HISTORICAL MOVIES: GERMANY
REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
Luther (1973) -- of the Reformation, 1520
Luther (2003) -- of the Reformation
GERMANY -- WORLD WAR I
Fall of Eagles (1974) (TV miniseries) -- part of it deals with Bismarck and the unification of Germany and fall of Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary
Rosa Luxemburg (1986) -- labor agitator in Germany
La Niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams) (1998) -- Franco's Spain makes movies in Hitler's Germany
WORLD WAR II -- GERMANY
Casablanca (1942) -- love in 1940 Martinique under French Vichy government
To Have and to Have Not (1944) follow up to Casablanca, this time Martinique
Inside the Third Reich (1982) -- Randy Quaid
Hitler (1962)
Das Boot (1981) -- U-boats in 1941
To Be or Not to Be (1949) -- occupied Poland; Jack Benny
The Last Lieutenant (1993) -- resistance to the Nazi invasion of Norway
Dunkirk (1958) -- escape of the trapped British forces in France, June 1940
Weekend at Dunkirk (1965) -- seen from the French perspective
Mrs. Miniver (1942) -- Dunkirk & their effects of the war on an English family
In Which We Serve (1942) -- based on experiences of Lord Louis Mountbatten
Battle of Britain (1969) -- never have so many owed so much to so few, July-October, 1940
Dark Blue World (2001) -- Czech pilots flee to England and help in the Battle of Britain
Angels One Five (1952) -- pilots in the Battle of Britain
Hope and Glory (1987) -- British family sticks together in spite of German bombings
Assignment in Brittany (1943) -- efforts of the Free French
NAVAL WARFARE:
49th Parallel (1941) -- a Nazi U-boat crew shipwrecked in Canada try to flee to the neutral United States
Action in the North Atlantic (1943) -- before Dec. 7, 1941, the US merchant mariners brought supplies to the Russians
Atlantic Convoy (1942) -- war on U-boats attacking Allied ship convoys
The Battle of the River Plate (1956) -- destruction of the Graf Spee, Montevideo, Uruguay, December 1939
Sink the Bismarck! (1960) -- sinking of Germany's most powerful battleship, May 27, 1941
Attack on the Iron Coast (1968) -- British raid on large ship dock at St. Nazaire, France, March 28, 1942
Above Us the Waves (1955) -- a British midget submarine raid damages German battleship Tirpitz, September 1943
GERMANS KICKED OUT OF AFRICA:
Sundown (1941) -- Nazis in East Africa
Desert Fox (1951) -- Field Marshal Rommel
Sahara (1943) -- British troops facing Germans in north Africa
Tobruk (1967) -- attempt to destroy Rommel's fuel supply in North Africa
Rats of Tobruk (1944) -- one of Australia's greatest wartime legends
Desert Rats (1953) -- Tobruk seen from Australian side
Desert Patrol (1958) -- British patrol in Africa before battle of El Alamein
El Alamein (2002) -- the battle that finally stops Rommel in North Africa seen through the eyes of an Italian unit, October- November, 1942
El Alamein (1968) -- Italian troops left behind by their German allies
The Story of G. I. Joe (1945)
Patton (1970) -- from North Africa to Sicily (July 1943) to France and Germany
Big Red One (1980) -- Sam Fuller's WWII diary of squad in First Infantry Division
ALLIED INVASION OF ITALY
Anzio (1968) -- French-Italian-Spanish movie dealing with the beach landing, January to May, 1944
Darby's Rangers (1958) -- assault troops in N. Africa & Italy
Bold and the Brave (1956) -- WWII soldiers fighting in Italy
RUSSIAN FRONT:
Talvisota (The Winter War) (1989) -- the Soviet Union attacks Finland; Finnish resistance
A Rukajärven tie (Ambush) (1999) -- Finnish resistance 1939-1940
Come and See (1985) -- resistance to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Byelorussia
The North Star (1943) -- a Ukrainian village under Nazi invasion, June 1941
Stalingrad (1992) -- the real turning point of the war; choice of German or English and using or not using subtitles
Enemy at the Gate (2001) -- Russian sniper vs. German sniper at Stalingrad
Italiani brava gente (Attack and Retreat) (1999) -- Italian army up against the Russians at the Battle of the Don during the Stalingrad counteroffensive
ALLIED INVASION OF FRANCE:
Yanks (1979) -- love stories involving American troops in England
Patton (1970) -- George C. Scott
The Last Days of Patton (1986)
D-day, the 6th of June (1956) -- June 6, 1944
The Longest Day (1962) -- D-Day
Band of Brothers (2001) - Easy Company of the 101st Airborne in many battles, including Bastogne during Battle of the Bulge
