Top 10 Best World War II Movies

Even though people often try to give a realistic picture of combat situations, the impact of real war violence proves difficult to approximate. With the long opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg managed to make the nerve-wracking landing of D-Day tangible. An impressive experience is created with nervous camera angles, sound effects and bloody effects. The Second World War has never been portrayed so unromantically and harshly. The aftermath in which a group of soldiers has to search for the last living son of a family is a harrowing journey that will end in a second outbreak of violence.

For a long time, The Longest Day was the standard for the most realistic film about World War II. The expensive film lasted almost three hours and was the first to attract a large collection of Hollywood stars for roles, including John Wayne, Richard Burton and Robert Mitchum. The Normandy landings in 1944 are filmed in great detail by five directors. Thanks to advisors who had witnessed the landing from both sides, the film acquired a hitherto unsurpassed realism. This was reinforced by the then unusual decision to have the actors speak in their own language rather than just English.

The picture of the Second World War is not complete without the persecution of Jews and concentration camps. This was a sensitive subject for a long time, until the controversial television series Holocaust (1978) made this aspect of the Second World War accessible. With Schindler's List, filmed in black and white, Steven Spielberg gave a more explicit and hopeful view of the persecution of the Jews. His film adaptation of the evacuation of the Kraków ghetto and daily life in Auschwitz is horrifyingly realistic. But with the figure of Oskar Schindler, the film shows that even in the darkest periods, hope is still possible.

“The Zone of Interest” is perhaps the most uncomfortable film on this list. We see the idyllic family life of camp commander Rudolf Höss, whose garden borders the walls of Auschwitz. While his wife enjoys her flowers, we hear the constant sounds of the camp in the background. By never showing the horrors directly, but only allowing them to be present aurally, director Jonathan Glazer makes the banality of evil more tangible than ever. It is a film that forces the viewer to think about indifference.

The Second World War film often has an extensive star cast that other films can only dream of. For his almost three-hour epic about the Battle of Arnhem, Richard Attenbrough gathered many big names such as Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Olivier. The film was not an overwhelming success in 1977, probably because the overconfident Operation Market Garden was a failure while the Germans already seemed defeated. Unlike most war films, the film does not end in a victory for the Allies. Yet A Bridge Too Far, filmed in the Netherlands, is one of the most authentic films released

For a long time, films about German soldiers in the Second World War were taboo. This slowly changed in the 1970s. By far the most popular and human film was the German Das Boot about the crew of a submarine. Wolfgang Petersen would later make a splash in Hollywood as an action director, but nothing could match the claustrophobic atmosphere of Das Boot. The crew of Das Boot consists of ordinary men who want to survive with their comrades. The combat situations that follow torpedo attacks have rarely been surpassed in tension. There are different versions of Das Boot in around

The extremely successful The Bridge on the River Kwai is set around the construction of the Burma railway. British prisoners of war are told by the Japanese commander that they must help in the construction of a train bridge over the Kwai River. The British officer Nicholson played by Alec Guinness refuses because this is against the Geneva Conventions. The soldiers are initially punished and then reluctantly work on a bridge. Over time, Nicholson becomes intrigued by the bridge and wants to prove that the British can deliver professional work under all circumstances. An escaped prisoner reveals the plans and wor

Adolf Hitler's last days in his Berlin bunker have fascinated many people over the years. What went through his mind as the inevitable end drew closer? In Der Untergang, Hitler's last ten days are viewed from the perspective of his secretary Traudl Junge. There is an atmosphere of suspicion in the bunker. Behind Hitler's back, surrender is being negotiated with the Allies. Hitler himself is close to a nervous breakdown while he still believes in victory if Berlin is successfully defended. When the Red Army is within 400 meters, Hitler marries Eva Braun

Although there are no soldiers in the field, “Oppenheimer” shows the most important scientific race in the history of the Second World War. Christopher Nolan tells the story of the man who developed the atomic bomb, a weapon that would end war but change the world forever. The film is a visual spectacle that makes the tension in the laboratories of Los Alamos perfectly palpable. The moral aftermath and J. Robert Oppenheimer's feelings of guilt give the film a deep, tragic layer that will linger for a long time.

The Dirty Dozen is the culmination of a new kind of action film that uses the Second World War as a backdrop in the 1960s. Years later, Quentin Tarantino would describe this genre as “Men on a Mission”. Twelve American soldiers sentenced to death are given a second chance if they want to participate in a life-threatening mission behind the front line. They are drilled by tough guy Lee Marvin, who has his hands full with this team full of bizarre personalities. The hard-hitting action and star cast including Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson make The Dirty Dozen a timeless film.