World War II Movies - Western Front

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Mini-Series

This is the story of "E" Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division from their initial training starting in 1942 to the end of World War II. They parachuted behind enemy lines in the early hours of D-Day at Utah beach, the liberation of Carentan and parachuted into action during Operation Market Garden.

The events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.

Date: 1944

The last seven months in the life of Erwin Rommel.

A teenager joins the resistance in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.

In May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group. Their mission is to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy, and to kill a German SS colonel who is close to figuring out the imminent secret of D-Day.

In Paris during the German occupation, an ill-assorted group of resistance fighters commits disorganized attacks. Under the leadership of Missak Manouchian, an Armenian exile, the group structures and plans its actions and thus the Manouchian network is born. The film traces the story of this group, from its shaping to the arrest and execution of its members in 1944.

Based on the true story of a young Jewish boy, the film depicts the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv), the mass arrest of Jews by French police who were Nazi accomplices in Paris in July 1942.

A historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of occupied Paris, and Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling.

Original title: L'Armée des ombres
German title: Armee im Schatten

Army of Shadows follows a small group of Resistance fighters as they move between safe houses, work with the Allied militaries, kill informers, and attempt to evade the capture and execution that they know is their most likely fate.

Original title: Jeux interdits

A young French girl orphaned in a Nazi air attack is befriended by the son of a poor farmer, and together they try to come to terms with the realities of death.

Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit...

plot 1: 1935 in England
plot 2: 1939/40 WW2 in Dunkirk (France), England
plot 3: 1990s in a TV studio

Date: 1940

Two people, a Frenchman and a Jewish German woman (Romy Schneider) met on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

Date: 1944

In 1944, a German colonel loads a train with French art treasures to send to Germany. The Resistance must stop it without damaging the cargo.

This movie tells both the haunting story of a French resistance cell in Lyon but also the love of Lucie Aubrac for her husband, and the lengths she goes to rescue her husband from prison on more than one occasion. Based on a true story.

A young Scottish woman joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.

In Nazi-occupied France, Lucille Angellier waits for news of her husband, along with her domineering mother-in-law. When a regiment of German soldiers arrive in the town, they soon move into the villagers' homes. Lucille tries to ignore Bruno, the German commander who has been posted at her house, but she soon falls in love with him.

Date: 1941-1944
Locations: Paris, Nice, Dax (France)

In occupied France during World War II, two young Jewish brothers, Maurice and Joseph, are sent by their parents to the free zone, and display courage, intelligence and ingenuity as they escape the occupiers and try to reunite their family.

Margaret is a nurse in England during World War II and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls in love with David (Harrison Ford), an American B-25 bomber pilot.

Date: June 1940+

Odile a widowed schoolteacher flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her children. Yvan, a teenaged boy, comes to their rescue by leading them into the forest. Cut off from the rest of the world and living in confined quarters, Odile and Yvan find themselves confronted with their own desires.

German title: Brennt Paris?

Date: August 1944

About the liberation of Paris in August 1944 by the French Resistance and the Free French Forces.

Date: 1943 - May 1945

The story of Django Reinhardt, famous guitarist and composer, and his flight from German-occupied Paris in 1943.

The saga of three British soldiers and their German captive as they trek through the European countryside.

German title: Indigènes - Tage des Ruhms

Date: 1943+
Locations: (Algeria, Monte Cassino), France

During WWII, four North African men enlist in the French army to liberate that country from Nazi oppression, and to fight French discrimination.

Members of the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team parachute into Occupied France as part of Operation Dragoon and come under fire, getting separated from their units. En route, they encounter members of the French Resistance and small infantry and armored patrols of the German Army...

Date: 1941/44

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen to assassinate Nazi leaders. Their plan coincides with a theatre owner's vengeful plans for the same.

German title: Stoßtrupp Gold

A group of U.S. soldiers sneaks across enemy lines to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure.

As allied POWs prepare for a soccer game against the German National Team to be played in Nazi-occupied Paris, the French Resistance and British officers are making plans for the team's escape.

German title: Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil

German sergeant Steiner (R. Burton) gets involved in an anti-Hitler conspiracy, and saves the life of an American colonel.

Original title: Week-end à Zuydcoote
German title: Dünkirchen, 2. Juni 1940

Stuck on the beaches near Dunkirk, Julien Maillat (J.-P. Belmondo), a French soldier, tries to join the English Army on the Royal Navy flotilla to England by boat. No matter how hard he tries to make it, he and his French partners are hard pressed to get away as the fight is getting harder and the Germans closer and closer.

Dunkirk portrays the evacuation of the allied soldiers from three perspectives: land, sea, and air.

During WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.

This Nazi propaganda film details the exploits of a group of German Luftwaffe pilots flying Stukas (fighter-bombers) in the Battle of France in the early days of World War II.

German title: Die Luftschlacht um England

In 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle vs. the Nazi Germany Air Force for control of British air space to prevent a Nazi invasion of Britain.

Date: 1944
Locations: England, France

A US Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers in World War II.

This movie is about a German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill.

German title: Einer kam durch

The film chronicles the true exploits of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe pilot shot down over Britain in 1940. He makes numerous attempts to escape from POW camps.

German title: Ausbruch der 28

German POWs in Britain plot to escape from their prison camp in Scotland.

German title: Die Nadel

A ruthless German spy, trying to get out of Britain with vital information about D-Day, must spend time with a young woman and her crippled husband.

Based on the novel of the same title by Ken Follett.

A young genius frantically races against time to crack an enemy code and solve the mystery surrounding the woman he loves.

English mathematician and logician, Alan Turing, helps crack the Enigma code.

Years: 1942 (French Morocco) - 1943 (England, France)
Locations: French Morocco (Desert, Casablanca), England, France (Dieppe)

Bill Rohan, a young boy living on the outskirts of London experiences the exhilaration of World War II, as seen through the eyes of director John Boorman, who also wrote and produced the autobiographical film.

Date: 1943
Locations: London, Spain

True story of a British attempt to trick the enemy into weakening Sicily's defenses before the 1943 attack, using a dead man with faked papers (Operation Mincemeat).

About a German spy in England and Germany.

A hard-as-nails general takes over a bomber unit suffering from low morale and whips them into fighting shape.

Date: May 1943

This movie is about the 25th and last mission of the American Boeing B-17 bomber crew, the Memphis Belle, during the air battle of Europe.

Date: 1939-1950s

After Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia two Czech pilots flee to England and join the RAF.