WWII Movie Recommendations? (1 Viewer)

[Rob P S]

Memphis Belle
A Midnight Clear

 

[Werner_R]

Desert Fox: The story of Rommel

Great movie with a good performance by James Mason.

 

[Gary Q]

How about a documentary, the best, IMO, on WWII?
The World at War is on DVD. It’s a five volume boxed set and isn't cheap, but it is something you will watch repeatedly.
A series made in the early 70’s by British TV, and narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, with 26 episodes and 8 hours of bonus features, it’s the definitive WWII documentary.
Gary

 

[Jeremy Illingworth]

I guess I'm in the minority not liking The Big Red One. Over all its was good but some parts (like D Day) were so super weak that I couldn't enjoy it. But that's just me.

jeremy

 

[Karl_Luph]

Brian E., Battle of Britain is coming out on dvd supposedly in May! Another good WW2 movies of course are Kelly's Heroes and Where Eagles Dare.

 

[Stephen Valente]

Some lesser know British War movies include:

Operation Amsterdam (R1 soon)
The Wooden Horse
The Enemy Within

Also:

Ice Cold In Alex (av. R2)
The Dambusters (av. R2)
633 Squadron (R1 soon)
Operation Daybreak
The Heroes Of Telemark (R2 August)
The Man Who Never Was
Hannibal Brooks
Sink The Bismarck (R1 soon)
Tobruk
Anzio (av. R1)

No doubt I've omitted loads more other than those already mentioned.

Would love to find a good movie covering the battle of Monte Cassino given my dad was born there and saw things first hand as a kid, but cannot find one, even on VHS (apart from documentaries of course).

 

[Ricardo C]

The Tuskegee Airmen

 

[Edwin-S]

Catch 22

 

[Matt<>Broon]

I can't recommend 'Das Boot' enough. Really a great film. and the directors cut SE DVD is pretty decent too.

I didn't see a recommendation for Cross of Iron which is another terrific WWII film.

 

[Michael Hughes]

Great Escape, They Were Expenedable, Stalag 17, Mister Roberts, 12 O'clock High, Casablanca, Run Silent Run Deep, Best Years of Our Lives, 39 Steps (sort of)

I just threw your stinkin? palm tree overboard. Now what?s this about no movie tonight?

Best Movie Quote ever, just Watch Mister Roberts and tell me that is not a great great movie..

 

[Terry St]

What I'm looking for is meaningful, authentic movies, not your John Wayne, Hollywood propaganda type films. I already have some of my favorites Saving Private Ryan, Thin Red Line, Bridge On The River Kwai and Patton.

