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The Best World War II Movies

Contents

Combat — Western Europe, the Atlantic & North Africa
Combat — the Eastern Front
Combat — the Pacific & Burma
The Holocaust — narrative
The Holocaust — documentary & essay
Occupation & Resistance — Western Europe
Occupation & Resistance — Poland, Czechoslovakia & the Balkans
The Second Sino-Japanese War & occupied Asia
The Japanese home front & the atomic bombings
The Allied home front
The rise of fascism, 1931–1939
West African soldiers & the French Empire
Aftermath, 1945 onward
Perpetrators & trials

Combat — Western Europe, the Atlantic & North Africa

Das Boot (1981)
Wolfgang Petersen · 2 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on fuboTV
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Steven Spielberg · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Paramount+ Amazon Channel
As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.
Western Approaches (1944)
Pat Jackson · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Fandango at Home Free
A World War II drama-documentary showing the struggles of Merchant Navy seamen following an attack by a U-Boat. Western Approaches is a vast area of ocean control covering thousands of square miles of the Atlantic. In these waters is set this single incident in the fiercest and longest sea battle in history. The players are not professional actors but serving officers and men of Allied Navies and Merchant Fleets. This film is dedicated to them and their comrades who made the Allied victory possible.
Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Henry King · 1 critic vote
In the early days of daylight bombing raids over Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a 'hard luck' bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets.
Catch-22 (1970)
Mike Nichols · 1 critic vote
Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on MGM Plus, fuboTV, MGM+ Amazon Channel
A WWII military pilot makes a valiant effort to be certified insane in order to be excused from flying missions. But there's a catch.
Patton (1970)
Franklin J. Schaffner · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.
Dunkirk (2017)
Christopher Nolan · 1 critic vote
Streaming on fuboTV, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel
The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.
The English Patient (1996)
Anthony Minghella · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, fuboTV
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.
Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
Billy Wilder · 1 critic vote
During the 1942 North African campaign, a British straggler passes as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Erwin Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may provide an even better use.
Decision before Dawn (1951)
Anatole Litvak · 1 critic vote
Streaming on fuboTV
WWII is entering its last phase: Germany is in ruins, but does not yield. The US army lacks crucial knowledge about the German units operating on the opposite side of the Rhine, and decides to send two German prisoners to gather information. The scheme is risky: the Gestapo retains a terribly efficient network to identify and capture spies and deserters. Moreover, it is not clear that "Tiger", who does not mind any dirty work as long as the price is right, and war-weary "Happy", who might be easily betrayed by his feelings, are dependable agents. After Tiger and another American agent are successfully infiltrated, Happy is parachuted in Bavaria. His duty: find out the whereabouts of a powerful German armored unit moving towards the western front.

Combat — the Eastern Front

Come and See (1985)
Elem Klimov · 43 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
The Ascent (1977)
Larisa Shepitko · 34 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.
The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
Mikhail Kalatozov · 15 critic votes
Free on Darkroom, Artiflix, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Criterion Channel
Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.
Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Andrei Tarkovsky · 6 critic votes
Free on Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Criterion Channel
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.
Twenty Days Without War (1977)
Aleksei Yuryevich German · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Klassiki
War correspondent Lopatin takes a 20-day-leave from his hard work at the front in 1942. He travels to faraway Tashkent to meet the family of the killed soldier and visit the film set of the screen adaptation of his war-time stories. Lopatin also manages to walk the streets of Tashkent, take part in a factory workers' meeting and have a short-lived love affair. Although with no bombings and fighting, the city dwellers breathe the atmosphere of the ongoing war.
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
Douglas Sirk · 2 critic votes
A German soldier home on leave falls in love with a girl, then returns to World War II.
YA VIZHU SOLNTZE (1965)
Lana Gogoberidze · 1 critic vote
In Georgia during WWII Zurikela, an orphan boy, meets Khatia, a blind girl, and vows to help her to see again.

