World War II in Film

1940s

The Great Dictator (1940)
In his brilliant autobiography, Chaplin recounts his ill feeling at the positive attitude among some of the wealthier members of American society towards Adolf Hitler. Time Magazine had voted Hitler ‘Man of the Year’ in 1938, and the Nazi Party infamously banned The Gold Rush due to questions over Chaplin’s hereditary. Although this was wrongly assumed (he once famously responded with “I have not had that good fortune” when asked if he was Jewish by reporters) he was, more than any other filmmaker before or since, a pure humanist.  Filming began just six days after Britain declared war, with Chaplin playing both lead roles: Adenoid Hinkel, an obvious parody of Hitler, and ‘A Jewish Barber’, a slightly altered version of his famous Tramp character. Closing with an impassioned speech delivered directly to camera, it blurred the lines between drama and Chaplin’s real-life politics to an extent never before seen on the big screen. Seen as hugely controversial at the time, Chaplin saw The Great Dictator as the only way in which he could attack the German leader, saying, “I was determined to go ahead, for Hitler must be laughed at.”

Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Much like The Great Dictator, William Wyler’s wonderful Mrs. Miniver is probably best remembered for its iconic speech. It’s a classic British wartime melodrama that illustrates the determination of a middle-class English family (headed by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) during the home front chaos of air raids and personal loss.  During the key scene, villagers gather in the badly damaged local church, where their vicar says, “This is the People's War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it then. Fight it with all that is in us. And may God defend the right.”  Winston Churchill claimed that the film did more to help the British war effort than an entire squadron of spitfires, as its pro-British, anti-German agenda helped sway an American public who overwhelmingly wanted to stay out of the conflict. 

Rome, Open City (1945)
Roberto Rossellini’s neo-realist depiction of the brutalities of Nazi-occupied Rome.  It follows resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi as the Gestapo relentlessly chases him.  A tale of national pride, sacrifice and betrayal, it was at the time the most ferocious and unrelenting portrayal of the conflict depicted on film.

1950s

The Dam Busters (1955)
Probably the best of twenty-or-so archetypally ‘British’ war films that focus on the sacrifice and heroic nature of the Home Nations during World War II. With the iconic score, beautiful direction from Michael Anderson and pitch-perfect performance from Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave, it still holds up as a thrilling depiction of 617 Squadron’s attacks on three key dams in Germany, led by the heroic Guy Gibson (Todd) and equipped with the Barnes Wallis’ ingenious ‘bouncing bombs’.

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Few, if any, directors have contributed more to the canon of World War II cinema than Andrzej Wajda, whose father was murdered in the Katyn Massacre, and who fought in the Polish Resistance from 1942 onwards. His earlier films A Generation and Kanał are also superb, but it is Ashes and Diamonds that remains his true masterpiece, and one of the greatest films ever made across all genres. It is the story of two Polish assassins charged with killing a communist Commisar on the final day of the war. A perfect film from start to finish, it is perhaps most notable for the performance of Zbyszek Cybulski (who was tragically killed in a train accident only nine years after the film) as Maciek, a charismatic Home Army soldier, and one of the two assassins, who constantly wears sunglasses due to months spent in complete darkness in the sewers of Warsaw (the events of which are depicted in Kanał). A devastating look at the dying embers of a war, told by a man whose own life couldn’t have been more directly affected by the conflict. 

1960s

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Moving past the action of the war itself, and focusing on the infamous trial of high-ranking Nazi officials during the Nuremberg Trials, Judgment at Nuremberg is a tense, measured courtroom drama that delicately humanises both sides of the conflict. Explicit details of Nazi war-atrocities, including descriptions of the Holocaust are made strangely more shocking in such an official setting, with the geo-political complexity and sheer groundbreaking nature of the trials portrayed through incredible performances by Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. Judgment at Nuremberg is an utterly engrossing exploration of personal accountability in the face of unjust laws, conscience and individual conduct in a time of widespread societal depravity.

The Shop on Main Street (1965)
Set in Czechoslovakia during the War, The Shop on Main Street is the story of Tono, a humble who is offered the chance to take over a Jewish widow’s sewing shop by local authorities. The woman is elderly and confused, and wrongly assumes that he has come to her seeking employment. As their odd relationship grows, they develop a genuine care for one another, until the same local authorities decide that all Jews must leave the city. Conflicted, Tono decides to help the lady by attempting to hide her, at which point she eventually becomes aware of the reality of the situation. In the ensuing mayhem, Tono accidentally kills the widow in an attempt to silence her. Devastated and unable to forgive himself, he commits suicide. A haunting portrayal of a burgeoning friendship between two oddly matched innocents destroyed by barbaric anti-Semitism.

1970s

Patton (1970)
Written by Francis Ford Coppola and featuring a career best performance from George C. Scott, Patton remains the best World War II biopic yet made. A charismatic, ferocious, genius madman, few military figures have divided public opinion more than General George S. Patton. Enamored with military history from antiquity onwards, and obsessed with adding his name to the likes of Achilles, Hector and Agamemnon, Patton often pushed his men past the point of reasonable wartime safety in order to further his own reputation. Winning battles was never enough; he had to win them faster and more comprehensively then his counterparts, which included Field Marshall Montgomery. It is more of a view of Patton’s personal war rather than the conflict itself, but it is a war never far from controversy and glory as his field victories helped sweep the German forces out of Northern Africa and across Italy. 

