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Films

What are your favorite WWII movies - and why?

112 replies

MsAmerica · 13/07/2026 23:34

What are your 3-4 favorite WWII movies? And if you can ponder why they're your favorites, do include that.

OP posts:
MsAmerica · 24/07/2026 22:11

I didn't have a chance to come back and check to how my question was progressing here, but now that I'm settling in to read everything...

First, thank you to everyone who replied.

Second, I'll tell you what was behind my question. I'd been thinking about WWII movies, and thinking about the kinds of questions posted on other movie forums of "What's your favorite...?" I was thinking that in the two forums where I participate, they're mainly men. And mainly Americans. I was thinking that most WWII films I've seen are mostly American. So I was curious to see what different answers might pop up here.

Okay, now I'm reading through them...

OP posts:
MsAmerica · 24/07/2026 22:14

GarlicEverywhere · 14/07/2026 02:49

Das Boot. Not sure I can say why, and it's not aged terribly well, but the sense of claustrophobic stress felt real to me as a child of people who lived through that war.

Schindler's List is a classic, and there are several other films highlighting acts of courageous humanity when there was little to be found.

Oh, and Dad's Army!

I haven't seen Das Boot since my first time, and I'm sorry to hear it hasn't aged well, because I remember originally thinking it was a perfect movie - something that I rarely say.

OP posts:
MsAmerica · 24/07/2026 22:22

HelenaWilson · 15/07/2026 17:50

There's also another WWII film I've been dying to see but can't find it available anywhere. It stars Vivian Lee and Robert Taylor and it's called Waterloo Bridge. Looks very good and very sad. Anyone seen it?

Many many years ago. I remember enjoying it, but that's about all I do remember.

No mention of Casablanca yet? I know it's not historically accurate - there were no Germans in Casablanca - but a great cast, classic dialogue, a great cast of secondary characters all with their own stories.

The Way to the Stars - the one where John Mills reads For Johnny.

Set just before the outbreak of war, but made during the war - Night Train to Munich with Rex Harrison and Pimpernel Smith with Leslie Howard. Both on YouTube.

I mostly prefer films actually made at the time because of, as PP said, the anachronistic hairstyles and costumes of films made in the 60s and 70s. But Escape to Victory is good for a laugh. One to get if you're having a football party.... Could have done without Sly Stallone as Token Yank though.

With Casablanca, the issue isn't accuracy. It's just that it's a "wartime" film, not a war film, and I see that I should have tried to narrow the question down a little to slant it to actual war. Just like I don't think that most people's foremost thought of Sound of Music is that it's a war film.

OP posts:
MsAmerica · 24/07/2026 22:25

LaurieFairyCake · 15/07/2026 21:06

There are so many films here I’ve never heard of ! Which is a total shock to me as it’s clearly a genre I haven’t engaged with enough. I’m making a damn list now 😊

the end of Schindler’s List when the real survivors were there utterly broke me, literally can’t think of it without tearing up.

Same here! Total shock!

OP posts:
DapperDame · 24/07/2026 22:38

Battle of the River Plate is a good one too

MsAmerica · 24/07/2026 22:42

Well, people, I am totally, totally stunned.

You all basically confirmed my suspicion: First, that women seem likely to choose different movies from men, and, second, American war movie consumption is heavily slanted toward Hollywood movies. (On various national holidays, American television will trot out the same few movies, over and over, like The Longest Day or A Bridge Too Far - which, if nothing else, proves that it's smart to use a lot of big-name actors in epic war movies.)

I suspect a third thing may be true, that women are likelier to choose movies with a strong human content - i.e. with an emphasis on character and personal stories, not just fighting. But I can't be sure, because so many of the titles are unfamiliar to me.

And that was my real shocker, so many unfamiliar titles. I've had not only the benefit of living in New York City, a city with possibly the most access to old films in America, but also own a raft of film reference books. So I know about all kinds of movies that I've never seen. I never expected to see so many new titles. And such a breadth! It's not just that I haven't seen them. It's that I've never seen them running ever, anywhere.

I'd really like to post this same question now in the two American forums I regularly use, just to compare the answers. I have the feeling that the answers would cluster mostly behind a far smaller number of films - Great Escape, Private Ryan. And - ha! - maybe you ladies could swoop in afterward and educate them.

OP posts:
Megsdaughter · 24/07/2026 22:54

I loved First Light about the youngest spitfire pilot.

Odette

Memphis Belle

Yanks.

RosieHosie · 24/07/2026 22:56

Megsdaughter · 24/07/2026 22:54

I loved First Light about the youngest spitfire pilot.

Odette

Memphis Belle

Yanks.

I read an autobiographical book called First Light, i wonder if it's the same?