"The Thin Red Line" did a great job of examining the darker side of human nature that emerges amidst the chaos of war. George C. Scott was amazing in Patton. Bridge on the River Kwai was excellent, especially Alec Guinness, even if it is guilty of glamorizing the material to a rather large extent. (The brits really needed some escapist tales of the glorified past in the 50's. It must have been pretty bleak to have gone from a world-spanning empire and global super-power to a bombed out and relatively insignificant island state.) Saving Private Ryan is basically a modern version of the hollywood propaganda you say you'd like to avoid though. Sure, the battles are realistic, but from watching this film you'd figure the U.S. conducted D-Day entirely on their own. SPR could have easily been used to pump up WWII troops. It would have scared the heck out of them, but would have really made them hate the Germans. (Dehumanizing the enemy is Priority #1 for a propaganda film.) The Thin Red Line, by comparison, would have made soldiers stop and think, which aren't necessarily good things for a soldier to do.
Hell in the South Pacific:
I'm not sure if it's out on DVD, but "Hell in the South Pacific", starring Toshiro Mifune, has always been fairly high up on my list of movies set in WWII. Two soldiers, one American and one Japanese, are stranded on the same desert island. Their hatred for one another is at odds with their survival in a hostile environment. I won't spoil it any more for you. There are some good plot twists. While it doesn't have any epic battle scenes, "Hell in the South Pacific" did a great job of examining the relationship between people that have been conditioned to unconditionally hate each other.
Das Boot:
As many above have, I too strongly recommend Das Boot. This is, bar none, the most realistic WWII film I've ever seen. It doesn't have SPR's big-budget battle scenes or CG gibbage. Frankly, it doesn't need them. Submarine films generally tend to be technically undemanding and inexpensive to film, compared to land-war epics at least. One claustrophobic cut-away set and some model shots are pretty much all you need. However, Wolfgang Petersen's attention to realism and detail goes well beyond what is typically seen in other films of the genre. The script and acting are equally stunning. While SPR is a bit difficult to watch the first time, thanks to the unrelenting gore, it loses a lot of its impact on later viewings. Das Boot, on the other hand, never fails to completely involve me with the fate of the German U-boat crew that, historically, should be my enemy. Above all, Das Boot is an absolutely stirring film about the insanity, the bravery, and above all the humanity of WWII U-Boat crews.
There is a Superbit release of Das Boot that came out recently, but the older release is also very good. Das Boot makes excellent use of multichannel sound to place you in that German U-Boat. The hair on your neck will stand on end with that of the crew's as a allied destroyers pass by overhead. There is also an unusually well done English dub on these discs. Many of the principle actors were fluent in English, and dubbed their own parts. Unfortunately, the English translation takes some liberties with meaning, and goes to great pains to clean up much of the sailor profanity. If that alone doesn't convince you to watch Das Boot in it's original German language, then I will also point out that there is some English in the German track that totally loses its dramatic impact for English speaking audiences when the Germans are also speaking English. (I won't say any more for fear of spoiling it for you.)
Das Boot is a long movie, but apparently it was originally a television mini-series. Someday I'd love to see the full mini-series, but I can't imagine it being better than the director's movie cut available on DVD.

 

[Edwin-S]

Americans gunning down unarmed and surrendering soldiers. It depicted a turkey shoot where American soldiers fired repeatedly into a trench full of retreating Germans.

.
Edit: Forgot to spoilerize a couple of points. Corrected.

 

[Holadem]

What Edwin said.

--
Holadem

 

[Terry St]

I'm gonna get some serious flack for that comment on a predominantly American message board. While it is probably futile, I still ask that you at least attempt to set aside your patriotism for a minute and examine the film with a more dispassionate eye. The German side of this conflict goes completely untold in SPR. The Germans are portrayed as faceless automatons and killing machines. Some brutality against them was indeed portrayed at Omaha, but with a very sympathetic eye because of what the americans had just gone through at german hands. Consider the images of american soldiers collecting teeth in front of living POW's in the Thin Red Line for a less sympathetic comparison. The one german who did have a face, and actual speaking lines, turned out to be a dishonorable liar. Showing him mercy got several protagonists killed.
I agree that this film would be very frightening for an allied soldier to watch before combat, but he might have taken some life saving "lessons" from it. After seeing this film, a soldier would see germans as untrustworthy, faceless killers. While mercy is a virtue, it could easily get him or his friends killed. A soldier who has seen SPR, while perhaps more frightened, would also be a lot less likely to hesitate to pull that trigger. Fear can be a healthy thing. Also, while dying for your country only requires your physical presence, killing for your country takes will and purpose; things that SPR would galvanize.
Anyways, as a general rule, any film that dedicates several minutes to closeups of a nation's flag with emotionally manipulative music, and even better yet, teary eyed veterans, is guilty of pulling patriotic strings. Even if it's your own flag this should sound some alarms in the back of your head. Try to think about how, as americans, you would feel about SPR if, for example, that had been a british flag up there.
That's my opinion anyways. SPR isn't complete and utter propaganda. Several things were well done, such as the explanation of the sniper shooting american runners. (i.e. "We'd do the same") Most hollywood war films from the 40's and 50's were a lot worse. Still, SPR is definately the product of a patriotic american hollywood director. Feel free to vent on me. I probably didn't change your minds and you won't change mine. I am closing my participation in this thread though, since, if I shut up, it might get back on track after bashing me for a bit.

