War film
Encyclopedia
War films are a film genre concerned with war
fare, usually about naval
, air
or land
battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war
, covert operations, military training
or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles. Their stories may be fiction
, based on history
, docudrama
, biographical, or even alternate history fiction.
The term anti-war film
is sometimes used to describe films which bring to the viewer the pain and horror of war, often from a political or ideological perspective.
identified four narrative elements of the war film within the context of Hollywood production: a) the suspension of civilian morality during times of war, b) primacy of collective goals over individual motivations, c) rivalry between men in predominantly male groups as well as marginalization and objectification of women, and d) depiction of the reintegration of veterans. Film scholar Kathryn Kane has pointed out similarities between the war film genre and the Western
. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace, civilization and savagery. War films usually frame World War II
as a conflict between good and evil as represented by the Allied forces
and Nazi Germany
whereas the Western portrays the conflict between "civilized" settlers and the "savage" indigenous peoples. Jeanine Basinger
argues that a sub-genre, the World War II combat film, emerged in 1943. This sub-genre depicts military action whereas the war film genre need not portray armed combat.
in a manner reminiscent of the First World War, which was happening overseas at the time of its release.
In 1914-1918, both the Central Powers and the Allies produced war documentaries. The films were also used as propaganda in neutral countries like the United States. Among the most notable motion pictures was a film shot at the Eastern Front by cameraman Albert K. Dawson
: The Battle and Fall of Przemysl (1915). Dawson was attached to the German, Austrian and Bulgarian armies as an official war photographer. His documentaries were released by The American Correspondent Film Company.
's Shoulder Arms
made in 1918. The film set a style for war films to come and it can be considered the first comedy about war in film history. Films made in the years following World War I
tended to emphasise the horror or futility of warfare, most notably The Big Parade
(1925) and What Price Glory? (1926). With the sound era, films like All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (and its much darker German
counterpart Westfront 1918
) , Howard Hawks
' Road to Glory (1936) and Grand Illusion
(1937), focused on the futility of war for non-American soldiers whilst Hollywood produced American soldiers featuring in World War I comedies such as Buster Keaton
's Doughboys (1930) and Wheeler & Woolsey
's Half Shot at Sunrise (1930), or exciting tales of the U.S. Marine Corps putting down rebellions in Central America
, China
, and the Pacific Islands
in films like Frank Capra
's Flight (1930), The Leathernecks Have Landed (1936) and Tell it to the Marines
(1926 film). Other films focused on the drama inherent in the new technology and fading chivalry
of aerial combat in films such as Wings
(1927), Hell's Angels
(1930) and The Dawn Patrol (1930 and 1938
versions).
and Germany
and were often documentary
or semi-documentary in nature. Examples include The Lion Has Wings
and Target for Tonight
(British) and Sieg im Westen
(German).
By the early 1940s, the British film industry
began to combine documentary techniques with fictional stories in films like Noel Coward
's In Which We Serve
(1942), Millions Like Us
(1943) and The Way Ahead
(1944). Others used the medium of the fiction film to carry a propaganda message; about the need for vigilance (Went the Day Well?
) or to avoid "careless talk" (The Next of Kin
).
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
was passed by the United States Congress
on September 16, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription
in United States history. Hollywood reflected the interest of the American public in Conscription in the United States
by having nearly every film studio bring out a military film comedy in 1941 with their resident comedian(s). Universal Pictures
' Abbott and Costello
came out with the first feature film on the subject Buck Privates
and followed it with the team In The Navy
and in the United States Army Air Corps
to Keep 'Em Flying
. Paramount Pictures
' Bob Hope
was Caught In The Draft, Warner Brothers told Phil Silvers
and Jimmy Durante
You're In The Army Now, Columbia Pictures
put Fred Astaire
in the army declaring You'll Never Get Rich, Hal Roach
gave his new comedy team of William Tracy
and Joe Sawyer Tanks a Million and 20th Century Fox
had the former Hal Roach
team of Laurel & Hardy going Great Guns
. The minor studios such as Republic Pictures
made Bob Crosby
and Eddie Foy Jr Rookies on Parade and Monogram Pictures
enlisted Nat Pendleton
as Top Sergeant Mulligan. However, the first comedians to hit the screen in an army comedy were The Three Stooges as Boobs in Arms
.
