List of World War II films
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Below is an incomplete list of fictional feature films or miniseries which feature events of World War II in the narrative.
There is a separate list of World War II TV series.
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Restrictions [edit]
- The film or miniseries must be concerned with World War II (or the Sino-Japanese War) and include events which feature as a part of the war effort.
- For short films, see the List of World War II short films.
- For documentaries, see the List of World War II documentary films and the List of Allied propaganda films of World War II.
Fictional feature films specifically pertaining to the Holocaust appear in the List of Holocaust films#Narrative films.
Common topics [edit]
Many aspects of this conflict have repeatedly been the subject of drama. These common subjects will not be linked when they appear in the film descriptions below:
- Europe
- Adolf Hitler, Nazis and Nazism
- Nazi Germany (Third Reich)
- Gestapo and SS
- Benito Mussolini
- Death camps, Nazi concentration camps, earlier concentration camps
- Partition and occupation of Poland and Polish resistance
- Occupied France, Vichy France and French Resistance
- Occupied Norway
- The Holocaust
- Asia–Pacific
- Non-geographical
Films made during the Sino-Japanese War [edit]
Before the Second World War explicitly began with the German then Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, Germany had already absorbed Austria in the Anschluß of 1938, then the Czechoslovakian lands of Bohemia and Moravia.
China had been defending herself against Japan since 1937 in a war called the Second Sino-Japanese War until Japan attacked the American, British and Dutch Empires in 1941/1942.
1938 [edit]
| Country | Main title (Alternative titles) |
Original title (Original script) |
Director | Battles, campaigns, events depicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Japan |
Chocolate and Soldiers | Chocolate to heitai (チョコレートと兵隊) | Takeshi Sato | Drama. Japanese Army soldier's battlefield letters with chocolate wrappers sent to son while fighting in China |
 USSR |
Concentration Camp (Bog Soldiers / Soldiers of the Swamp) | Bolotnye soldaty (Болотные солдаты) | Aleksandr Macheret | Nazi prison camp guards attempt to break spirits of Communists |
 China |
The Eight Hundred Heroes | Bā Bǎi Zhuàngshì (八百壮士) | Ying Yunwei | Drama. Defense of Sihang Warehouse |
 France |
It Happened in Gibraltar | Gibraltar | Fedor Ozep | British officer in Gibraltar pretends to be traitor |
 Italy |
Luciano Serra, Pilot | Luciano Serra pilota | Goffredo Alessandrini | Drama. Italo-Abyssinian War |
 USA |
Men with Wings | William A. Wellman | Adventure. World War I pilot goes to China | |
| Japan |
A Pay by the Wayside (Five Scouts) | Gonin no sekkôhei (五人の斥候兵) | Tomotaka Tasaka | Drama. Five Japanese Army soldiers on reconnaissance mission behind Chinese lines |
| France |
The Shanghai Drama | Le drame de Shanghaï | Georg Wilhelm Pabst | Japanese Black Dragon agents in Shanghai |
Films made during the Second World War [edit]
Further information: List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
Note: 
Soviet films are in Russian and originate in the 
Russian SFSR, unless otherwise noted.