Combat — the Pacific & Burma

The Thin Red Line (1999)
Terrence Malick · 12 critic votes
The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)
Kazuo Hara · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old veteran of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives to find the truth behind atrocities committed by Japanese military, in particular the unexplained killing of two Japanese privates in his unit.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
Nagisa Ōshima · 3 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free, Shout! Factory TV · Streaming on Criterion Channel, YouTube TV
Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
David Lean · 2 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
The Burmese Harp (1956)
Kon Ichikawa · 1 critic vote
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Criterion Channel
In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
Fires on the Plain (1959)
Kon Ichikawa · 1 critic vote
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel
In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.
The Sea and Poison (1986)
Kei Kumai · 1 critic vote
Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American air crew.
They Were Expendable (1945)
John Ford, Robert Montgomery · 3 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Plex, Plex Channel
After a demonstration of new PT boats, Navy brass are still unconvinced of their viability in combat, leaving Lt. "Rusty" Ryan frustrated. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Ryan and his buddy Lt. Brickley are told they can finally take their squadron into battle. The PT boats quickly prove their worth, successfully shooting down Japanese planes, relaying messages between islands, and picking off a multitude of enemy ships.
Anatahan (1953)
Josef von Sternberg · 2 critic votes
Free on Mometu · Streaming on FlixFling, Kino Film Collection
From June 1944, twelve Japanese seamen are stranded for seven years on an abandoned and forgotten island called Anatahan.
Objective, Burma! (1945)
Raoul Walsh · 1 critic vote
A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle.
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Fred Zinnemann · 1 critic vote
Free on The Roku Channel · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.

The Holocaust — narrative

Schindler's List (1993)
Steven Spielberg · 11 critic votes
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Seven Beauties (1975)
Lina Wertmüller · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
Pasqualino Frafuso, known in Naples as "Pasqualino Seven Beauties" is a petty thief who lives off of the profits of his seven sisters while claiming to protect their honor at any cost, Pasqualino is arrested for murder and later sent to fight in the army after committing sexual assault. The Germans capture him and he gets sent to a concentration camp where he plots to make his escape by seducing a German officer.
Ida (2013)
Paweł Pawlikowski · 6 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Fandango at Home Free, Plex · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, MUBI, Kanopy
In 1960s Poland, young novitiate Anna is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.
Diamonds of the Night (1964)
Jan Němec · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Beyond themes of war and anti-Nazism, the film concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.
Son of Saul (2015)
László Nemes · 5 critic votes
In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son, seeking to give him a proper Jewish burial.
The Cremator (1969)
Juraj Herz · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, DocAlliance Films
In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.
Monsieur Klein (1976)
Joseph Losey · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.
The Pianist (2002)
Roman Polanski · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Jonathan Glazer · 3 critic votes
Free on The Roku Channel
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Phoenix (2014)
Christian Petzold · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Sundance Now, Kanopy, MUBI Amazon Channel
In the aftermath of WWII, German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly has to undergo facial reconstructive surgery following her survival from Auschwitz. Without recognising Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he's betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelgänger.
The Last Stage (1948)
Wanda Jakubowska · 1 critic vote
Poland, during World War II. Martha Weiss, a Jewish woman, arrives at the Auschwitz extermination camp with her family. She is assigned the role of interpreter, but her loved ones are much less fortunate.
The Shop on Main Street (1965)
Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Vittorio De Sica · 1 critic vote
Streaming on MGM Plus, fuboTV, MGM+ Amazon Channel
In 1930s Italy, a wealthy Jewish family tries to maintain their privileged lifestyle, hosting friends for tennis and parties at their villa. As anti-Semitism intensifies under Fascism, they must ultimately face the horrors of the Holocaust.
Au revoir les enfants (1987)
Louis Malle · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
Europa Europa (1990)
Agnieszka Holland · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
Korczak (1990)
Andrzej Wajda · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.
Life Is Beautiful (1997)
Roberto Benigni · 3 critic votes
Streaming on MGM Plus, fuboTV, Paramount+ Amazon Channel
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
The Night Porter (1974)
Liliana Cavani · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.
In Darkness (2011)
Agnieszka Holland · 1 critic vote
A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied city of Lviv. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lviv (formerly Poland).
The Painted Bird (2020)
Václav Marhoul · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Sundance Now, Kanopy, AMC+
After losing his parents, a young Jewish boy wanders Eastern Europe, seeking refuge during World War II.

