By Armita Rohani
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Directed by Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan follows the story of how eight men trek into the heart of Nazi-occupied Normandy to bring one man home alive. Praised for its accurate depictions of D-Day, combat wounds, and the inhumanity of the second world war itself, this movie truly shows the horrors of war.
- Inglourious Basterds (2015)
Allied officer Lt. Aldo Raine and his team of Jewish soldiers fight their way in German occupied France as they commit brutal acts of violence against the Nazis. He and his men ally themselves with Bridget Von Hammersmark, a German actress who wants to take down the Third Reich, and Shosanna Dreyfus, an escaped Jewish girl seeking revenge for the murder of her family. All that said, the movie is praised for its comedic side and dark humor.
- Schindler’s List (1993)
Based on the 1982 novel ‘Schindler’s Ark,’ the movie follows the life of Oscar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories in World War 2. One of the longest and most emotionally draining movies, Schindler’s List illustrates Nazi brutality and propaganda in one of the largest genocides in history.
- Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
A true story that follows the life of Private First Class Desmond Doss (played by Andrew Garfield), the American army medic fights during some of the worst battles at Okinawa and is the first person to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a single shot.
- Downfall (2004)
One of the only movies of its kind, Downfall narrates Hitler’s final days before his suicide as the allied powers edge closer to the German motherland. Although critics disapprove of how the movie has ‘humanized Hitler’ it is nonetheless an amazing film, showing how the Fuhrer battled against his imagined betrayers and his slow descent to insanity.
- All Quiet On the Western Front (1930)
One of the most famous anti-war books in history–later adapted to several movies–All Quiet on The Western Front follows Paul Baumer and his friends as they are talked into enlisting in the army. Told entirely through the German perspective, this movie shows the brutality of trench warfare in World War I.
- Life Is Beautiful (1997)
When an open minded Jewish bookseller, Guido, and his family are taken as victims of the Holocaust as they are forced to live in a concentration camp, he does everything possible to make the camp a game for his son, promising that in the end, the winner will get a tank. Through a mixture of will, humor and imagination, Guido attempts to hold his family together and help his son survive one of the biggest genocides in history.
- 1917 (2019)
Set in World War I, two British soldiers receive impossible orders as they fight to make their way to the heart of the front lines. Crossing enemy territory and having nothing but each other, Schofield and Blake race against time to deliver a message to save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers from a deadly counteroffensive.
- Dunkirk (2017)
Directed by Christopher Nolan, this movie is set during the Dunkirk evacuation of British, Dutch, and French soldiers after the Germans take all of France. Known for its non-linear storyline and its inclusion of multiple perspectives throughout the film, Dunkirk is a movie solely made to be watched and enjoyed, rather than understood.
- Fury (2014)
Set at the heart of the Ally counter after Normandy, Army Sergeant Don Collier leads four other men in a Sherman tank called ‘Fury’ in German territory. Outnumbered and outgunned, these five men overcome impossible odds as they strike the heart of Nazi Germany; directed by David Ayer and starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf.