1939 [edit]
| Country | Main title (Alternative titles) |
Original title (Original script) |
Director | Battles, campaigns, events depicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA |
Confessions of a Nazi Spy | Anatole Litvak | Nazi spy ring in the United States | |
| USA |
Hitler, Beast of Berlin (Hell's Devils / Beasts of Berlin) | Sam Newfield | Drama. German anti-Hitler political prisoner | |
 UK |
The Lion Has Wings | Michael Powell, Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, Alexander Korda | RAF mobilization [1] | |
 Japan |
Mud and Soldiers | Tsuchi to heitai (土と兵隊) | Tomotaka Tasaka | Drama based on Ashihei Hino novel. Effect of war on Japanese soldiers during Sino-Japanese War |
| UK |
Q Planes (Clouds Over Europe) | Tim Whelan, Arthur B. Woods | Thriller. Foreign spies suspected in disappearance of secret aircraft [2] | |
| UK |
Secret Journey (Among Human Wolves) | John Baxter | Based on Charles Robert Dumas' short story. British secret service agent on mission | |
| USA |
South of the Border | George Sherman | Action/Western. US Federal Agent on mission in Mexico to prevent German agents from gaining control of Mexican oil refineries and inciting revolution | |
| UK |
Traitor Spy (The Torso Murder Mystery) | Walter Summers | Mystery thriller based on T. C. H. Jacobs novel. German spy employed in anti-submarine patrol boat and torpedo factory | |
| USA |
Wings of the Navy | Lloyd Bacon | Drama. Experimental fighter for the US Navy |
1940 [edit]
| Country | Main title (Alternative titles) |
Original title (Original script) |
Director | Battles, campaigns, events depicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA |
Arise, My Love | Mitchell Leisen | Romantic comedy. Spanish Civil War through French capitulation, 1940 | |
| UK |
The Big Blockade | Charles Frend | Economic blockade of Germany | |
| Japan |
The Blazing Heavens (The Burning Sky / Flaming Sky) | Moyuru ōzora (燃ゆる大空) | Yutaka Abe | Action-drama. Imperial Japanese Army Air Service during Sino-Japanese War |
| USA |
Comrade X | King Vidor | Spy. US journalist in Soviet Union | |
| UK |
Convoy | Pen Tennyson | Battle of the Atlantic | |
 Germany |
Enemies | Feinde | Viktor Tourjansky | Propaganda. Invasion of Poland justified by Polish terror of ethnic Germans |
| USA |
Foreign Correspondent | Alfred Hitchcock | Spy thriller. American reporter tries to expose spies in Britain | |
| USA |
The Great Dictator | Charlie Chaplin | Satire. Dictator Adenoid Hynkel | |
| USA |
The Long Voyage Home | John Ford | Battle of the Atlantic | |
| USA |
The Man I Married (I Married a Nazi) | Irving Pichel | Drama. American woman's German husband develops Nazi sympathies | |
| USA |
The Mortal Storm | Frank Borzage | Drama. Average German family disrupted when Nazis come to power | |
| UK |
Night Train to Munich (Gestapo) | John Baxter | Mystery-thriller. Inventor and daughter kidnapped by Gestapo then rescued by British agent | |
| USA |
The Phantom Submarine | Charles Barton | Action-mystery. Journalist and US Navy frogman investigate U-boat terror | |
| USA |
Ski Patrol | Lew Landers | Olympians oppose each other again in the Winter War | |
| UK |
Ten Days in Paris | Tim Whelan | Comedy mystery. British tourist and German spy look alike | |
| USA |
Waterloo Bridge | Mervyn LeRoy | Called-up British officer reminisces over World War I romance [3] | |
| USA |
Women in War | John H. Auer | Action-drama. Allied nurses on pre-Dunkirk Battle of France front |
1941 [edit]
| Country | Main title (Alternative titles) |
Original title (Original script) |
Director | Battles, campaigns, events depicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA |
All Through the Night | Vincent Sherman | Lighthearted mystery-thriller. Nazi Fifth Columnists | |
| Germany |
Annelie | Annelie - Die Geschichte einer Liebe | Josef von Bákyn | Heroic German mother during war |
| USA |
Buck Privates | Arthur Lubin | Comedy. Abbott and Costello enlist in the Army | |
| USA |
Caught in the Draft | David Butler | Comedy. Bob Hope gets drafted | |
| USA |
Confirm or Deny | Archie Mayo, Fritz Lang (uncredited) | Comedy-drama. London Blitz | |
| UK |
Cottage to Let (Bombsight Stolen) | Anthony Asquith | Lighthearted mystery. Kidnapping of bombsight inventor from Scotland by Nazi agents | |
| USA |
Dangerously They Live | Robert Florey | Nazi agents in US pursue Allied spy with secret of U-boat fleet off US coast | |
| UK |
