Entertainment
10 Most Intense World War II Movies of All Time
It’s probably harder to come up with World War II movies that aren’t particularly intense than ones that are. If you’re making a movie about the largest and most global conflict in the history of the world, a certain level of intensity and drama is needed, with comparatively breezy films about World War II generally being older, or perhaps not as focused on conflict (and even then, classics like Casablanca and The Best Years of Our Lives are emotionally moving in other ways, without showcasing much by way of combat or on-screen violent).
When it comes to the following titles, though, they stand out for being among the most intense World War II movies of all time. There are different reasons why these movies tend to be hard-hitting, and they’re not all here because they’re especially graphic… though some are. They’re not always easy movies to watch, but they all have a purpose in being some level of suspenseful, or even harrowing.
10
‘The Dirty Dozen’ (1967)
The Dirty Dozen is one of those quintessential “we gotta put together a team” sort of movies, with the premise here involving a very dangerous mission that a group of criminals agree to take part in, because pulling off said mission may allow their potential death sentences to be commuted. Some of them are nasty enough that calling them antiheroes would still be a little too generous, and things get undeniably chaotic when it comes time to carry out the main mission behind enemy lines.
Before that rather action-packed final act, The Dirty Dozen is compelling with its set-up, too, with all the stuff surrounding the putting together of the titular team, and training for their eventually deadly mission. It’s got that reliable action movie structure first perfected in Seven Samurai, and then reused again and again since, but sometimes, when something works, it just works, and that’s enough.
9
‘Downfall’ (2004)
Set in the days leading up to Germany’s defeat in the final year of World War II, Downfall inspires an impressive amount of dread for something where the outcome is going to be known ahead of time, regardless of how much/little you know about the Second World War. It’s also called “Downfall,” so, you know… that’s what you’re in for, and it’s pretty grueling to watch.
Downfall isn’t about inspiring sympathy for those it’s about, and instead feels more like it wants to show what happened, warts and all, among the high-ranking members of the Third Reich as it was crumbling and the end was nigh. It’s a claustrophobic and extremely well-acted movie that is kind of infamous nowadays for inspiring a series of memes, but if you get past those Downfall parodies (as funny as some of them might be), you’ll probably be surprised to find a very compelling war drama here.
8
‘The Great Escape’ (1963)
Like with The Dirty Dozen, there’s quite a bit of entertainment to be found in The Great Escape, with it still retaining a good deal of intensity throughout. It’s about an ambitious escape attempt from a prisoner of war camp that’s been established specifically to be “inescapable,” housing various Allied prisoners who’ve all made escapes beforehand from more “regular” prisoner of war camps.
This plays out over a runtime that nears three hours, which might sound a little excessive, but the execution makes it work and feel engaging for all that time. The Great Escape is pretty much perfect, and probably more than just “Great.” As for “Escape,” it is escapist in the sense that there are things to be thrilled and entertained by here, all while also feeling the tension of the situation, with certain costs and hardships of war nonetheless conveyed.
7
‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ (2006)
In 2006, there were two World War II movies directed by Clint Eastwood that were released, and both were about the Battle of Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers showed it from the American perspective, and much of that particular film was focused on the aftermath, and the story behind the famous photograph known as Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.
Letters from Iwo Jima is also about confronting the end, and dealing with approaching death, doing so with surprising sympathy.
Letters from Iwo Jima, on the other hand, was about the battle from the Japanese perspective, and a good deal of it was instead concerned with the lead-up to said battle, and with less time spent on the aftermath, considering how many on the Japanese side of the battle died. So, Letters from Iwo Jima is also about confronting the end, and dealing with approaching death, doing so with surprising sympathy (at least for an American-produced film) and a ton of emotion for hopefully obvious reasons.
6
‘Dunkirk’ (2017)
Before Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan had made one movie set in the past (The Prestige), but that one wasn’t really based on a true story, having mostly fictional characters. Dunkirk was a bit more faithful to history, specifically being about the Dunkirk evacuation, which really happened, though the characters are either fictional or inspired by real-life people. It’s more about the experience of the whole event from multiple perspectives, rather than honing in on the real-life people who were involved, if that makes sense.
