My favorite WWII Movies
by greenfpk | created - 22 Jun 2011 | updated - 23 Aug 2015 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 605,346 | Gross: $1.02M
2. 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: 62,842
3. Charlotte Gray (2001)
PG-13 | 121 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
A young Scottish woman joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.
Director: Gillian Armstrong | Stars: Cate Blanchett, James Fleet, Abigail Cruttenden, Charlotte McDougall
Votes: 13,175 | Gross: $0.67M
4. Secret Army (1977–1979)
50 min | Drama, History, War
During World War II, a Belgian resistance movement called Lifeline, based in Brussels, organises the return of Allied airmen who have been shot down by the Luftwaffe to the United Kingdom.
Stars: Bernard Hepton, Angela Richards, Clifford Rose, Juliet Hammond
Votes: 1,616
5. The Sound of Music (1965)
G | 172 min | Biography, Drama, Family
A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn
Votes: 260,440 | Gross: $163.21M
6. Island at War (2004)
396 min | Drama, War
During the Second World War, a quiet channel island community is thrown into turmoil by the invasion forces of Nazi Germany.
Stars: Saskia Reeves, Owen Teale, Julia Ford, Clare Holman
Votes: 1,916
7. The Great Escape (1963)
Approved | 172 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson
Votes: 258,569 | Gross: $12.10M
8. The Guns of Navarone (1961)
Not Rated | 158 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A 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.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: David Niven, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle
Votes: 55,323 | Gross: $28.90M
9. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
PG | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
British 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.
Director: David Lean | Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,056 | Gross: $44.91M
10. Suite Française (2014)
107 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
During the early years of German occupation of France in World War II, romance blooms between Lucile Angellier (Michelle Williams), a French villager, and Lieutenant Bruno von Falk (Matthias Schoenaerts), a German soldier.
Director: Saul Dibb | Stars: Michelle Williams, Kristin Scott Thomas, Margot Robbie, Eric Godon
Votes: 28,504
11. Tea with Mussolini (1999)
PG | 117 min | Comedy, Drama, War
An orphaned Italian boy is raised amongst a circle of British and American women living in Mussolini's Italy before and during World War II.
Director: Franco Zeffirelli | Stars: Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher
Votes: 14,176 | Gross: $14.35M
12. From Here to Eternity (1953)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance, War
At 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.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed
Votes: 50,768 | Gross: $30.50M
13. The Pianist (2002)
R | 150 min | Biography, Drama, Music
During 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.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Emilia Fox
Votes: 910,276 | Gross: $32.57M
14. Schindler's List (1993)
R | 195 min | Biography, Drama, History
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall
Votes: 1,448,469 | Gross: $96.90M
15. 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: 80,448 | Gross: $4.40M
16. The Killing Fields (1984)
R | 141 min | Biography, Drama, History
A journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody 'Year Zero' cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million 'undesirable' civilians.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands
Votes: 59,027 | Gross: $34.70M
17. The English Patient (1996)
R | 162 min | Drama, Romance, War
At the close of World War II, a young nurse tends to a badly burned plane crash victim. His past is shown in flashbacks, revealing an involvement in a fateful love affair.
Director: Anthony Minghella | Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas
Votes: 200,380 | Gross: $78.65M
18. 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: 277,348 | Gross: $51.40M
19. Bon Voyage (2003)
PG-13 | 114 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
An actress, a writer, a student, and a government worker band together in an effort to escape Paris as the Germans move into the city.
Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau | Stars: Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Grégori Derangère
Votes: 5,037 | Gross: $2.35M
20. 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: 742,215 | Gross: $57.60M
21. The Good German (2006)
R | 105 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
While in post-war Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference, an American military journalist is drawn into a murder investigation that involves his former mistress and his driver.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges
Votes: 26,073 | Gross: $1.31M
22. Hanover Street (1979)
PG | 109 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Margaret is a nurse in England during WW2, and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls for David, an American pilot.
Director: Peter Hyams | Stars: Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher Plummer, Alec McCowen
Votes: 5,929 | Gross: $3.00M
23. Shining Through (1992)
R | 132 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
An American woman of Irish and Jewish-German parentage goes undercover in Nazi Germany.
Director: David Seltzer | Stars: Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson
Votes: 10,732 | Gross: $21.73M
24. The Winds of War (1983)
126 min | Drama, Romance, War
The trials of the Henry and Jastrow families in the early years of World War II.
Stars: Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Houseman
Votes: 4,647
25. War and Remembrance (1988–1989)
Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, War
The trials of the Henry and the Jastrow families amidst the events after the U.S.'s entry into World War II.
Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Seymour, Hart Bochner, Victoria Tennant
Votes: 3,123
26. Edges of the Lord (2001)
R | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A twelve-year-old Jewish boy hides with a family of Catholic peasant farmers to escape the Nazis.
Director: Yurek Bogayevicz | Stars: Haley Joel Osment, Willem Dafoe, Richard Banel, Liam Hess
Votes: 3,692
27. Hart's War (2002)
R | 125 min | Drama, War
A law student becomes a lieutenant during World War II, is captured and asked to defend a black prisoner of war falsely accused of murder.
Director: Gregory Hoblit | Stars: Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser
Votes: 55,273 | Gross: $19.08M
28. Pearl Harbor (2001)
PG-13 | 183 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A 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.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, William Lee Scott
Votes: 351,457 | Gross: $198.54M
29. Two Women (1960)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, War
In WWII Italy, a widow and her lonely daughter seek distance between themselves and the horrors of war.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Raf Vallone, Eleonora Brown
Votes: 12,411
30. 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: 134,163 | Gross: $22.24M
31. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Romance, War
A British family struggles to survive the first months of World War II.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, May Whitty
Votes: 19,442 | Gross: $13.50M
32. 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: 70,461 | Gross: $23.65M
33. Von Ryan's Express (1965)
Approved | 117 min | Action, Adventure, War
An American POW leads a group of mainly British prisoners to escape from the Germans in WWII.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Trevor Howard, Raffaella Carrà, Brad Dexter
Votes: 15,128 | Gross: $17.11M
34. The Night of the Generals (1967)
Not Rated | 148 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In 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.
Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasence
Votes: 8,760
35. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Passed | 120 min | Action, Romance, Thriller
On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Votes: 23,675 | Gross: $3.48M
36. Coming Home (1998)
199 min | Drama, Romance, War
Drama miniseries about the friendship between Judith Dunbar and Loveday Carey-Lewis, before, during and after WW2.
Stars: Joanna Lumley, Peter O'Toole, Grace Simon, Paul Bettany
Votes: 822
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