Saving Private Ryan -- D-Day
Breakthrough (2000) -- D-Day
Dieppe (1993) -- worst defeat of Canadian forces in World War II
Guns of Navarone (1961)
Force 10 from Navarone (1978) - follow-up to Guns of Navarone
To Hell and Back (1955) -- Audi Murphy
Go for Broke! (1950) -- Japanese-American troops fight in Europe; the 442, the first all-Nisei (Japanese- American) Regimental combat team
Bridge at Remagen (1969) -- Allies plan to blow the bridge at Remagen, March 7, 1944
Jackboot Mutiny (2001) -- attempt to assassinate Hitler, July 20, 1944
Plot to Kill Hitler (1990)
A Bridge Too Far (1977) -- Allied defeat in Operation Market Garden, Sept 1944
GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACK:
When Trumpets Fade (1998) -- Battle of Hurtgen Forest (second phase beginning Nov. 10, 1944)
Battle of the Bulge (1965) -- Hitler's famous counter-attack that ultimately failed (Dec. 16, 1944 - Jan. 7, 1945)
Battleground (1949) -- 101st Airborne's defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge
Midnight Clear (1992) -- anti-war drama about mission in Ardennes Forest near end of WWII
AIR WAR:
Memphis Belle (1990) -- air raids over Dresden
Twelve O'clock High (1949) - US bomber pilots over Germany
Catch 22 -- comedy set during air war over Europe
Journey Together (1946) -- RAF air war
The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) -- black airmen
Spitefire (1942) -- story of the designer of the superior RAF fighter plane, the Spitfire
Appointment in London (1952) -- air war seen through eyes of a wing commander of a British squadron of Lancaster bombers
OTHERS:
The Great Escape (1963)
Stalag 17 (1953)
A Generation (1954) -- 1st in trilogy of Polish resistance
Kanal (1957) -- 2nd in trilogy; Warsaw uprising in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944
Ashes and Diamonds (1958) -- 3rd in trilogy; Polish film of Resistance movement in Poland during WW II's closing days
The Battle of Neretva (1970) -- Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and 1943 victory of Tito's partisans
U-571 (2000) -- mission to capture a German Enigma coding machine from a U-boat
HITLER'S LAST DAYS:
Downfall (2004) -- of Hitler that is
The Bunker (1981) -- last days of Hitler
Hitler -- The Last Ten Days (1973)
Judgment at Nuremburg (1961)
The Bridge (1960) -- German teen-age boys drafted to stop Allied invasion
ITALY'S LAST DAYS OF FASCISM
Paisan (1946) -- a heart-breaking look at the last days of the war
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) -- last days of WWII for one town in Italy
Open City (1945) -- the Italian resistance against German occupation
HOLOCAUST:
Conspiracy (2001) -- banal, but downright evil at the same time; the design of the implementation of the Holocaust
Wannseekonferenz (1984) -- planning to implement the idea of a final solution
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) -- Jewish girl and family hide from Nazis
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) Miep Gies (Mary Steenburgen) aids Jewish refugees
Anne Frank Remembered (1995) -- British
The Assisi Underground (1985) -- rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943 Assisi
Voyage of the Damned (1976)-- Jewish passengers unable to disembark
Lacombe Lucien (1974) -- in occupied France, a young Frenchman is conflicted over his work for the German police and his Jewish girlfriend
Europa, Europa (1991) -- anti-Semitism in Germany
Schindler's List (1993) -- rescues his Jewish factory workers from death
Varian's War (2000) -- saving European intellectuals from the Nazis
The Holocaust (1978) -- Meryl Streep
Mein Kampf (1961) -- documentary on Hitler and anti-semitism
Gentleman's Agreement (1947) -- anti-Semitism
The Shop on Main Street (1965) -- Czechoslovakian film about anti-semitism
The Pianist (2002) -- Jewish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising
Divided We Fall (2000) -- in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a couple agree to hide a Jewish friend
Rosenstrasse (2003) -- early, 1943 courageous German non-Jewish wives protest against the imprisonment of their Jewish husbands
Post-War Germany
The Tunnel (2001) -- escaping from East Berlin to West Berlin via a tunnel
Heimat - Chronicle of Germany (1985) -- Germany in the years 1919-1982 through the eyes of a woman named Maria
The Big Lift (1950) -- Berlin Air-lift