WW II Movie Favorites
by keeker420 | created - 12 Apr 2014 | updated - 09 Jan 2015 | PublicMy personal list of World War II movies. People might think I am nuts with my choices, but they are my own opinion. If you know of any other movies that are from WW II (preferably naval) leave a comment and I will see if I like them.
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1. Air Force (1943)
Approved | 124 min | Action, Drama, History
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 3,800
Not totally historically accurate as it was made just after Pearl Harbor I believe. None the less, totally worth watching again and again.
2. Task Force (1949)
Approved | 116 min | Drama, War
As he is retiring, Jonathan L. Scott "Scotty" reminisces about his long Navy career and the development of the role of the aircraft carrier from the early 20s.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Gary Cooper, Jane Wyatt, Wayne Morris, Walter Brennan
Votes: 1,183
3. In Harm's Way (1965)
Approved | 165 min | Drama, Romance, War
A Naval officer, reprimanded after Pearl Harbor, is later promoted to Rear Admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon
Votes: 10,293 | Gross: $4.20M
John Wayne, The US Navy, Booo YEAH!
4. They Were Expendable (1945)
Approved | 135 min | Drama, War
A Navy commander fights to prove the battle-worthiness of the PT boat at the start of World War II.
Directors: John Ford, Robert Montgomery | Stars: Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Jack Holt
Votes: 9,228
John Wayne, PT Boats, Heck Yeah!
5. The Longest Day (1962)
G | 178 min | Action, Drama, History
The events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
Directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck | Stars: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda
Votes: 58,937 | Gross: $39.10M
All star cast makes movie good. Little bit of John Wayne even.
6. Operation Pacific (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WWII, a submarine's second in command inherits the problem of torpedoes that don't explode. When on shore, he is eager to win back his ex-wife.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Ward Bond, Scott Forbes
Votes: 3,888
7. Mister Roberts (1955)
Passed | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, War
In the waning days of World War II, the cargo officer of a Navy supply ship chafes at its role far from the action in the Pacific's backwater areas, his frustration rising when its captain denies the crew liberty over petty irritations.
Directors: John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan | Stars: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon
Votes: 18,188 | Gross: $21.20M
8. PT 109 (1963)
Approved | 140 min | Biography, Drama, War
President John F. Kennedy kept a unique inauguration gift on his desk: a plastic-encased coconut. The tale of that coconut is the heroic story of PT 109.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson | Stars: Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Ty Hardin, James Gregory
Votes: 2,986
Future President and his PT Boat, a heart warming story.
9. Up Periscope (1959)
Approved | 112 min | Action, Drama, Romance
In 1942, Navy Lieutenant Kenneth Braden from the underwater demolition team is sent to a Japanese island to photograph secret radio codes.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Garner, Edmond O'Brien, Andra Martin, Alan Hale Jr.
Votes: 2,245
10. Pearl Harbor (2001)
PG-13 | 183 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A tale of war and romance mixed in with history. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, William Lee Scott
Votes: 350,930 | Gross: $198.54M
11. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
G | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.
Directors: Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Martin Balsam, Sô Yamamura, Jason Robards, Joseph Cotten
Votes: 37,078 | Gross: $29.55M
12. Black Sheep Squadron (1976–1978)
Not Rated | 60 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The dramatized World War II adventures of U.S. Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and his U.S. Marine Attack Squadron 214, (The Black Sheep Squadron).
Stars: Robert Conrad, Simon Oakland, Dana Elcar, Dirk Blocker
Votes: 3,381
13. The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)
Approved | 97 min | Action, Drama, War
During World War II, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.
Director: José Ferrer | Stars: José Ferrer, Trevor Howard, Dora Bryan, Christopher Lee
Votes: 1,989
14. In Which We Serve (1942)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, War
This "story of a ship", the British destroyer H.M.S. Torrin, is told in flashbacks by survivors as they cling to a life raft.
Directors: Noël Coward, David Lean | Stars: Noël Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson
Votes: 6,421 | Gross: $0.45M
15. MacArthur (1977)
PG | 130 min | Biography, Drama, History
Biopic of General Douglas MacArthur covering his war exploits during WW2 and the Korean War.