Dangerous Moonlight | Brian Desmond Hurst | The Battle of Britain | |
| USA |
Dive Bomber | Michael Curtiz | Flight surgeons and medical flight research on pilots in Pacific | |
| UK |
49th Parallel (The Invaders) | Michael Powell | Survivors of a sunken U-boat in Hudson Bay trek across Canada | |
| UK |
Freedom Radio | Anthony Asquith | German Resistance | |
| USSR |
The Girl from Leningrad | Frontovye podrugi (Фронтовые подруги) | Viktor Eisymont | Russian woman volunteers as nurse on Finnish Front where she becomes involved with wounded soldiers; remade in US as Three Russian Girls |
| Germany |
Homecoming | Heimkehr | Gustav Ucicky | Drama. Poles persecute ethnic Germans |
| USA |
International Lady | Tim Whelan | Spy drama. | |
| Germany |
In the Eye of the Storm | Menschen im Sturm | Fritz Peter Buch | Drama. Serbs persecute ethnic Germans [4] |
| USSR |
In the Rear of the Enemy | V tylu vraga (В тылу врага) | Yevgeni Shneider | Drama. Finnish War [5] |
| USA |
Man Hunt | Fritz Lang | Prewar assassination attempt on Hitler | |
| USA |
Parachute Battalion | Leslie Goodwins | Three men join a parachute battalion [2] | |
| UK |
Pimpernel Smith | Leslie Howard | The Scarlet Pimpernel updated | |
| UK |
Ships with Wings | Sergei Nolbandov | Battle of Taranto | |
| Germany |
Soldiers of Tomorrow | Soldaten von morgen | Alfred Weidenmann | Hitler Youth |
| USA |
Sundown | Henry Hathaway | The North African Campaign [2] | |
| Germany |
U-Boat, Course West! | U-Boote westwärts | Günther Rittau | U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic [6] |
| USA |
Underground | Vincent Sherman | German Resistance | |
| USA |
A Yank in the RAF | Henry King | American volunteers in the RAF |
1942 [edit]
1943 [edit]
1944 [edit]
1945 [edit]
Late 1940s [edit]
| Year | Country | Main title (Alternative titles) |
Original title (Original script) |
Director | Battles, campaigns, events depicted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | France |
Battle of the Rails | La Bataille du rail | René Clément | Resistance on French railways |
| 1946 | USA |
The Best Years of Our Lives | William Wyler | American servicemen struggle after returning home from the war | |
| 1946 | UK |
The Captive Heart | Basil Dearden | British POWs in Germany | |
| 1946 |  Philippines |
Death March | Leopoldo Salcedo | Bataan Death March | |
| 1946 |  Poland |
Forbidden Songs | Zakazane piosenki | Leonard Buczkowski | Musical. Polish resistance 1939–1945 [15] |
| 1946 | Philippines |
Garrison 13 | Unknown [16] | War crimes committed by Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines | |
| 1946 | Philippines |
Guerilyera | Guerilyera | Octavio Silos | Guerrilla movement in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines |
| 1946 | USSR Yugoslavia |
In the Mountains of Yugoslavia | V gorach Yugoslavii (В горах Югославии) (Russian) U planinama Jugoslavije (Serbo-Croatian) |
Abram Room | Yugoslav partisans; Draza Mihailovich and Chetniks |
| 1946 | Philippines |
I Remember Bataan | Dugo ng Bayan | Fernando Poe, Sr. | Filipino resistance |
| 1946 | UK |
Journey Together | John Boulting | Three RAF pilots from recruitment to first combat | |
| 1946 | Philippines |
Orasang Ginto | Orasang Ginto | Manuel Conde | Battle of Bataan and Battle of Corregidor |
| 1946 | Italy |
Paisan | Paisà | Roberto Rossellini | Italian campaign |
| 1946 | UK |
School for Secrets | Peter Ustinov | Operation Biting | |
| 1946 | USA |
The Stranger | Orson Welles | A member of the United Nations War Crimes Committee hunts down a Nazi war criminal who has fled to Connecticut | |
| 1946 | UK |
Theirs is the Glory | Brian Desmond Hurst and Terence Young | Operation Market Garden | |
| 1946 | Philippines |
Walang Kamatayan | Walang Kamatayan | Tor Villano | Japanese Occupation of the Philippines |
| 1946 | Poland Italy |
Wielka droga | Wielka droga (Polish) La Grande strada (Italian) |
Michał Waszyński, Vittorio Cottafavi | Polish Campaign 1939, Russia, Africa, Italy 1944 |
| 1947 | Italy |
Christmas at Camp 119 | Natale al campo 119 | Pietro Francisci | Comedy-drama. Italian POWs in a US camp before repatriation |
| 1947 | UK |
Frieda | Basil Dearden | ||
| 1947 |  Denmark |
Jenny and the Soldier | Soldaten og Jenny | Johan Jacobsen | |
| 1947 | Poland |
The Last Stop | Ostatni etap | Wanda Jakubowska | Auschwitz-Birkenau |
| 1947 |  Occupied Germany (Soviet zone) |
Marriage in the Shadows | Ehe im Schatten | Kurt Maetzig | Suicide of actor and Jewish wife |