The Holocaust — documentary & essay

Shoah (1985)
Claude Lanzmann · 73 critic votes
Streaming on Philo
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
Night and Fog (1956)
Alain Resnais · 10 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989)
Harun Farocki · 5 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
Farocki’s intriguing and troubling film explores the processes of visual perception and how they affect our understanding of history and society. In a work reminiscent of the writings of Paul Virilio and Michel Foucault, Farocki examines a range of phenomena including aerial reconnaissance photos of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Att vara zigenare (1970)
Peter Nestler · 1 critic vote
Roma and Sinti people talk about their experiences in the Third Reich and the Federal Republic of Germany, inspired by Otto Pankok’s paintings of Romani theme and subject in the 1930s, declared degenerate art by the Nazis. These are moving narratives of persecution, discrimination, marginalisation, of life as second-class human beings, all of which lasts, incredibly enough, right up to the allegedly democratic present day of the film, since they live in inhumane conditions in barracks at the margins of cities and society and are not officially recognised as Nazi victims. Long, nearly uncut sequences open space for the people and their stories. That’s all it takes for one of Peter and Zsóka Nestler’s most important works.
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (2014)
Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Alfred Hitchcock · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Chai Flicks
On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).
The Dead Nation (2017)
Radu Jude · 1 critic vote
Free on Cineverse
A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
Shoah: Four Sisters (2018)
Claude Lanzmann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Cohen Media Amazon Channel
Since 1999, Claude Lanzmann has made several films that could be considered satellites of Shoah, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. He has just completed a series of four new films, built around four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself unexpectedly and improbably alive after war’s end.
Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland (1975)
Günter Peter Straschek · 1 critic vote
Brussels - Transit (1980)
Samy Szlingerbaum · 1 critic vote
Samy Szlingerbaum made his film Dakh-Brisel (Brussels-Transit) in 1980, thirty years after any Yiddish feature film had been produced. Szlingerbaum felt that the only way he could relate the story of his family’s search for refuge after World War II was in Yiddish. This Belgian-based filmmaker, deeply impacted by New York experimental cinema, gives us a masterful blend of powerful drama and stark documentary to tell the story of postwar European Jewry. Home, as it had been, no longer exists, and all that Samy’s family wants is a place in which to sink new roots.
Dis-moi (1980)
Chantal Akerman · 1 critic vote
Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and listens to their family stories. Between interviews, Akerman's mother Natalia speaks of her own family. Made for a French miniseries on grandmothers.
The Ties That Bind (1984)
Su Friedrich · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
The Ties That Bind is an experimental documentary about the filmmaker's mother, who was born and lived in southern Germany from 1920-1950. Through a mixture of personal anecdote and social history, she describes the rise of Nazism, the war years, and the Allied occupation, during which she met her future husband, an American soldier. The Ties That Bind breaks with the usual format of war documentaries, thus allowing a different portrait of the individual to emerge, while it reflects on the current political situation in America and the filmmaker's activities in relation to those issues.
Die PAPIERENE BRÜCKE (1987)
Ruth Beckermann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on True Story, DocAlliance Films, myfilmfriend
Beckermann's parents met in Vienna after the Holocaust. Tracing the migratory paths of her family before World War II, Beckerman returns to the European Jewish communities which inspired her childhood stories.
Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann (1999)
Volker Koepp · 1 critic vote
In the west of Ukraine, not far from the border to Romania, there is a faraway European city: Chernivtsi. It was once the centre of Jewish culture in the Bukowina, a border area characterized over centuries by a multi-cultural mixture of peoples. Here, Ukrainians, Poles, Romanians, Germans and Jews lived side by side. Volker Koepp’s film focuses on Mr. Zwilling and Mrs. Zuckermann, two of the last few Jews born in the old Chernivtsi/Czernowitz. They share a friendship but also their love for the German language. Mr. Zwilling visits 90-year-old Mrs. Zuckermann daily in the early hours of the evening. They talk about old times, about shared events, about politics and literature and the worries of everyday life.
Mein Leben Teil 2 (2003)
Angelika Levi · 1 critic vote
By means of objects, photos, tapes and films, director Angelika Levi, half-German, half-Jewish, examines the story of her family. The film deals with trauma and the way history is produced, filed away, turned into discourse and ordered on macro and micro levels.

