Must see World War II movies
by wsbowles | created - 27 Feb 2022 | updated - 27 Feb 2022 | PublicThese are must-see not only for their production and historical value, but some were made during the war and were meant to boost morale.
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1. Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Passed | 126 min | Drama, War
An American tanker is sunk by a German U-boat, and the survivors spend 11 days at sea on a raft. Their next assignment - bound for Murmansk through the sub-stalked N. Atlantic.
Directors: Lloyd Bacon, Byron Haskin, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Julie Bishop
Votes: 4,549
2. Air Force (1943)
Approved | 124 min | Action, Drama, History
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 3,816
3. American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, War
American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Tyrone Power, Micheline Presle, Tom Ewell, Robert Patten
Votes: 1,334
4. Bataan (1943)
Approved | 114 min | Drama, History, War
In 1942, in the Bataan peninsula of the Philippines, a ragtag American unit commanded by Sergeant Bill Dane attempts to blow-up a bridge in order to slow the Japanese advance.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Robert Taylor, George Murphy, Lloyd Nolan, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 2,707
5. Back to Bataan (1945)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, War
In 1942, after the fall of the Philippines to the Japanese, U.S. Army Col. Joseph Madden stays behind to organize the local resistance against the Japanese invaders.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: John Wayne, Anthony Quinn, Beulah Bondi, Fely Franquelli
Votes: 4,374
6. Battle of the Bulge (1965)
Not Rated | 167 min | Drama, History, War
A dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II.
Director: Ken Annakin | Stars: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews
Votes: 17,811 | Gross: $11.12M
7. Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
Approved | 108 min | Biography, Drama, War
At the close of WWII, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle travels with the U.S. Army's Company C Division during their liberation of Italy.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Freddie Steele, Wally Cassell
Votes: 3,730
8. Battleground (1949)
Approved | 118 min | Action, Drama, History
True tale about a squad of the 101st Airborne Division coping with being trapped by the Germans in the besieged city of Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy
Votes: 7,864 | Gross: $10.29M
9. The Big Red One (1980)
R | 113 min | Drama, War
A hardened sergeant and the four core members of his infantry unit try to survive World War II as they move from battle to battle throughout Europe.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco
Votes: 21,404
10. 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: 606,317 | Gross: $1.02M
11. The Desert Rats (1953)
Approved | 88 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Richard Burton plays a Scottish Army officer put in charge of a disparate band of ANZAC troops on the perimeter of Tobruk with the German Army doing their best to dislodge them.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Richard Burton, James Mason, Robert Newton, Robert Douglas
Votes: 5,303
12. Destination Tokyo (1943)
Passed | 135 min | Adventure, War
In order to provide information for the first air raid over Tokyo, a U.S. submarine sneaks into Tokyo Bay and places a spy team ashore.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, John Ridgely
Votes: 5,752
13. Flying Tigers (1942)
Approved | 102 min | Action, Drama, Romance
Capt. Jim Gordon's command of the famed American volunteer fighter group in China is complicated by the recruitment of an old friend who is a reckless hotshot.
Director: David Miller | Stars: John Wayne, John Carroll, Anna Lee, Paul Kelly
Votes: 4,251 | Gross: $3.27M
14. 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: 23,988 | Gross: $10.17M
15. Guadalcanal Diary (1943)
Approved | 93 min | Drama, War
The story of a large U.S. Marines invasion task force bound for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942.