RosieHosie · 24/07/2026 22:57

RosieHosie · 24/07/2026 22:56

I read an autobiographical book called First Light, i wonder if it's the same?

Geoffrey Wellum

HelenaWilson · 24/07/2026 22:59

With Casablanca, the issue isn't accuracy. It's just that it's a "wartime" film, not a war film, and I see that I should have tried to narrow the question down a little to slant it to actual war.

It depends how you're defining war, really. Arguably several of the characters in Casablanca were fighting the war in their own way, even though it wasn't on the battlefield.

Just like I don't think that most people's foremost thought of Sound of Music is that it's a war film.

No, because The Sound of Music ends in 1938, before the war had begun.

Battle of the River Plate is a good one too

Also good for playing 'spot the actor'.

Has anyone mentioned The Gentle Sex, documentary style drama about women in the ATS, directed and narrated by Leslie Howard?

And that was my real shocker, so many unfamiliar titles.... And such a breadth! It's not just that I haven't seen them. It's that I've never seen them running ever, anywhere.

In the UK, a lot of these will turn up on daytime tv. Battle of the River Plate often pops up on Sunday afternoons, or used to. And many of the people answering here are perhaps older and will remember when old war films were more frequently shown on television.

Pieceofpurplesky · 24/07/2026 23:09

Whisky Galore and The Gentle Sex.

Hope and Glory.
Schindler's List
Jojo Rabbit
Fury

Ilovemyshed · 24/07/2026 23:12

Classiccar1 · 14/07/2026 10:50

The man who never was - true story of how we fooled the Germans with a body and a briefcase.

Went the day well? - German paratroops invade English village dressed as British soldiers, but the plucky villagers fight back. Made in 1942 when the threat of invasion was still very real.

Where eagles dare - Burton, Eastwood and Ingrid Pitt, What's not to like?

That is The Eagle has Landed, surely?

Ilovemyshed · 24/07/2026 23:14

Although I think that may just be a similar film!

I like Escape to Victory.

Ilovemyshed · 24/07/2026 23:15

Also The Monuments Men & Darkest Hour.

sashh · 25/07/2026 06:30

And that was my real shocker, so many unfamiliar titles.... And such a breadth! It's not just that I haven't seen them. It's that I've never seen them running ever, anywhere.

When I first got cable 30 years go there was 'Turner Classic Movies' which basically showed black and white films all days.

A friend of mine borrowed my place for a couple of days and said she watched nothing else.

Lots of them were fairly crap like, They Drove All Night, which is basically women in uniform driving trucks and when they get to their billet they can eat but not stay because they have to continue driving.

It's obviously a propaganda piece that everyone is in the war together and even women have a part.

Trudij123 · 25/07/2026 10:51

Have we mentioned the Dam Busters yet?

RhannionKPSS · 25/07/2026 21:33

Ilovemyshed · 24/07/2026 23:12

That is The Eagle has Landed, surely?

The Eagle has Landed was a rip off version of Went the Day Well without the charm. Terrible casting but did have a lovely irish wolfhound in it

Sometimeswinning · 25/07/2026 21:35

Hotandpointy · 14/07/2026 10:23

The Wooden Horse
The Great Escape
The Dambusters

The wooden horse and great escape are
mine. Love a POW film!

Howyoualldoworkme · 28/07/2026 00:02

Conspiracy of Hearts. About Italian nuns hiding Jewish children.
Lili Palmer, Sylvia Sims and the wonderful Yvonne Mitchell the star of another of my favourites, Woman in a Dressing Gown.

Howyoualldoworkme · 28/07/2026 00:05

And of course A Town Like Alice

corblimeymlud · 28/07/2026 00:20

Greyhound with Tom Hanks.

ohfook · 28/07/2026 00:59

Jojo Rabbit
inglorious basterds
hacksaw ridge

allthingsprettyinpink · 28/07/2026 01:45

Hacksaw Ridge - in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made!

anonMH · 28/07/2026 03:20

The Great Escape will always remind me of Wogan’s breakfast show - he said he had watched again over the holidays and he was devastated because he really thought he would escape this time .
It’s hard to describe how funny it was in Terry’s dry tone!

JudgeJ · 28/07/2026 04:56

The Guns of Navarone, I used to tell my friends that my Dad had helped make those guns so they thought that he must be German, in fact he worked on them for the film!
This thread takes me back to wet Sunday afternoons watching war films on a small tv! I once wondered why, having torpedoed a battleship, 'we' were rescuing enemy sailors from the sea, I got such a telling off.
We used to sail on the Moehnesee and when Michael Redgrave died The Dambusters was on TV. Our daughter, about 7, told her Grandma that 'those naughty men broke our dam" so she got a lecture about that!
Downfall is brilliant on YouTube for the Hitler spoofs!

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