It’s then possible to look at Dunkirk as bridging the gap between historical fiction (The Prestige) and a full-on/mostly historically accurate biopic (Oppenheimer), with Nolan’s whole filmography. Anyway, regarding Dunkirk, it’s one of his most visceral and compelling movies, being paced and edited in a way that feels continually nerve-wracking and genuinely rather unique among the many, many World War II films already out there.
5
‘Come and See’ (1985)
Some people will tell you that Come and See gets talked about too much, while at the same time, it’s not quite as famous as most of the other movies being mentioned here, so maybe there’s an argument to be made that it’s overlooked in the overall scheme of things. It kind of depends on what online spaces you’re in or not in, and that does make it hard to introduce and talk about, given some people are probably sick of hearing about it, and others are probably like, “Huh, Come and See?”
It’s a movie about a young man joining a group of resistance fighters, and then experiencing a series of utterly hellish situations as those resistance fighters try to combat German forces in Belarus. As an anti-war movie, Come and See is about as effective as they get, so calling it very intense honestly feels like something of an understatement. It’s a horrifying watch, and one of those movies where seeing it once feels like enough.
4
‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998)
One of those movies that’s famously about Matt Damon getting home, in one way or another, Saving Private Ryan has Damon playing the titular Private Ryan, and a group of soldiers are tasked with finding him so he can be sent home after his brothers are found to have all died in combat. There’s also a very intense depiction of the Omaha Beach landing, which is a big reason why Saving Private Ryan inevitably has to get ranked among the most visceral war movies of all time.
Things don’t really slow down or get a great deal easier after that point, with Saving Private Ryan having its main characters in near-constant danger, and then there’s also a fairly large battle sequence that comes near the film’s conclusion. It’s relentless and undeniably emotional, well and truly earning the right to count itself among Steven Spielberg’s all-time best directorial efforts.
3
‘The Battle of Okinawa’ (1971)
One of the most relentlessly downbeat war movies of all time, The Battle of Okinawa could well have even Come and See beat in terms of being a World War II movie that takes no prisoners and makes you feel miserable once it’s done. You’ll feel miserable while it’s going on, too, and then just extra miserable once it’s finished. It’s a very harsh anti-war movie about the titular battle and how much devastation it came to cause.
Its focus on the Pacific Theater makes The Battle of Okinawa also potentially comparable to Letters from Iwo Jima, but that one wasn’t as despairing, even if much of it was also about loss, death, and destruction. The Battle of Okinawa is next-level depressing, and has a level of violence that’s far more upsetting and shocking than most films released around the same time that are considered groundbreaking/boundary-pushing for the violence they depicted (like, Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch look positively PG-rated in comparison).
2
‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009)
Inglourious Basterds walks a delicate line, in terms of being great entertainment and genuinely intense at different points, and then it does all that while being in no way describable as “delicate” in the conventional sense. It’s about vengeance in Nazi-occupied France, basically, with a few different people all trying to combat German forces in their own ways, with all parties eventually meeting for a confrontation – partly by chance – in a cinema by the time the final act comes around.
The medium of film itself is weaponized, and then Inglourious Basterds also explodes/dismantles other things, narratively and thematically, playing around with history in some rather startling (but effective) ways. It does a lot, and it does it all relentlessly at the same time, technically being one of the more entertaining movies here, for sure, yet there are long stretches of this movie that also prove almost unbearably tense.
1
‘Das Boot’ (1981)
Since it’s confined in a way that feels in line with what you might expect from a grueling psychological thriller, Das Boot stands out as arguably the most intense World War II movie ever made. Also helping it in this regard is its length, because you’re made to feel on edge for a very long runtime, with the shortest version of Das Boot still running for about 2.5 hours, and then the longer versions proving similarly tense, just for, you know, quite a while longer.
It’s set inside a German submarine, with the members of the sub’s crew having to deal with boredom, danger, and the idea that death feels particularly inescapable when you’re deep underwater and in such a vulnerable position. Das Boot is basically guaranteed to make anyone who watches it feel anxious throughout, doing for submarine warfare what Uncut Gems did for gambling addictions.
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