Best War Movies

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front
IMDb: N/A
147

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically…

Rzhev

Rzhev

Rzhev
IMDb: N/A
113

During WW2, in 1942 and 1943, a series of not-so-well known yet bloody battles occurred near the town of Rzhev. Those battles received the name of ‘Rzhev Meat Grinder’. The…

Little Boy

Little Boy

Little Boy
IMDb: 7.4
106 min

An eight-year-old boy is willing to do whatever it takes to end World War II so he can bring his father home. The story reveals the indescribable love a father…

Incendies

Incendies

Incendies
IMDb: 8.3
130 min

A mother’s last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s acclaimed play, Incendies tells the…

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Inglourious Basterads

Inglourious Basterads

Inglourious Basterads
IMDb: 8.3
153 min

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…

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda
IMDb: 8.1
121 min

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the…

Downfall

Downfall

Downfall
IMDb: 8.2
156 min

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In…

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Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War
IMDb: N/A
149

When two brothers are forced to fight in the Korean War, the elder decides to take the riskiest missions if it will help shield the younger from battle.

The Pianist

The Pianist

The Pianist
IMDb: 8.5
150 min

The true story of pianist Wladyslaw 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…

Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down
IMDb: 7.7
144 min

When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy…

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor
IMDb: 6.2
183 min

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval…

Devils on the Doorstep

Devils on the Doorstep

Devils on the Doorstep
IMDb: N/A
139

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…

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line
IMDb: 7.6
170 min

Based on the graphic novel by James Jones, The Thin Red Line tells the story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and…

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan
IMDb: 8.6
169 min

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…

Life Is Beautiful

Life Is Beautiful

Life Is Beautiful
IMDb: 8.6
116 min

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…

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Braveheart

Braveheart

Braveheart
IMDb: 8.3
177 min

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord’s soldiers. This leads the village to…

To Live

To Live

To Live
IMDb: 8.3
133 min

Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.

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Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List
IMDb: 8.9
195 min

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.

Born on the Fourth of July

Born on the Fourth of July

Born on the Fourth of July
IMDb: 7.2
145 min

The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies
IMDb: 8.5
89 min

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…

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Goodbye Children

Goodbye Children

Goodbye Children
IMDb: N/A
105

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…

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket
IMDb: 8.3
116 min

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
Platoon

Platoon

Platoon
IMDb: 8.1
120 min

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Come and See

Come and See

Come and See
IMDb: 8.3
142 min

The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family’s wishes. There he meets a…

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Ran

Ran

Ran
IMDb: 8.2
162 min

In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how their new-found power will corrupt them.

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Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen
IMDb: N/A
83

A powerful statement against war, Barefoot Gen is a story about the effect of the atomic bomb on a boy’s life and the lives of the Japanese people. Based on…

The Boat

The Boat

The Boat
IMDb: 8.3
150 min

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…

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Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now
IMDb: 8.4
147 min

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, ”does not exist, nor will it ever exist.” His goal is to…

The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter
IMDb: 8.1
183 min

A group of working-class friends decides to enlist in the Army during the Vietnam War and finds it to be hellish chaos — not the noble venture they imagined. Before…

The Ascent

The Ascent

The Ascent
IMDb: N/A
111

Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep…

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
Army of Shadows

Army of Shadows

Army of Shadows
IMDb: N/A
147

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…

Andrei Rublev

Andrei Rublev

Andrei Rublev
IMDb: N/A
183

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually…

The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers
IMDb: N/A
121

Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty…

The War Game

The War Game

The War Game
IMDb: N/A
48

A docudrama depicting a hypothetical nuclear attack on Britain.

The Shop on Main Street

The Shop on Main Street

The Shop on Main Street
IMDb: N/A
128

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,…

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
The Great Escape

The Great Escape

The Great Escape
IMDb: N/A
173

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security ‘escape-proof’ camp to sit out…

Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia
IMDb: N/A
217

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence’s mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic…

Ivan’s Childhood

Ivan’s Childhood

Ivan’s Childhood
IMDb: N/A
95

During World War II, 12-year old Ivan works as a spy on the eastern front. The small Ivan can cross the German lines unnoticed to collect information. Three Soviet officers…

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier
IMDb: N/A
89

During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides…

Fires on the Plain

Fires on the Plain

Fires on the Plain
IMDb: N/A
108

In the closing days of WWII remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain starvation.

Genre: Best War, Drama, War
The Great War

The Great War

The Great War
IMDb: N/A
137

Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving…

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
IMDb: N/A
206

A Japanese pacifist and socialist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

The Cranes Are Flying

The Cranes Are Flying

The Cranes Are Flying
IMDb: N/A
97

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….

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai
IMDb: N/A
161

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…

Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory
IMDb: N/A
88

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

Stalag 17

Stalag 17

Stalag 17
IMDb: N/A
120

It’s a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17 and the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem—there seems to be…

Genre: Best War, War
The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives
IMDb: 8.0
172

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…

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven
IMDb: N/A
104

When a young airman miraculously survives bailing out of his aeroplane without a parachute, he falls in love with an American radio operator. But the officials in the other world…

Rome, Open City

Rome, Open City

Rome, Open City
IMDb: N/A
103

ROME, OPEN CITY is a landmark in film history. Filmed in secrecy during the Nazi occupation of Italy, the film shows a realistic portrayal of the underground resistance in Italy…

To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be
IMDb: N/A
99

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier’s efforts to track down a German spy.

The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator
IMDb: N/A
125

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel’s regime.

Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind
IMDb: N/A
233

The spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner is forced to use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty, following Maj. Gen. William Sherman’s destructive…

Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion
IMDb: N/A
114

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World…

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front
IMDb: N/A
133

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Together with several other young German soldiers, he experiences the horrors of war, such evil of…

The General

The General

The General
IMDb: N/A
79

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray’s beloved locomotive, ‘The General’—with Johnnie’s lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to…

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin
IMDb: N/A
75

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the…

The Big Parade

The Big Parade

The Big Parade
IMDb: N/A
151

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army’s Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working…