Serious 1941 films involving training for war included U.S. Cavalry in MGM's The Bugle Sounds, RKO's Parachute Battalion, Paramount Pictures
I Wanted Wings and Warner Brothers' Dive Bomber
. 20th Century Fox
made the last pre-war military film about the U.S. Marine Corps To The Shores of Tripoli. When the Pearl Harbor
attack occurred the studio reshot the ending to have John Payne
reenlist in the Corps and march off with the Marines whilst his father implores him to 'Get a Jap for me'.
Prior to Pearl Harbor
, Warner Brothers warned of Confessions of a Nazi Spy
whilst PRC
told of Hitler, Beast of Berlin
. A metaphor
for America was Gary Cooper
as the real life Sergeant York
who went from hillbilly
hell-raiser, to pacifist, to a draft
ee comparing the Bible
to the History of the United States
and deciding that his marksmanship against the Germans was righteous.
After the United States
entered the war in 1941 Hollywood began to mass-produce war films. Many of the American dramatic war films in the early 1940s were designed to celebrate American unity and demonize "the enemy." One of the conventions of the genre that developed during the period was of a cross-section of the American people who come together with a common purpose for the good of the country, i.e. the need for mobilization
.
The American industry also produced films designed to extol the heroics of America's allies, such as Mrs. Miniver
(about a British family on the home front), Edge of Darkness (Norwegian resistance fighters) and The North Star
(the Soviet Union
and its Communist Party
). Towards the end of the war popular books became the source of films of higher quality and more serious tone, extoling more long-term values, including Guadalcanal Diary (film)
(1943), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
(1944) and They Were Expendable
(1945).
(1954), Dunkirk
(1958), Reach for the Sky
(1956) telling the life of Douglas Bader
and Sink the Bismarck!
(1960). The immediate aftermath of the war in Hollywood avoided the action film and delved into problems experienced by the returning veterans, turning out a number of high quality films that included The Best Years of Our Lives
(1946), Battleground (1949), Home of the Brave
(1949), Command Decision (1948), and Twelve O'Clock High
(1949). The latter two examined the psychological effects of combat and the stresses of command.
Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s were often inclined towards spectacular heroics or self-sacrifice in films like Sands of Iwo Jima
(1949), Halls of Montezuma
(1950) or D-Day the Sixth of June
(1956). They also tended to toward stereotyping: typically, a small group of ethnically diverse men would come together but would not be developed much beyond their ethnicity; the senior officer would often be unreasonable and unyielding; almost anyone sharing personal information - especially plans for returning home - would die shortly thereafter and anyone acting in a cowardly or unpatriotic manner would convert to heroism or die (or both, in quick succession). Twentieth-Century Fox made a succession of war films realistically filmed in black-and-white in the early 1950s that highlighted little-known aspects of World War II, among them The Frogmen, Go For Broke!
, You're in the Navy Now
, and Decision Before Dawn
.
Another large group of films emerged from the plethora of popular war novels penned after the war. Their quality was largely dependent on their faithfulness to the plot or theme of the original, casting, direction, and production values. Much of their appeal for the American public was that they covered virtually every branch of the service involved in the war. These include: The Young Lions
(1958), The Naked and the Dead
(1958), Battle Cry
(1955), Run Silent, Run Deep
(1958), Captain Newman, M.D.