 

[Karl_Luph]

I think I'd feel the same way if it was a British flag flying in the movie SPR. There were alot of boys from England that died in the invasion during D-day. There's nothing pretty about war, war is hell. Another fine dvd series I recently saw was Band of Brothers. There was a scene that touched my heart towards the end where a German general wanted to officially and with honor, surrender his command and army to the Allied forces.I couldn't help but feel respect for the German soldiers, knowing they had been defeated,& that they had put up a hell of a fight.

 

[Brice]

someone said Stalingrad... i thought that movie was great, it was an independant film right? i remember it not being rated in any way... my dad rented it and i got hooked, and then a month later, he rented it again... and i got hooked again... just like how BOB is great, i really am a sucker for great war films... I enjoyed SPR, but I thought since BOB was a lot longer as a whole, the characters were better and the story was more personal... well, that's my $0.02

Brice

 

[Sathyan]

Bad WWII movies (beyond the outright propaganda of Frank Capra) were made in the 1940s to 1960s offering one-dimensional analyses which are little more than adaptations of westerns - and this is what the "history" channel chooses to broadcast.

I do like some of the American comedies - Kelly's Heroes, Hogan's Heroes.

More serious UK/US: Sink the Bismarck, The Longest Day (this one along with SPR is a bit on the propaganda side, and bad propaganda at that), Where Eagles Dare, Desert Fox, A Bridge Too Far, Casablance, Schindler's List, Patton, River Kwai, bridge at remagen, hell to eternity, walk in the sun

I find the best ones are those which tell the story from a non-Anglo-American perspective:


Axis:
Germany:
Das Boot ****
Stalingrad ****
Europa ***1/2
Das Eiserne Kreuz ** (bad mix on DVD release)
Wheels of Terror **1/2
Die Brucke ***1/2

Japan:
Tora Tora Tora ***

Allies:
USSR:
Enemy at the Gates ****
Days of Glory **1/2
Idi i smotri ****
Letjat zhuravli ** (sort of a chick flick)
Sudba cheloveka **1/2

Poland:
Krajobraz po bitwie ***

France:
Le Dernier Metro - the 1980 not 1945 ***
Au Revoir Les Enfants ***
Train de vie **
Paris brule-t-il **
La bataille du rail **1/2
Lacombe Lucien *** (main character is a collaborator rather than a resister)
L'armee des ombres ***


Yugoslavia:
Sutjeska **1/2

Are there any Italian ones (or than the Mediterraneo type)? or of other countries?


--
Sathyan

 

[Edwin-S]

I think the word "propaganda" is being bandied about loosely when referring to movies such as SPR.
The definition of propaganda is (from dictionary.com):
The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.
Where, in SPR, is there evidence that the makers were espousing information supporting a doctrine or cause? Are people honestly going to say that depicting an American Flag flying at the beginning and end of the movie is propaganda? Is Ryan's breakdown at the end of the movie, propaganda? If it is, then I guess news footage taken at D-Day ceremonies, which show numerous veterans being overcome with emotion, is propaganda too.
I didn't see any evidence that Spielberg was trying to propagandize anybody with SPR. He told a story about a squad of Americans ordered to perform a mission that, in the chaotic circumstances of those times, bordered on the ludicrous.
Complaints that he didn't tell the German's side of the story are bizarre. The movie wasn't about Germans, so why would Spielberg waste film telling their side of the story.
The film was about Americans and their feelings over a mission that they thought, at first, was stupid. Even when they decide to complete the mission, it isn't because they believe in it. They try to finish the mission due to total self-interest. They hope that its completion will result in their being sent home.

 

[Karl_Luph]

Supposedly, Battle of Britain is to be released on dvd in a couple of weeks if not sooner. I've heard this one is pretty good.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Another documentary would be The Day After Trinity which, although is basically a bio. of Oppie, centers on the war years and the Manhatten Project.