Cross of Iron (1977)
Sam Peckinpah notoriously made bloody films, so any movie set in the bloodiest conflict in human history should be no exception.  James Coburn stars in conflict on the Taman Peninsula in 1943, focusing on the class-conflicts on Germany’s Eastern Front.  The best exploration of social-distinctions in a war setting since Renoir’s masterpiece La Grande Illusion (1937), Peckinpah excels in showing the division between a newly arrived aristocratic Prussian officer (who is awarded the titular Iron Cross) and a battle-worn officer. Shot almost entirely on location in Yugoslavia, and featuring a significant number of authentic tanks and military equipment, it has the high level of ferocious realism Peckinpah was renowned for. 

1980s

Das Boot (1981)
A fierce depiction of submarine warfare, which perfectly coupled the horror of underwater combat with stifling claustrophobia. Based on the novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, himself a veteran of the Kriegsmarine, Wolfgang Peterson’s career best film is a startlingly authentic portrayal of a U-96 boat and its crew. As well as the excitement and fear that comes with the battles, the seemingly endless tedium of unsuccessful hunts are equally powerful. It isn’t glamorous and it isn’t heroic; it’s grimy, gritty and psychologically draining viewing. 

Come and See (1985)
A Soviet war drama directed by Elem Klimov, Come and See continued the cinematic shift away from the physical impact of World War II, focusing more on the psychological damage inflicted on those who fought. A young Belarusian boy finds a rifle and joins up to fight with the Soviet partisan forces.  A sorrowful coming-of-age tale, the young boy’s youth and innocence is torn from him bit by bit as the horrors of World War II unfold, with each battle taking its toll. He moves further away from the boy we are first introduced to, his face becoming more etched with the wretched look of a man only those who have experience warfare can recognise. Influenced by Tarkovsky’s camerawork in Ivan’s Childhood, the story is largely told from the boy’s point of view, as he edges ever closer to mental collapse, at one point seeing Adolf Hitler’s face in a puddle at his feet.

1990s

Life is Beautiful (1997)
Roberto Benigni’s equally charming haunting story of a man’s sense of romance and adventure in the face of the Holocaust rightly won him an Oscar in 1997. As the director, writer and star, Benigni is responsible for one of the most tragic accounts of that particular part of World War II, as the charismatic, clownish Guido uses all of the charm and humour to hide his son from the senseless terror of the concentration camp in which they are detained. Attempting to keep his family together, he pretends the entire experience is a game for which the grand prize is a tank. A very different look at one of the darkest hours in the history of mankind, made all the more painful to see through the eyes of a father desperately using all of his abilities to protect the innocence of his child the only way he can. 

The Thin Red Line (1998)
Terrence Malick might be one of the greatest living filmmakers, but he is widely despised by many of the actors that have worked for him. And who can blame them, for it was only at the premier of The Thin Red Line that Adrian Brody discovered that his role, the lead in the original script, had been almost cut entirely and replaced with the storyline of Jim Cavieziel’s character, whose role had been minor during the shoot. Malick notoriously shoots enough footage to make a dozen different films during each production, and whatever his route to get there, he ended up with one of the most stunning war films ever made. The conflict in the Pacific is far less known to British audiences, to whom the fighting across Europe and North Africa is naturally more familiar. But it was between the Japanese and American forces that some of the most ferocious and bloody combat took place, none more so than the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942-43. With an astounding cast that included Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Ben Chaplin, John Cusack, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto, John Travolta, George Clooney and Miranda Otto, Malick’s masterpiece is a mesmeric, poetic exploration of the jarring dichotomy between the picturesque, paradise-like landscape and the barbaric, hand-to-hand jungle warfare between American and Japanese forces on the South-Western Pacific island. 

2000s

Downfall (2004)
Before it became the go-to YouTube clip to be altered for everyone’s entertainment, Bruno Ganz’s powerful performance as Adolf Hilter during his last days in the Berlin bunker provided the best on-screen portrayal of the Führer to date. Told through the perspective of Traudl Junge, his final secretary, it is a fascinating illustration of the chaos into which Germany descended following the declaration of ‘Total War’ in 1945. Although as a viewer you never feel anything near sympathy towards Hitler, his manic bursts of verbal anger at the perceived betrayal by the German people and his loyal Generals, and his shaking, wretched physicality do help remind you that behind the hatred, insanity and caricature lay a living, breathing human being. 

Katyn (2007)
The second film on the list by Polish master Andrzej Wajda, Katyn focuses on the infamous massacre in which his own father was butchered by the Soviets in 1940. During the slaughter, in which 22,000 people were killed, Soviet Secret Police rounded up Polish officers, police and arrested Polish intelligentsia that were deemed to be “intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests.” Although the German discovery of the mass graves was announced in 1943, it took until 1990 for the Soviet Union to accept responsibility for the killings. Wajda’s brutal film is split in two parts; the first follows the lives of several Polish officers and citizens as the Soviet threat edges closer. The second half is one of the most uncomfortable and utterly ruthless depictions of human barbarity ever filmed, as man after man after man is slaughtered with chilling efficiency. Unaware of their fate until the very last moment, each man is led into a windowless room deep in the Katyn Forest, where, hands tied behind their backs, they are shot in the back of the head and their bodies disposed of into a mass grave. The room is washed down, their executioner’s pistol re-loaded and the next man is led in to discover his fate. Some meet it stoically, others struggle upon realisation, but all are killed with the simple, routine efficacy of an abattoir. It is the unrelenting, seemingly endless stream of men that is so shocking. Men who we have got to know for the last hour are butchered without the least bit of ceremony. Just entry, execution, exit. Entry, execution, exit. Time after time.  Knowing that one of those countless men would have been Wajda’s own father only helps make this remarkable film even more powerful.