(1963), The Caine Mutiny
(1954), Away All Boats
(1956), The Enemy Below
(1957), From Here to Eternity
(1953), Kings Go Forth
(1958), Never So Few
(1959), The Mountain Road
(1960), and In Harm's Way
(1965).
war films in the 1950s and '60s was the prisoner of war
film. This was a form popularised in Britain
and recounted stories of real escapes from (usually German
) P.O.W. camps in World War II. Examples include The Wooden Horse
(1950), Albert R.N. (1953) and The Colditz Story
(1955). Hollywood also made its own contribution to the genre with The Great Escape
(1963) and the fictional Stalag 17
(1953). Other fictional P.O.W. films include The Captive Heart
(1947), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), King Rat
(1965), Danger Within
(1958), The Secret War of Harry Frigg
(1968). Unusually, the British industry also produced a film based on German escaper Franz von Werra
, The One That Got Away in (1957).
missions like The Gift Horse (1952) based on the St. Nazaire Raid
, and Ill Met by Moonlight (1956) had begun to inspire fictional adventure films such as The Guns of Navarone
(1961), The Train (1964), The Dirty Dozen
(1967) and Where Eagles Dare
(1968), which used the war as the backdrop for spectacular action films. The latter films had American producers, stars and financing but were filmed in England or on location with British film crews, supporting actors, and expertise.
The late 1950s and 1960s also brought some more thoughtful big war films like Andrei Tarkovsky
's Ivan's Childhood (1962), David Lean
's Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Lawrence of Arabia
(1962) as well as a fashion for all-star epics based on battles which were often quasi-documentary
in style and filmed in Europe where extras and production costs were cheaper. This trend was started by Darryl F. Zanuck
's production The Longest Day
in 1962, based on the first day of the 1944 D-Day landings. Other examples included Battle of the Bulge
(1965), Anzio (1968), Battle of Britain
(1969), The Battle of Neretva
(1969), Waterloo (1970), Tora! Tora! Tora!
(1970) (based on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
), Midway
(1976) and A Bridge Too Far (1977).
In Japan, war films from the Japanese perspective were popular, such as Japan's Longest Day, Submarine I-57 Will Not Surrender
(1959) and Battle of Okinawa
(1971).
The war was not all about the prowess of the outfit shown in a film, the comedy genre used as well the war time as a background like in La Grande Vadrouille
(1966) and Kelly's Heroes
(1970).
Though trouble in Southeast Asia
was shown in Jack L. Warner's Brushfire (1961), and Marshall Thompson
's A Yank in Viet-Nam (1964) and To the Shores of Hell (1966), the major Hollywood studios refused to make any Vietnam War
films with the exception of John Wayne
's The Green Berets
based on the best-selling book by Robin Moore
and using the theme song "Ballad of the Green Berets
". No Vietnam war films followed until Jack Starrett
's Nam Angels AKA The Losers (1970) filmed on Philippine sets left over from Robert Aldrich
's Too Late the Hero
(also 1970).
tended to diminish the appetite for fictional war films by the turn of the 1970s. American war films produced during and just after the Vietnam War often reflected the disillusion of the American public towards the war. Most films made after the Vietnam War delved more deeply into the horrors of war than films made before it (This is not to say that there were no such films before the Vietnam War). Later war films like Catch-22
(set in WWII) and the black comedy
MASH
(set in Korea), reflected some of these attitudes.
In the decades following the War, the American film industry produced many war films either critical of American involvement in Vietnam, depicting American war crimes or the negative effects of war on combatants. These films included works by the most prominent actors and directors in American film and garnering the highest accolades and commercial success including:
Oliver Stone
trilogy of Vietnam War films:
Another subgenre were films that portrayed the American government cynically by reflecting upon the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue
, the most known of which were Missing in Action
(1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II
(1985).
An exception was the 1982 South Korean-American production Inchon
about a battle in the Korean War
, although both a critical and commercial failure.
's realistic Saving Private Ryan
in 1998 helped to usher in a revival of interest in World War II films. A number of these, such as Pearl Harbor
and Enemy at the Gates
were aimed at the blockbuster market, while others, like Enigma
, Dark Blue World
, Captain Corelli's Mandolin
, and Charlotte Gray
, were more nostalgic in tone. Others were trying to represent a more harrowing side of the reality of the war such precursor movies as the german Joseph Vilsmaier
's Stalingrad
, Wolfgang Petersen
's Das Boot
and the later, american, Terrence Malick
's The Thin Red Line
.