Occupation & Resistance — Western Europe

A Man Escaped (1956)
Robert Bresson · 45 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.
Casablanca (1942)
Michael Curtiz · 43 critic votes
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Paisà (1946)
Roberto Rossellini · 17 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.
Army of Shadows (1969)
Jean-Pierre Melville · 17 critic votes
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
Rome, Open City (1945)
Roberto Rossellini · 16 critic votes
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Quentin Tarantino · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Hulu, Fawesome
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.
Forbidden Games (1952)
René Clément · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Darkroom
Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.
Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
Louis Malle · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In Louis Malle's lauded drama, Lucien Lacombe is a young man living in rural France during World War II who seeks to join the French Resistance. When he is rejected due to his youth, the resentful Lucien allies himself with the Nazis and joins the Gallic arm of their Gestapo. Lucien grows to enjoy the power that comes with his position, but his life is complicated when he falls for France Horn, a beautiful young Jewish woman.
Two Women (1960)
Vittorio De Sica · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, Cineverse, Mometu · Streaming on Kanopy, Fawesome
A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.
The Train (1964)
John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Howard Hawks · 4 critic votes
A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.
A Difficult Life (1961)
Dino Risi · 3 critic votes
Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.
The Man Who Lies (1968)
Alain Robbe-Grillet, Martin Hollý ml. · 1 critic vote
A man may or may not have betrayed a resistance fighter during World War II. He has supposedly been shot down by the Nazis and wanders into town. Mourning the death of an unseen comrade, he is taken in by the family of the dead rebel. He engages in a superfluous affair and witnesses the lesbian relationship between the man's sister and a female servant. When passions subside, the family has doubts about the reliability of the man's story.
The Train (1973)
Pierre Granier-Deferre · 1 critic vote
Free on Plex, Plex Channel
Two people, a Frenchman and a Jewish German woman, meet on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

Occupation & Resistance — Poland, Czechoslovakia & the Balkans

To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Ernst Lubitsch · 31 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Andrzej Wajda · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.
Underground (1995)
Emir Kusturica · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslav Civil War of the 1990s as Marko sees the opportunity to exploit the situation.
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
Jiří Menzel · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, Klassiki
At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.
Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
Fritz Lang · 2 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Hoopla
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.
Canal (1957)
Andrzej Wajda · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.
Three Annas (1959)
Branko Bauer · 1 critic vote
A retired tram driver tries to find his daughter named Ana whom he lost in the Second World War.
How to Be Loved (1963)
Wojciech Jerzy Has · 1 critic vote
An actress travels from Warsaw to Paris and during the trip reflects on the last few years of her life. It goes back to the German occupation and her hiding of a fellow actor who has supposedly killed a collaborator.
NAI-DULGATA NOSHT (1967)
Vulo Radev · 1 critic vote
The action takes place during the Second World War. Unexpectedly in a train compartment a fugitive - British captive - appears among the passengers. The human solidarity is stronger than the fear, and they do their best to save him.
The Tied Up Balloon (1967)
Binka Zhelyazkova · 1 critic vote
A barrage balloon appears unexpectedly over a Bulgarian village during World War II. The startled villagers decide to knock it down with a fusillade yet the balloon flies off to the mountains. The villagers, armed to their teeth, set off after it. But they are not alone in this undertaking...
Innocence Unprotected (1968)
Dušan Makavejev · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A documentary about the famous athlete and movie enthusiast who made Serbia's first sound film, Innocence Unprotected. The Nazi occupation of Belgrade prevented the film from gaining wider acclaim. Director Makavejev intersperses clips of the original film with interviews of surviving cast and crew members, as well as newsreel and archival footage.
The Last Word (1973)
Binka Zhelyazkova · 1 critic vote
The seven women inmates in Poslednata Duma are imprisoned because they have been associated with partisans opposing the fascist puppet government of the German Nazis. Each of them has the power to save herself if she will betray the others, and each bravely refuses to do so, even though it means they all will die. Despite their grim situation, and the atrocities perpetuated on them as political prisoners, they manage to laugh, and even celebrate a festival.

