStarsBrad DavisMadolyn Smith OsborneIan RichardsonGerman Army colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg plans to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler on July 20th, 1944 with a briefcase bomb, while other high-ranking plotters in Berlin are preparing to take power in a coup.
- DirectorAlfred WeidenmannStarsO.E. HasseBarbara RüttingAdrian HovenBrief biopic of Wilhelm Canaris, army intelligence (Abwehr) chief of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1944.
- DirectorOliver HalmburgerStarsChristopher HatfieldOtto Philipp Graf von StauffenbergEwald von KleistDocumentary, also known as "Mission to Murder Hitler", chronicling Valkyrie, the true story of a German Resistance group attempting to murder Adolf Hitler.
- DirectorFalk HarnackStarsWolfgang PreissAnnemarie DüringerRobert FreitagA disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.
- DirectorAnatole LitvakStarsPeter O'TooleOmar SharifTom CourtenayIn 1942, a Polish prostitute and German Agent is murdered in Warsaw. Suspicion falls on three Generals, and Major Grau of German Intelligence seeks justice which ends up taking decades.
- StarsJoseph BottomsTovah FeldshuhRosemary HarrisThe saga of a Jewish family's struggle to survive the horror of Nazi Germany's systematic marginalization and extermination of their community.
- StarsRobert MitchumJane SeymourHart BochnerThe trials of the Henry and the Jastrow families amidst the events after the U.S.'s entry into World War II.
- DirectorJoan Micklin SilverStarsArmin Mueller-StahlCharles DanceElina LöwensohnA Rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland in 1942 fights to maintain his stance of peace and acceptance of his fellow man despite the growing turmoil and atrocities created by the Germans. Meanwhile his son becomes more militaristic with each new offense and a young German soldier offended by the actions he sees decides to help the rabbi's daughter escape from the Ghetto after she is raped by an officer.
- DirectorBlake EdwardsStarsJames CoburnDick ShawnSergio FantoniIn World War II, a strategic Italian village agrees to surrender to the Allies only if it's allowed to organize a celebratory festival while giving aerial reconnaissance the false impression of fierce ground fighting.
- DirectorBrian G. HuttonStarsClint EastwoodTelly SavalasDon RicklesA group of U.S. soldiers sneaks across enemy lines in WWII France to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure.
- DirectorPaul MayStarsO.E. HasseRolf KutscheraEmmerich SchrenkWinter 1942: Like thousands of other German soldiers, Asch and Vierbein have ended up at the Eastern front.
- DirectorPaul MayStarsO.E. HasseHannes SchielGustav KnuthIn the spring of 1945, the German troops are practically defeated, and the battalion of Kowalski, major general von Plönnies and Asch is left to its own devices to a large extent.
- DirectorBrian G. HuttonStarsRichard BurtonClint EastwoodMary UreAllied 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.
- DirectorJohn SturgesStarsMichael CaineDonald SutherlandRobert DuvallA German plot to kidnap Sir Winston Churchill unfolds at the height of World War II.
- DirectorRoberto BenigniStarsRoberto BenigniNicoletta BraschiGiorgio CantariniWhen 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.
- DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsAdrien BrodyThomas KretschmannFrank FinlayDuring WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.
- DirectorAlan JohnsonStarsMel BrooksAnne BancroftRonny GrahamAt the onset of WW2, a Polish actor's family and the Polish Resistance help the troupe of a theatre escape Poland and the invading Nazis.
- DirectorUwe BollStarsNatassia MaltheBrendan FletcherMichael ParéRayne joins a resistence group to fight against the Nazis during World War II.
- 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.
- DirectorEdward DmytrykStarsMarlon BrandoMontgomery CliftDean MartinThe lives of three young men, a German and two Americans, during WWII.
- DirectorHenry HathawayStarsJames MasonCedric HardwickeJessica TandyThe story of the final years of the respected World War II German general, Erwin Rommel.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsGregory PeckRoger MooreDavid NivenDuring World War II, British Intelligence brings a crew of ex-soldiers out of retirement, using their age as cover, to take to the seas and pull off an unlikely undercover mission in neutral Goa.
- DirectorPaul VerhoevenStarsCarice van HoutenSebastian KochThom HoffmanIn the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance.
- DirectorLeander HaußmannStarsMichael HerbigJürgen VogelThekla ReutenIn 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that Zeisig is a man named Hansen, Hitler's personal astrologer. But Zeisig quickly realizes that he's gone from the frying pan into the fire. In the Hotel Lux he meets his friends Frida and later Meyer again, still passionate communists. For the three idealists an adventure between love and death begins to run its course.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDerek LukeMichael EalyLaz AlonsoSet in 1944 Italy, the story of four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII.
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsDougray ScottKate WinsletSaffron BurrowsA young genius frantically races against time to crack an enemy code and solve the mystery surrounding the woman he loves.