Other notable films and TV series of the period dealing with World War II include:
Band of Brothers,
The Pacific
,
The English Patient
,
Schindler's List
,
The Pianist
,
Defiance
,
Atonement
,
Katyn
,
Pornografia
,
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
,
Adam Resurrected
,
The Reader
,
Valkyrie
,
Good
,
Life is Beautiful
,
Downfall
,
The Counterfeiters
,
Letters from Iwo Jima
,
Flags of Our Fathers
,
Miracle at St. Anna
,
The Good German
,
Inglourious Basterds,
Days of Glory,
Empire of the Sun
.
.
Notable films dealing with contemporary conflict include:
Red Dawn (2012 film),
Children of Men
,
Taking Chance
,
The Men Who Stare at Goats
,
Black Hawk Down,
Behind Enemy Lines,
Jarhead
,
Battle for Haditha,
Body of Lies
,
Border,
Syriana
,
Blood Diamond
,
G.I. Jane
,
Tomorrow, When the War Began (film)
,
Rendition
,
The Kite Runner
,
Tears of the Sun
,
The Hurt Locker
,
In the Valley of Elah
,
No Man's Land
,
Three Kings,
Welcome to Sarajevo
,
Rambo
,
Brothers,
Green Zone
.
has been very cooperative since World War II
in providing ships and technical guidance; Top Gun
is the most famous example. The U.S. Air Force provided considerable verisimilitude for The Big Lift
, Strategic Air Command
and A Gathering of Eagles
, filmed on Air Force bases and using Air Force personnel in many roles.
Typically, the military will not assist filmmakers if the film is critical of them. Sometimes the military demands some editorial control in exchange for their cooperation, which can bias the result. Critics point out that the film Pearl Harbors US-biased portrayal of events is a compensation for technical assistance received by the US armed forces. For another example, the U.S. Navy objected to elements of Crimson Tide
, especially mutiny on board an American naval vessel, so the film was produced without their assistance.
If the home nation's military will not cooperate, or if filming in the home nation is too expensive, another country's may assist. Many 1950s and 1960s war films, including the Oscar
-winning films Patton
, Lawrence of Arabia
, and Spartacus
, were shot in Spain
, which had large supplies of both Allied and Axis
equipment. The Napoleonic epic Waterloo was shot in Ukraine
(then part of the Soviet Union
), using Soviet soldiers. The D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan
were shot with the cooperation of the Irish army because the French couldn't afford to close down the real Omaha Beach due to it being a monument. All of the major sequences in Dark Blue World
were shot in the Czech Republic, at a disused air force base. In the "Crimson Tide" example, the French Navy (Marine Nationale) assisted the production team with the French aircraft carrier Foch
and one SNLE
.
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
fare, usually about naval
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
, air
Air force
An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy or...
or land
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
, covert operations, military training
Military education and training
Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles....
or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles. Their stories may be fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, based on history
Historical drama film
The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous persons. Some historical dramas attempt to accurately portray a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow...
, docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
, biographical, or even alternate history fiction.
The term anti-war film
Anti-war film
An anti-war film is a film that emphasizes the pain, horror, and human costs of armed conflict. While some films criticize armed conflicts in a general sense, others focus on acts within a specific war, such as the use of poison gas or the genocidal killing of civilians . Some anti-war films such...
is sometimes used to describe films which bring to the viewer the pain and horror of war, often from a political or ideological perspective.
Genre
John BeltonJohn Belton
John Belton is currently a Professor of English at Rutgers University. He earned his PhD from Harvard University and specializes in film history and cultural studies. Belton has served on the National Film Preservation Board, as Chair for the Archival Papers and Historical Committee of the Society...
identified four narrative elements of the war film within the context of Hollywood production: a) the suspension of civilian morality during times of war, b) primacy of collective goals over individual motivations, c) rivalry between men in predominantly male groups as well as marginalization and objectification of women, and d) depiction of the reintegration of veterans. Film scholar Kathryn Kane has pointed out similarities between the war film genre and the Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace, civilization and savagery. War films usually frame World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as a conflict between good and evil as represented by the Allied forces
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
whereas the Western portrays the conflict between "civilized" settlers and the "savage" indigenous peoples. Jeanine Basinger
Jeanine Basinger
Jeanine Basinger , a film historian, is Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Founder and Curator of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut....
argues that a sub-genre, the World War II combat film, emerged in 1943. This sub-genre depicts military action whereas the war film genre need not portray armed combat.