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Gregory Peck, Dan O'Herlihy, Ed Flanders, Ivan Bonar
Votes: 5,107
16. Patton (1970)
GP | 172 min | Biography, Drama, War
The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong
Votes: 107,699 | Gross: $61.70M
17. Attack (1956)
Approved | 107 min | Action, Drama, War
In 1944, an American Infantry company sets up an artillery observation post, but tensions between Captain Cooney and Lieutenant Costa run high.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, Eddie Albert, Robert Strauss
Votes: 5,816
18. Battleground (1949)
Approved | 118 min | Action, Drama, History
True tale about a squad of the 101st Airborne Division coping with being trapped by the Germans in the besieged city of Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy
Votes: 7,839 | Gross: $10.29M
19. Battle of the Bulge (1965)
Not Rated | 167 min | Drama, History, War
A dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II.
Director: Ken Annakin | Stars: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews
Votes: 17,755 | Gross: $11.12M
20. Downfall (2004)
R | 156 min | Biography, Drama, History
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.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Votes: 374,122 | Gross: $5.51M
21. The Bunker (1981 TV Movie)
150 min | Drama, History, War
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's (Sir Anthony Hopkins) last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle for the city.
Director: George Schaefer | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Richard Jordan, Cliff Gorman, James Naughton
Votes: 2,516
22. The Battle of Britain (1969)
G | 132 min | Action, Drama, History
In 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to a possible Axis invasion of the U.K.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Harry Andrews, Curd Jürgens
Votes: 24,410 | Gross: $4.36M
23. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Not Rated | 132 min | Drama, War
A tough-as-nails general (Gregory Peck as General Savage) takes over a B-17 bomber unit suffering from low morale and whips them into fighting shape.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Millard Mitchell
Votes: 15,749
24. Dunkirk (1958)
Approved | 135 min | Action, Drama, History
A dramatization of the British Expeditionary Force's 1940 retreat to the beaches of France and the extraordinary seaborne evacuation that saved it from utter destruction by Nazi Germany.
Director: Leslie Norman | Stars: John Mills, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee, Robert Urquhart
Votes: 3,511
25. Corvette K-225 (1943)
Approved | 98 min | Action, Drama, Romance
The story of a Canadian WWII naval vessel, with a dramatic subplot concerning her first captain.
Directors: Richard Rosson, Howard Hawks | Stars: Randolph Scott, James Brown, Ella Raines, Barry Fitzgerald
Votes: 573
26. Convoy (1940)
78 min | Drama, War
A tale of the highs and lows of life protecting the vital convoys between America & England during WWII.
Director: Pen Tennyson | Stars: Clive Brook, John Clements, Edward Chapman, Judy Campbell
Votes: 437
27. Wake Island (1942)
Passed | 88 min | Action, Drama, War
December, 1941. With no hope of relief or re-supply, a small band of United States Marines tries to keep the Japanese Navy from capturing their island base.
Director: John Farrow | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix
Votes: 2,184
28. The Dam Busters (1955)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, History, War
Drama based on the attempt by the RAF to destroy six dams in Germany during World War II.
Director: Michael Anderson | Stars: Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Basil Sydney
Votes: 11,321
29. Midway (1976)
PG | 132 min | Action, Drama, History
A dramatization of the battle that was widely heralded as a turning point of the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
Director: Jack Smight | Stars: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford
Votes: 21,433
30. The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
R | 115 min | Action, Drama, War
As the Allied armies close in, the Germans decide to blow up the last Rhine bridge, trapping their own men on the wrong side. But will it happen?
Director: John Guillermin | Stars: George Segal, Robert Vaughn, Ben Gazzara, Bradford Dillman
Votes: 10,494
31. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, History, War
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Tim Murdock
Votes: 6,443
32. The Fighting Seabees (1944)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Romance, War
During WW2, the U.S. Navy implements a new idea of forming construction battalions that also are fighting units, in case of Japanese attack.
Director: Edward Ludwig | Stars: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe, William Frawley
Votes: 3,908
33. To Hell and Back (1955)
Approved | 106 min | Action, Biography, Drama
The true WWII story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in U.S. history. Based on the autobiography of Audie Murphy who stars as himself in the film.
Director: Jesse Hibbs | Stars: Audie Murphy, Marshall Thompson, Charles Drake, Jack Kelly
Votes: 5,942
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