Director: Lewis Seiler | Stars: Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte
Votes: 2,280
16. In Harm's Way (1965)
Approved | 165 min | Drama, Romance, War
A Naval officer, reprimanded after Pearl Harbor, is later promoted to Rear Admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon
Votes: 10,328 | Gross: $4.20M
17. 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: 59,088 | Gross: $39.10M
18. Merrill's Marauders (I) (1962)
Approved | 98 min | Adventure, Drama, War
During WW2, a 3000-strong American unit, known as Merrill's Marauders, battles the Japanese forces in Burma.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Jeff Chandler, Ty Hardin, Peter Brown, Andrew Duggan
Votes: 2,780
19. 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: 19,474 | Gross: $13.50M
20. Battle of Britain (1969)
G | 132 min | Action, Drama, History
In 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to a possible Axis invasion of the U.K.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Harry Andrews, Curd Jürgens
Votes: 24,527 | Gross: $4.36M
21. Never So Few (1959)
Approved | 125 min | Drama, War
During WW2, the American OSS mounts covert operations with the native Kachin against the Japanese army in the jungles of Burma.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen
Votes: 3,420
22. Operation Pacific (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WWII, a submarine's second in command inherits the problem of torpedoes that don't explode. When on shore, he is eager to win back his ex-wife.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Ward Bond, Scott Forbes
Votes: 3,893
23. Sahara (I) (1943)
Approved | 97 min | Action, Drama, War
After the fall of Tobruk in 1942, during the Allied retreat in the Libyan desert, an American tank picks-up a motley group of survivors but they face advancing Germans and a lack of water.
Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 9,755
24. They Were Expendable (1945)
Approved | 135 min | Drama, War
A Navy commander fights to prove the battle-worthiness of the PT boat at the start of World War II.
Directors: John Ford, Robert Montgomery | Stars: Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Jack Holt
Votes: 9,263
25. 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: 37,238 | Gross: $29.55M
26. 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: 15,809
27. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran
Votes: 38,017
28. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, History, War
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Tim Murdock
Votes: 6,462
29. Darby's Rangers (1958)
Approved | 121 min | Action, Drama, War
The lives, loves, and battles of fictional characters in the Army's First Ranger Battalion during WWII.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: James Garner, Etchika Choureau, Jack Warden, Edd Byrnes
Votes: 1,594
30. The Fighting Sullivans (1944)
Approved | 112 min | Biography, Drama, History
The lives of a close-knit group of brothers growing up in Iowa during the days of the Great Depression.
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Anne Baxter, Thomas Mitchell, Selena Royle, Edward Ryan
Votes: 2,361
31. Up Periscope (1959)
Approved | 112 min | Action, Drama, Romance
In 1942, Navy Lieutenant Kenneth Braden from the underwater demolition team is sent to a Japanese island to photograph secret radio codes.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Garner, Edmond O'Brien, Andra Martin, Alan Hale Jr.
Votes: 2,254
32. 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: 4,081
33. The North Star (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Drama, Romance, War
A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the German invasion of June 1941.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan
Votes: 1,793
34. Objective, Burma! (1945)
Approved | 142 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A platoon of special ops are tasked to parachute into the remote Burmese jungle and destroy a strategic Japanese radar station, but getting out isn't as easy.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias
Votes: 5,550
35. Fighter Squadron (1948)
Approved | 96 min | Action, War
During World War II, an insubordinate fighter pilot finds the shoe on the other foot when he's promoted.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney, Tom D'Andrea
Votes: 1,026
36. Edge of Darkness (1943)
Passed | 119 min | Drama, War
After two years under German rule, a small Norwegian fishing village rises up and revolts against the occupying Nazis.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman
Votes: 3,013
37. Passage to Marseille (1944)
Passed | 109 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Five patriotic convicts are helped to escape imprisonment in Devil's Island so they can fight for occupied Free French forces against the Nazis.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn
Votes: 5,041
38. Wing and a Prayer (1944)
Passed | 97 min | Action, Drama, War
In WW2, an American aircraft carrier sails around the Pacific on a decoy mission until it joins the battle of Midway against the Japanese forces.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Don Ameche, Dana Andrews, William Eythe, Charles Bickford
Votes: 1,549
39. Greyhound (2020)
PG-13 | 91 min | Action, Drama, History
Several months after the U.S. entry into World War II, an inexperienced U.S. Navy commander must lead an Allied convoy being stalked by a German submarine wolf pack.
Director: Aaron Schneider | Stars: Tom Hanks, Elisabeth Shue, Stephen Graham, Matt Helm
Votes: 114,952
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