The Second Sino-Japanese War & occupied Asia

The Puppetmaster (1993)
Hou Hsiao-Hsien · 11 critic votes
Master puppeteer Li Tien-lu recalls his life in Japanese-occupied Taiwan during the first half of the 20th century.
Lust, Caution (2007)
Ang Lee · 3 critic votes
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.
Red Sorghum (1988)
Zhang Yimou · 2 critic votes
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
The Human Condition (1959)
Masaki Kobayashi · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labour chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts and moves with his newlywed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)
Masaki Kobayashi · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
Three Years Without God (1976)
Mario O'Hara · 1 critic vote
Set during World War II, Rosario, a school teacher, enters a forbidden relationship with a Japanese soldier, Masugi.
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Steven Spielberg · 1 critic vote
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Devils on the Doorstep (2000)
Jiang Wen · 1 critic vote
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?
Saturday Fiction (2020)
Lou Ye · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Strand Releasing Amazon Channel
Iconic actress Jean Yu returns to Japanese-occupied China to star in a play directed by her former lover. However, her undercover work for the Allies soon places her life in grave danger.
The Golden Era (2014)
Ann Hui · 1 critic vote
Free on Pluto TV, Fandango at Home Free · Streaming on OVID
The story of writer Xiao Hong comes alive through memories of her great love affair, literary influence and escape from China during World War II.

The Japanese home front & the atomic bombings

Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
Alain Resnais · 22 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, Darkroom
The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Isao Takahata · 16 critic votes
Streaming on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
Black Rain (1988)
Shohei Imamura · 3 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, ARROW
Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.
Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2012)
Nobuhiko Obayashi · 1 critic vote
Free on Cineverse · Streaming on Fandor, Fandor Amazon Channel, OVID
In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a journalist arrives in Nagaoka, a city decimated during a WWII air raid and by the 2004 Chūetsu earthquakes, to report on the disaster; there, she learns about the experiences of its inhabitants and stumbles upon a stage play written by an enigmatic student of her ex-boyfriend.
The Wind Rises (2013)
Hayao Miyazaki · 1 critic vote
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Hayao Miyazaki · 1 critic vote
Streaming on HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."

The Allied home front

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger · 16 critic votes
Free on Darkroom, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger · 12 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on fuboTV, Criterion Channel
Three modern-day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town while on their way to Canterbury.
Listen to Britain (1942)
Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, OVID
A depiction of life in wartime Britain during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.
Went the Day Well? (1942)
Alberto Cavalcanti · 4 critic votes
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Hoopla, BFI Player Amazon Channel
The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.
A Diary for Timothy (1945)
Humphrey Jennings · 4 critic votes
Streaming on OVID
A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Christopher Nolan · 3 critic votes
Free on Fandango at Home Free · Streaming on Peacock Premium, Peacock Premium Plus, YouTube TV
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Millions like Us (1943)
Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on TCM, YouTube TV
When Celia Crowson is called up for war service, she hopes for a glamorous job in one of the services, but as a single girl, she is directed into a factory making aircraft parts. Here she meets other girls from all different walks of life and begins a relationship with a young airman.
Topaz (1945)
Dave Tatsuno · 1 critic vote
This documentary was secretly and 'illegally' shot inside the prison camps, established during World War II by American authorities to detain US citizens of Japanese descent who were considered a potential threat to national security.
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
Preston Sturges · 4 critic votes
Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge.
The More the Merrier (1943)
George Stevens · 1 critic vote
Free on The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on YouTube TV
It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.

The rise of fascism, 1931–1939

The Conformist (1970)
Bernardo Bertolucci · 35 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Cabaret (1972)
Bob Fosse · 11 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free, Plex · Streaming on Hoopla
Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Charlie Chaplin · 9 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free, Shout! Factory TV, Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, fuboTV
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
The Damned (1969)
Luchino Visconti · 4 critic votes
In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.
A Special Day (1977)
Ettore Scola · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Two neighbours — a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife — forge a strong bond on the day of Adolf Hitler's historic 1938 visit to Rome.
The Mortal Storm (1940)
Frank Borzage · 2 critic votes
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
The Tin Drum (1979)
Volker Schlöndorff · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
A Hidden Life (2019)
Terrence Malick · 1 critic vote
Streaming on FXNow, fuboTV, YouTube TV
Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Alfred Hitchcock · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Hoopla, Criterion Channel, TCM
American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.
The Remains of the Day (1993)
James Ivory · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

West African soldiers & the French Empire

Camp de Thiaroye (1987)
Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow · 3 critic votes
A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers are Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts.
Emitaï (1971)
Ousmane Sembène · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
As World War II rages in Europe, a conflict arises between the French and the Diola-speaking tribe of Africa, prompting the village women to organize their men to sit beneath a tree to pray.

