World War 2 Movies
by fleven | created - 09 Jul 2019 | updated - 07 Jun 2020 | PublicWhich among these World War 2 movies do you think is the most meaningful one?
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
— Plato
Discuss the Poll here
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1. 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: 1,496,599 | Gross: $216.54M
2. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
R | 139 min | Biography, Drama, History
World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, serving during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.
Director: Mel Gibson | Stars: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer
Votes: 594,230 | Gross: $67.21M
3. Stalingrad (1993)
Not Rated | 134 min | Drama, War
The 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.
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier | Stars: Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel, Sebastian Rudolph
Votes: 37,726 | Gross: $0.08M
4. Dunkirk (2017)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Drama, History
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Votes: 740,180 | Gross: $188.37M
5. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
R | 141 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The 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.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryô Kase
Votes: 170,047 | Gross: $13.76M
6. 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: 375,242 | Gross: $5.51M
7. The Unknown Soldier (2017)
132 min | Drama, War
A film adaptation of Väinö Linna's best selling novel The Unknown Soldier (1954) and the novel's unedited manuscript version, Sotaromaani.
Director: Aku Louhimies | Stars: Eero Aho, Johannes Holopainen, Jussi Vatanen, Aku Hirviniemi
Votes: 12,913
8. The 12th Man (2017)
Unrated | 135 min | Drama, History, Thriller
They were 12 saboteurs. The Nazis killed 11 of them. This is the true story of the one that got away.
Director: Harald Zwart | Stars: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen
Votes: 29,213
9. 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: 277,631 | Gross: $51.40M
10. The Great Raid (2005)
R | 132 min | Action, Drama, War
Taking place towards the end of WWII, 500 American Soldiers have been entrapped in a camp for 3 years. Beginning to give up hope they will ever be rescued, a group of Rangers goes on a dangerous mission to try and save them.
Director: John Dahl | Stars: Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco, Robert Mammone
Votes: 23,983 | Gross: $10.17M
11. 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: 1,450,895 | Gross: $96.90M
12. Warsaw '44 (2014)
130 min | Drama, History, Romance
A story of love, friendship and the pursuit of adventure during the bloody and brutal reality of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Director: Jan Komasa | Stars: Józef Pawlowski, Zofia Wichlacz, Anna Próchniak, Antoni Królikowski
Votes: 6,714
13. T-34 (2018)
TV-14 | 139 min | Action, War
An SS Panzer Division uses a T-34 manned by Soviet POWs as a training target, but the prisoners plot a daring maneuver.
Director: Aleksey Sidorov | Stars: Alexander Petrov, Irina Starshenbaum, Viktor Dobronravov, Vinzenz Kiefer
Votes: 14,355
14. Fury (2014)
R | 134 min | Action, Drama, War
A grizzled tank commander makes tough decisions as he and his crew fight their way across Germany in April, 1945.
Director: David Ayer | Stars: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña
Votes: 547,256 | Gross: $85.82M
15. Valkyrie (2008)
PG-13 | 121 min | Drama, History, Thriller
A dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.
Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Carice van Houten, Kenneth Branagh
Votes: 259,280 | Gross: $83.08M
16. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
PG-13 | 94 min | Drama, War
Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Director: Mark Herman | Stars: Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, Zac Mattoon O'Brien
Votes: 246,478 | Gross: $9.03M
17. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
R | 153 min | Adventure, Drama, War
In 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.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Mélanie Laurent
Votes: 1,584,348 | Gross: $120.54M
18. Band of Brothers (2001)
TV-MA | 59 min | Drama, History, War
The 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.
Stars: Scott Grimes, Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Shane Taylor
Votes: 527,330
19. The Longest Day (1962)
G | 178 min | Action, Drama, History
The events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
Directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck | Stars: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda
Votes: 59,072 | Gross: $39.10M
20. Generation War (2013)
TV-MA | 270 min | Action, Drama, History
Five friends go out to war and promise each other to be back for Christmas.
Stars: Volker Bruch, Tom Schilling, Katharina Schüttler, Miriam Stein
Votes: 32,588 | Gross: $0.09M
21. The Captain (2017)
118 min | Drama, History, Thriller
In the last moments of World War II, a young German soldier fighting for survival finds a Nazi captain's uniform. Impersonating an officer, the man quickly takes on the monstrous identity of the perpetrators he's escaping from.
Director: Robert Schwentke | Stars: Max Hubacher, Alexander Fehling, Sebastian Rudolph, Max Thommes
Votes: 21,585 | Gross: $0.11M
22. The Imitation Game (2014)
PG-13 | 114 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life.
Director: Morten Tyldum | Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Allen Leech
Votes: 825,144 | Gross: $91.13M
23. 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: 264,367 | Gross: $11.49M
24. Defiance (I) (2008)
R | 137 min | Action, Drama, History
Jewish brothers in German-occupied Eastern Europe escape into a Belorussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters, and endeavor to build a village, in order to protect themselves and about one thousand Jewish non-combatants.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos
Votes: 155,688 | Gross: $28.64M
25. 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: 912,359 | Gross: $32.57M
26. 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: 351,820 | Gross: $198.54M
27. 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: 97,264
28. PT 109 (1963)
Approved | 140 min | Biography, Drama, War
President John F. Kennedy kept a unique inauguration gift on his desk: a plastic-encased coconut. The tale of that coconut is the heroic story of PT 109.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson | Stars: Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Ty Hardin, James Gregory
Votes: 2,991
29. The Fighting Seabees (1944)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WW2, the U.S. Navy implements a new idea of forming construction battalions that also are fighting units, in case of Japanese attack.
Director: Edward Ludwig | Stars: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe, William Frawley
Votes: 3,913
30. Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Approved | 100 min | Action, Drama, Romance
Haunted by personal demons, Marine Sgt. John Stryker is hated and feared by his men, who see him as a cold-hearted sadist. But when their boots hit the beaches, they begin to understand the reason for Stryker's rigid form of discipline.
Director: Allan Dwan | Stars: John Wayne, John Agar, Adele Mara, Forrest Tucker
Votes: 11,406
31. Red Tails (2012)
PG-13 | 125 min | Action, Drama, History
A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
Director: Anthony Hemingway | Stars: Cuba Gooding Jr., Gerald McRaney, David Oyelowo, Andre Royo
Votes: 37,250 | Gross: $49.88M
32. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
G | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.
Directors: Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Martin Balsam, Sô Yamamura, Jason Robards, Joseph Cotten
Votes: 37,216 | Gross: $29.55M
33. The Winter War (1989)
199 min | Drama, History, War
In 1939, two Finnish brothers are conscripted in the army to fight in the war between Finland and the Soviet Union.
Director: Pekka Parikka | Stars: Taneli Mäkelä, Vesa Vierikko, Timo Torikka, Heikki Paavilainen
Votes: 8,730
34. 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: 220,789 | Gross: $56.47M
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