| 1947 | Occupied Germany |
Seven Journeys | In jenen Tagen | Helmut Käutner | Twelve years of Nazi rule as experienced by a car |
| 1947 | China |
The Spring River Flows East | Yījiāng Chūnshuǐ Xiàng Dōng Liú (一江春水向東流) | Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli | Sino-Japanese War |
| 1947 | USA |
13 Rue Madeleine | Henry Hathaway | ||
| 1948 | UK |
Against the Wind | Charles Crichton | Commando raid into occupied Belgium | |
| 1948 |  Austria |
The Angel with the Trumpet (The Angel with the Trombone) | Der Engel mit der Posaune | Karl Hartl | Drama based on Ernst Lothar novel. Salzburg through both world wars |
| 1948 | Poland |
Border Street | Ulica Graniczna | Aleksander Ford | Holocaust in occupied Poland |
| 1948 | UK Netherlands |
But Not in Vain | Niet Tevergeefs | Edmond T. Gréville | Drama.[17] |
| 1948 | USA |
Command Decision | Sam Wood | Command stresses in the US Eighth Air Force | |
| 1948 | USA |
Fighter Squadron | Raoul Walsh | P-47 fighters in the air war in Europe | |
| 1948 | Occupied Germany |
Morituri | Morituri (Latin) (Freiwild (German)) | Eugen York | [18] |
| 1948 | Yugoslavia |
On their own territory | Na svoji zemlji | France Štiglic | People fighting to kill Germans and Italians |
| 1948 |  Norway France |
Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water | Kampen om tungtvannet | Jean Dréville, Titus Vibe-Müller | Docudrama. Norwegian heavy water sabotage |
| 1948 | USA Switzerland |
The Search | [19] | Fred Zinnemann | Displaced persons in postwar Germany |
| 1948 | Poland |
The Steel Hearts | Stalowe serca | Stanisław Januszewski | Silesia, Poland 1944 / 1945 |
| 1948 | Denmark |
Three Years After †· | Tre år efter | Johan Jacobsen | Situation after the war's end |
| 1948 | Denmark |
The Viking Watch of the Danish Seaman | Støt står den danske sømand | Bodil Ipsen, Lau Lauritzen Jr. | Docudrama. Danish sailors |
| 1949 | USA |
Battleground | William A. Wellman | 101st Airborne Division in the Battle of the Bulge | |
| 1949 | USSR |
The Battle of Stalingrad | Stalingradskaya bitva (Сталинградская битва) | Vladimir Petrov | Battle of Stalingrad |
| 1949 | Philippines |
Capas | Capas | Gregorio Fernandez | Bataan Death March survivor, appointed hometown mayor by Japanese, supports guerrilla activity |
| 1949 | USSR |
Encounter at the Elbe | Vstrecha na Elbe (Встреча на Эльбе) | Grigori Aleksandrov, Aleksei Utkin | Elbe Day |
| 1949 | USSR |
The Fall of Berlin | Padeniye Berlina (Падение Берлина) | Mikheil Chiaureli | Battle of Berlin |
| 1949 | USA |
Home of the Brave | Mark Robson | Black soldier paralyzed after unit attacked on Pacific island | |
| 1949 | USA |
Lost Boundaries | Alfred L. Werker | Drama. White US Navy officer is actually Negro | |
| 1949 | USA |
Malaya | Richard Thorpe | Smuggler paroled to sneak rubber crop out of Japanese-held Malaya | |
| 1949 | France |
Mission in Tangier | Mission à Tanger | André Hunebelle | Journalist carries documents to London from Tangiers |
| 1949 | Poland |
The Others Will Follow | Za wami pójdą inni | Antoni Bohdziewicz | Warsaw, Polish resistance |
| 1949 | UK |
Private Angelo | Michael Anderson, Peter Ustinov | Light-hearted story. Reluctantly conscripted Italian soldier | |
| 1949 | USA |
Sands of Iwo Jima | Allan Dwan | Battle of Iwo Jima | |
| 1949 | UK |
The Small Back Room | Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Bomb disposal | |
| 1949 | Denmark |
That applies to us all †· | Det gælder os alle | Alice O'Fredericks | Young survivor from a concentration camp |
| 1949 | UK |
They Were Not Divided | Terence Young | The British Guards Armoured Division | |
| 1949 | USA |
Twelve O'Clock High | Henry King | B-17 bombers of the US Eighth Air Force |
Films made during the Cold War [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950
Early 1950s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Early 1950s
Late 1950s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Late 1950s
Early 1960s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Early 1960s
Late 1960s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Late 1960s
Early 1970s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Early 1970s
Late 1970s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Late 1970s
Early 1980s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Early 1980s
Late 1980s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1950#Late 1980s
