IMDb's War Top 50

The Japanese forces having been shattered, Kaji and some comrades embark on an epic journey on foot southward to where Kaji hopes to rejoin Michiko. After surviving many perils he is captured by the Red Army and subjected to treatment that echoes that meted out to the Chinese.

Saving Private Ryan is Steven Spielberg’s war film based on actual events from World War II. After three of his brothers are killed, soldier James Ryan, must be sent back to his mother in the USA. Yet the mission to get Ryan is more difficult than they thought as Ryan is stationed as a paratrooper behind enemy lines.

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 Pianist is a film adapted from the biography of Wladyslaw Szpilman. A Jewish-Polish pianist who during the second world war lived and hid miraculously in Warsaw after having gone through a terrible tragedy. A film from Roman Polanski.

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.

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

The Human Condition is a Japanese epic film trilogy made between 1959 and 1961. The trilogy follows the life of Kaji, a Japanese pacifist and socialist, as he tries to survive in the fascist and oppressive world of WWII-era Japan. No Greater Love (1959) opens with Kaji marrying his sweetheart Michiko despite his misgivings about the future.

As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.

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 soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

During the Vietnam War, the assigned mission of Captain Willard take him through some strange and seemingly impossible scenarios in the jungle of Vietnam. Little by little Willard forgets his mission’s purpose as he becomes more and more hallucinatory and starts to lose sense of reality.

Paths of Glory Paths of Glory is an anti-war film from Stanley Kubrick starring Kirk Douglas. The film takes place during World War I.

The Great Dictator is a cult film from Charlie Chaplin that satires German Nationalism and Adolf Hitler. The movie was filmed during the Nazi power and if Chaplin would have known what they were doing in German at the time he says he probably wouldn’t have made the film.

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 powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron -- his new bride and childhood love -- legendary Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.

Lawrence of Arabia is the classic film from David Lean starring Peter O’Toole and based on the autobiography from Thomas Edward Lawrence who during the first World War was on assignment by the British Empire in Arabia. The film would become a cult classic and is known today as a masterpiece.

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 deb...

An insane general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a war room of politicians and generals frantically try to stop. A classic black and white war satire from director Stanley Kubrick starring Peter Sellers.

A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War. Soon it becomes hunted itself. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits...

Judgment at Nuremberg is an American film based on the trials of 4 Nazi judges in Nuremberg Germany in 1948 by an American court.

Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.

Full Metal Jacket is a later work from Stanley Kubrick deals with the themes of the Vietnam War and questions the brutality of soldiers in war.

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

Pans Labyrinth is the exquisitely produced fantasy film from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro who is actually famous for his works in science-fiction and horror. The film stars a little girl lost in a fantasy world. The film won three Academy Awards in 2007.

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

Gone With The Wind is, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all times and the height of Hollywood studio films.

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security "escape-proof" camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

A story of greed, a lust for power, and ultimate revenge when an elderly lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him.

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 into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

During World War II, 19 year old soldier Alyosha gets a medal as a reward for a heroic act at the front. Instead of this medal he asks for a few days leave to visit his mother and repair the roof of their home. On the train eastwards he meets Shura who is on her way to her aunt. In those few days traveling together they fall in love.

Slovakia during WW2. Tono lives a poor life, but the authorities offer him a take over the Jewish widow Lautman's little shop for sewing material.

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Deer Hunter is a 1978 war drama film about a trio of Rusyn American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War.

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

A 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.

Inspired by true events this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990’s when more than a Million Tutsis’ were killed in a Genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

The Best Years of Our Lives is a classic film from director Williams Wyler about three war veterans. The film earned seven Oscars in 1946.

The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture! One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! The Algerian Street Boy...who became a rebel hero!

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 which he had not conceived of when signing up to fight. They eventually become sad, tormented, and confused of their purpose.

The General is an American silent film comedy from Buster Keaton from 1927. The film was in its time a flop yet now days is regarded as the height of silent film comedy. The film is based on events from America’s civil war.

Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece about the French Resistance underground fighters who must grapple with their own brand of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime.

To Be or Not to Be is a statement against the Nazi regime. A propaganda film about the Polish resilience with a slight comedic aspect.

French Resistance activist Andre Devigny is imprisoned by the Nazis, and devotes his waking hours to planning an elaborate escape. Then, on the same day, he is condemned to death, and given a new cellmate. Should he kill him, or risk revealing his plans to someone who may be a Gestapo informer?

Handsomely-mounted historical epic concerns the birth of the Islamic faith and the story of the prophet Mohammed.

War in Abkhazia 1990. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.

In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai.

Platoon is a war film by Oliver Stone that is set during the Vietnam War and tells the story of young teenage soldier named Chris as he develops into a man.

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

During the Japanese invasion of China, a wealthy martial artist is forced to leave his home when his city is occupied. With little means of providing for themselves, Ip Man and the remaining members of the city must find a way to survive.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.