Great War (And War-Related) Films
by jeffhchambers | created - 07 Feb 2014 | updated - 3 weeks ago | PublicChronological Listing Of Highest Rated Personal Favorites On War And Its Consequences, Including One Noteworthy Made-For-TV Movie (The Lost Battalion)
- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Not Rated | 66 min | Drama, History, Thriller
In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.
Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov
Votes: 61,448 | Gross: $0.05M
2. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Passed | 152 min | Drama, War
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Votes: 67,692 | Gross: $3.27M
3. Wooden Crosses (1932)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, War
World War 1 begins and a young man enlists to fight for his country.
Director: Raymond Bernard | Stars: Pierre Blanchar, Gabriel Gabrio, Charles Vanel, Raymond Aimos
Votes: 1,691
4. The Grand Illusion (1937)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, War
During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim
Votes: 38,867 | Gross: $0.17M
5. 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: 606,049 | Gross: $1.02M
6. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Not Rated | 163 min | Drama, Romance, War
From the Boer War through World War II, a soldier rises through the ranks in the British military.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, James McKechnie
Votes: 16,352
7. Rome, Open City (1945)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.
Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero, Vito Annichiarico
Votes: 28,977
8. A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Approved | 117 min | Drama, War
During WWII, a platoon of American soldiers trudge through the Italian countryside in search of a bridge they have been ordered to blow up, encountering danger and destruction along the way.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland
Votes: 4,080
9. 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: 70,553 | Gross: $23.65M
10. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Not Rated | 132 min | Drama, War
A tough-as-nails general (Gregory Peck as General Savage) takes over a B-17 bomber unit suffering from low morale and whips them into fighting shape.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell
Votes: 15,798
11. Paths of Glory (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, War
After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
Votes: 212,272
12. 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: 233,313 | Gross: $44.91M
13. Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Romance, War
Young Russian soldier Alyosha earns a medal, but asks to visit his mother instead. His journey recounts various kinds of love during wartime.
Director: Grigoriy Chukhray | Stars: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolay Kryuchkov
Votes: 11,287
14. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (I) (1959)
Not Rated | 208 min | Drama, History, War
A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Chikage Awashima, Ineko Arima
Votes: 9,361
15. The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (II) (1959)
Not Rated | 181 min | Drama, History, War
As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Kokinji Katsura, Jun Tatara
Votes: 7,505
16. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
Not Rated | 190 min | Drama, History, War
His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Tamao Nakamura, Yûsuke Kawazu
Votes: 7,333
17. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Approved | 179 min | Drama, War
In 1948, an American court in occupied Germany tries four Nazis judged for war crimes.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich
Votes: 85,524
18. Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, War
During WWII, Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev strikes up a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers while working as a scout behind the German lines.
Directors: Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov | Stars: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov, Stepan Krylov
Votes: 39,938
19. 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: 258,944 | Gross: $12.10M
20. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,323 | Gross: $0.28M
21. Zulu (1964)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama, History, War
Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift.
Director: Cy Endfield | Stars: Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth
Votes: 42,754
22. I Am Cuba (1964)
Not Rated | 141 min | Drama
Four vignettes about the lives of the Cuban people set during the pre-revolutionary era.
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov | Stars: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo, Raúl García
Votes: 10,662
23. The Hill (1965)
Approved | 123 min | Drama, War
In a North African military prison during World War II, five new prisoners struggle to survive in the face of brutal punishment and sadistic guards.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Alfred Lynch
Votes: 15,168
24. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Not Rated | 121 min | Drama, War
In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo | Stars: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash
Votes: 65,664 | Gross: $0.06M
25. Patton (1970)
GP | 172 min | Biography, Drama, War
The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong
Votes: 107,960 | Gross: $61.70M
26. Army of Shadows (1969)
Not Rated | 145 min | Drama, War
An account of underground resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret
Votes: 25,853 | Gross: $0.74M
27. The Ascent (1977)
111 min | Drama, War
Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.
Director: Larisa Shepitko | Stars: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergey Yakovlev, Lyudmila Polyakova
Votes: 10,111
28. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 362,254 | Gross: $48.98M
29. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 710,301 | Gross: $83.47M
30. Breaker Morant (1980)
PG | 107 min | Drama, History, War
Three Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers.
Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters, Bryan Brown
Votes: 14,436 | Gross: $7.14M
31. Das Boot (1981)
R | 149 min | Drama, War
A 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.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
Votes: 264,371 | Gross: $11.49M
32. 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: 59,190 | Gross: $34.70M
33. Come and See (1985)
Not Rated | 142 min | Drama, Thriller, War
After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.
Director: Elem Klimov | Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas
Votes: 97,267
34. Platoon (1986)
R | 120 min | Drama, War
Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David
Votes: 439,576 | Gross: $138.53M
35. Goodbye, Children (1987)
PG | 104 min | Drama, War
A French boarding school run by priests seems to be a haven from World War II until a new student arrives. Occupying the next bed in the dormitory to the top student in his class, the two young boys begin to form a bond.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Francine Racette, Stanislas Carré de Malberg
Votes: 36,120 | Gross: $4.54M
36. Before the Rain (1994)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, Romance, War
Three interconnected stories of love under the threat of civil war in Macedonia and London.
Director: Milcho Manchevski | Stars: Katrin Cartlidge, Rade Serbedzija, Grégoire Colin, Josif Josifovski
Votes: 15,856 | Gross: $0.76M
37. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
R | 169 min | Drama, War
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns
Votes: 1,496,627 | Gross: $216.54M
38. The Thin Red Line (1998)
R | 170 min | Drama, History, War
Adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo
Votes: 199,620 | Gross: $36.40M
39. The Lost Battalion (2001 TV Movie)
TV-14 | 92 min | Action, Drama, War
Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.
Director: Russell Mulcahy | Stars: Ricky Schroder, Phil McKee, Jamie Harris, Jay Rodan
Votes: 8,229
40. 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: 912,380 | Gross: $32.57M
41. We Were Soldiers (2002)
R | 138 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, and the soldiers on both sides that fought it, while their wives wait nervously and anxiously at home for the good news or the bad news.
Director: Randall Wallace | Stars: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott
Votes: 151,282 | Gross: $78.12M
42. Downfall (2004)
R | 156 min | Biography, Drama, History
Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Votes: 375,249 | Gross: $5.51M
43. Turtles Can Fly (2004)
PG-13 | 98 min | Drama, War
Near the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of an American invasion, refugee children like 13-year-old Kak (Ebrahim), gauge and await their fate.
Director: Bahman Ghobadi | Stars: Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Saddam Hossein Feysal, Hiresh Feysal Rahman
Votes: 20,759 | Gross: $0.26M
44. The Hurt Locker (2008)
R | 131 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce
Votes: 473,800 | Gross: $17.02M
45. Beasts of No Nation (2015)
TV-MA | 137 min | Drama, War
A drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country.
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga | Stars: Abraham Attah, Emmanuel Affadzi, Ricky Adelayitor, Andrew Adote
Votes: 86,840 | Gross: $0.08M
46. Darkest Hour (2017)
PG-13 | 125 min | Drama, War
In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.
Director: Joe Wright | Stars: Gary Oldman, Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn
Votes: 220,796 | Gross: $56.47M
47. 1917 (2019)
R | 119 min | Action, Drama, History
April 6th, 1917. As an infantry battalion assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.
Director: Sam Mendes | Stars: Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays, Colin Firth
Votes: 675,767 | Gross: $159.23M
48. 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: 743,278 | Gross: $57.60M
Tell Your Friends