Snakkle Looks Back on Some of the Greatest Films About World War II

Adrien Brody took home a well-deserved Oscar for his portrayal of real-life pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who survived the Holocaust against all odds and with the help of some non-Jews. Although Brody rightfully received many accolades for his stunning performance, this 2002 film also marked a career resurgence for director Roman Polanski.

Brilliant director Terrence Malick made this 1998 film following a 20-year absence from filmmaking. The ensemble cast includes Sean Penn, John Cusack, Nick Nolte, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Woody Harrelson. Even more great actors’ roles were cut. The movie is an extraordinary look into the souls of men in combat as they struggle with not only the acts of war, but also their own insignificance in the grander scheme of things.

These companion films—directed, produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood in 2006—tell the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima told from the point of view of the Americans and the Japanese. The dual storytelling device was a novel way of looking at the lives of those who raised that iconic flag at Iwo Jima and the more far-flung repercussions.

Quentin Tarantino directed this 2009 movie about Jewish-American soldiers who scalp and brutally kill Nazis in France. Christoph Waltz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the inhumane Col. Hans Landa. Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger also starred.

This film opened with one of the most heart-wrenchingly brutal battle scenes on celluloid. Spielberg’s 1998 classic is admirable for its truth in telling the horrors seen on the battlefield and felt in the hearts of the soldiers and those they leave behind.

Lee Marvin, Donald Sutherland, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, and Telly Savalas starred in this 1967 movie about a group of prisoners who are earmarked for a special mission leading up to D-day.

Frenchman Claude Lanzmann’s awesome nine-hour documentary captures the terrible minutiae of the Holocaust without using a single piece of archive footage. The film relies on testimonials from victims and perpetrators and visits to several of the most stirring ghettos and death camps. This 1985 film should not be missed.

Alec Guinness and William Holden are both brilliant in this POW classic from 1957. Guinness demonstrates his star power as a captured colonel who is charged with overseeing members of the Allied forces helping the Japanese building said bridge.

Spielberg reached new levels of greatness with this epic 1993 film starring Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler—a German who spared the lives of over 1,000 Jews by giving them work in his factories, even if it meant bribing officials and spending almost his entire fortune to save them. Spielberg shot the film in black and white, except for the red coat in the harrowing scene with the little girl trying to escape the ghetto massacre. Like Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes also turn in stellar performances.

This 1942 romantic drama has Humphrey Bogart choosing between Ingrid Bergman, the woman he loves, and helping her and her husband (a leader in the Czech resistance movement) escape the Moroccan city. One of the most enduring films in all of American cinema, it is also a classic war story.