Aftermath, 1945 onward

The Third Man (1949)
Carol Reed · 45 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, BFI Player Amazon Channel, IndieFlix
In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.
Spring in a Small Town (1948)
Fei Mu · 14 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies, Darkroom · Streaming on FlixFling
A married couple living in a desolate small town in post-WWII China are paid a surprise visit by an old friend of the husband's.
Germany, Year Zero (1948)
Roberto Rossellini · 12 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
William Wyler · 11 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free, Pluto TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Hoopla
It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.
A Foreign Affair (1948)
Billy Wilder · 1 critic vote
In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.
Der Verlorene (1951)
Peter Lorre · 1 critic vote
A German scientist murders his fiancée during World War II when he learns that she has been selling the results of his secret research to the enemy.
Germany, Pale Mother (1980)
Helma Sanders-Brahms · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.
Europa (1991)
Lars von Trier · 1 critic vote
Streaming on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel
Just after World War II, an American takes a railway job in Germany, but finds his position politically sensitive with various people trying to use him.
Lore (2012)
Cate Shortland · 1 critic vote
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom, YOW.tv · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.
Notorious (1946)
Alfred Hitchcock · 26 critic votes
Free on Plex, Plex Channel, Mometu · Streaming on FlixFling, IndieFlix, IndieFlix Shorts Amazon Channel
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.
Floating Clouds (1955)
Mikio Naruse · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.
We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
Ettore Scola · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Three partisans bound by a strong friendship return home after the war, but the clash with everyday reality puts a strain on their bond.
The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)
Yasujirō Ozu · 1 critic vote
Free on Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Criterion Channel, Fawesome
A hard-hearted old woman in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood reluctantly takes in an abandoned boy, leading to a heartwarming bond between them.
A Hen in the Wind (1948)
Yasujirō Ozu · 1 critic vote
Free on Plex, Cineverse, Plex Channel · Streaming on Fandor, Fandor Amazon Channel, Criterion Channel
Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.
Love Letter (1953)
Kinuyo Tanaka · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.
Nobody’s Calling (1960)
Kazimierz Kutz · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Klassiki
Shortly after World War 2 a young man arrives on the Recovered Territories and starts a romance with a young woman, all the while evading the ghosts of his past.

Perpetrators & trials

The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
Marcel Ophuls · 4 critic votes
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988)
Marcel Ophuls · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, OVID
Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape—with U.S. help—to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.
Hitler: A Film from Germany (1977)
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg · 3 critic votes
A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.
The Last Ten Days (1955)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Albin Skoda embodies a frantic Adolf Hitler in his last days, scrambling to keep the Third Reich alive as morale within the bunker wanes and Berlin is encircled by enemy troops. Based on Michael A. Musmanno's book Ten Days to Die, Oscar Werner costars as fictional Nazi Hauptmann Wüst, a disillusioned middleman.
The Memory of Justice (1976)
Marcel Ophuls · 1 critic vote
This exceptional, disturbing, and thought-provoking two-part documentary compares the atrocities committed by the Nazis as revealed during the Nuremberg trials to those committed by the French in Algeria and those done by the Americans in Vietnam. The four-hour epic questions the right of any country to pass self-righteous moral judgements upon the actions of another country.
Our Nazi (1984)
Robert Kramer · 2 critic votes
In Our Nazi, we are plunged into a situation we barely, and only slowly, understand: the filming of Thomas Harlan’s experimental feature Wundkanal (1984), in which true-life ex-SS officer Alfred Filbert, now very old, is ‘put on trial’ for the camera, without him suspecting what is to come or why he is really there. Kramer’s confronting film is an essay about the sticky complicity of everyone present at this event, each bringing their own history, their own political ideology, their own desires to take revenge, to seek redemption or compassion, or just to put their heads down and ‘get the job done’ professionally, or (in the case of Filbert) to be a star, a part of the magnificent, magical, seductive world of cinema, even if it kills him.

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