Films made since the Cold War [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990
Early 1990s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#Early 1990s
Late 1990s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#Late 1990s
Early 2000s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#Early 2000s
Late 2000s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#Late 2000s
2010s [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#2010s
In development [edit]
Main article: List of World War II films since 1990#In development
Science fiction, fantasy, and horror [edit]
TV series [edit]
Main article: List of World War II TV series
Dramatized documentary [edit]
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
This section requires expansion with: titles from other countries that produce films of this type. (June 2012) |
A dramatized documentary is a documentary film which includes dramatized scenes using actors in costume.
This format is distinct from a docudrama, which is a fully dramatized fact-based fictional work in a documentary style.
Spanish Civil War [edit]
In the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists (the rebel side) are supported by Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and a small number of international rightist volunteers. The Republicans (government side) are supported by Stalin's Soviet Union and a large number of leftist volunteers, the International Brigades.
The Nationalists under Francisco Franco win.
During World War II, Franco remains neutral – so Gibraltar is never overrun – but nevertheless he sends the Blue Division to fight for Germany on the Eastern Front.
For films about the Blue Division, see the List of World War II films since 1950.
Main article: List of Spanish Civil War films
See also [edit]
- List of World War II short films
- List of World War II documentary films
- List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
- List of Holocaust films
- List of films based on war books – includes World War II section
- List of partisan films – films about World War II on Yugoslav front
- Honourable mentions
- Christmas in Connecticut (1945) – survivors of a destroyer sinking
- Of related interest
References [edit]
Note [edit]
- ^† This English language title is a literal translation from its original foreign language title.
This title should always be replaced by an English language release title when that information becomes available.
- ^ This is the first World War II British propaganda film.[citation needed]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac This film is available at the Internet Archive. Refer to the film's main page for the link.
- ^ Released on 17 May 1940, this is arguably the first Hollywood film set during the war.
- ^ The IMDb, on the other hand, identifies the villainous Yugoslavs in Menschen im Sturm as Slovenians rather than Serbs.
- ^ The IMDb lists In the Rear of the Enemy as V tylu vraga (1942) based on its 1942 release date in New York City.
- ^ a b Available for viewing is this public domain World War II film at Google Videos (Adobe Flash video). Refer to the film's main page for the link.
- ^ Canadian World War I flying ace Billy Bishop appears as himself.
- ^ Some details about the film appear at Minna von Barnhelm.
- ^ A Triumph of Wings (1942) was co-written by Akira Kurosawa, director of Rhapsody in August (1991).
- ^ Fires Were Started is often regarded as a documentary film.
- ^ a b Available for viewing – from British libraries and universities only – are clips from this British World War II film at the British Film Institute's Screenonline. Refer to the film's main page for the link.
- ^ The only surviving film made in the Italian Social Republic.
- ^ Actresses Betty Grable, Carole Landis and others play themselves.
- ^ The first feature-length anime film.
- ^ The first post-war Polish film.
- ^ The "director". of this title is still unidentified (as of November 2010) on IMDb.
- ^ This film is currently considered to be lost.
- ^ First German film to show a concentration camp.
- ^ This film is an international co-production shot in English.
Sources [edit]
- Leyda, Jay. Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film – A study of the development of Russian cinema, from 1896 to the present. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 3rd edition, 1983. 513 pp. ISBN 0-691-00346-7
External links [edit]
- World War 2 movies - reviews and trailers for popular World War II movies.