Beginnings
One of the most influential silent films from the beginning of the twentieth century is Birth of a Nation (1915), the first half of which established many conventions for War films and Motion Pictures in general. This film has been described as a great film for a terrible cause. Protests and violence erupted in the wake of its opening and it became one of the first films to raise the issue of cinema's potentially detrimental effect on mass culture. Notably the film depicts the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in a manner reminiscent of the First World War, which was happening overseas at the time of its release.
In 1914-1918, both the Central Powers and the Allies produced war documentaries. The films were also used as propaganda in neutral countries like the United States. Among the most notable motion pictures was a film shot at the Eastern Front by cameraman Albert K. Dawson
Albert K. Dawson
Albert Knox Dawson was born in Vincennes, Indiana, on 20 September 1885. He was the oldest son of Thomas A. Dawson and Lida T. Knox. His father was a local bank officer and real estate manager....
: The Battle and Fall of Przemysl (1915). Dawson was attached to the German, Austrian and Bulgarian armies as an official war photographer. His documentaries were released by The American Correspondent Film Company.
1920s and 1930s
An early notable war film is Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's Shoulder Arms
Shoulder Arms
Shoulder Arms is Charlie Chaplin's second film for First National Pictures. Released in 1918, it is a silent comedy set in France during World War I. The main part of the film occurs in a dream. It co-starred Edna Purviance and Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's brother...
made in 1918. The film set a style for war films to come and it can be considered the first comedy about war in film history. Films made in the years following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
tended to emphasise the horror or futility of warfare, most notably The Big Parade
The Big Parade
The Big Parade is a 1925 silent film. It tells the story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.The film was...
(1925) and What Price Glory? (1926). With the sound era, films like All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (and its much darker German
Cinema of Germany
Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...
counterpart Westfront 1918
Westfront 1918
Westfront 1918 is a German film, set mostly in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I. It was directed in 1930 by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, from the novel Vier von der Infanterie by Ernst Johannsen, and deals with the impact of the war on a group of infantrymen...
) , Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
' Road to Glory (1936) and Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion (film)
Grand Illusion is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape.The title of the film comes from a...
(1937), focused on the futility of war for non-American soldiers whilst Hollywood produced American soldiers featuring in World War I comedies such as Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
's Doughboys (1930) and Wheeler & Woolsey
Wheeler & Woolsey
Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a famous American film comedy team of the 1930s....
's Half Shot at Sunrise (1930), or exciting tales of the U.S. Marine Corps putting down rebellions in Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
in films like Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
's Flight (1930), The Leathernecks Have Landed (1936) and Tell it to the Marines
Tell It to the Marines
Tell It to the Marines is a 1926 silent movie starring Lon Chaney, William Haines and Eleanor Boardman, and directed by George W. Hill. The film follows a Marine recruit and the sergeant who trains him...
(1926 film). Other films focused on the drama inherent in the new technology and fading chivalry
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
of aerial combat in films such as Wings
Wings (film)
Wings is a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. Wings was the first film, and the only silent film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and...
(1927), Hell's Angels
Hell's Angels (film)
Hell's Angels is a 1930 American war film, directed by Howard Hughes and starring Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon, and James Hall. The film, which was produced by Hughes and written by Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook, centers on the combat pilots of World War I...
(1930) and The Dawn Patrol (1930 and 1938
The Dawn Patrol (1938 film)
The Dawn Patrol is a 1938 American war film, a remake of the pre-Code 1930 film of the same name. Both were based on the short story "The Flight Commander" by John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S...
versions).
1940s
The first popular war films during the Second World War came from BritainUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and were often documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
or semi-documentary in nature. Examples include The Lion Has Wings
The Lion Has Wings
The Lion Has Wings is a 1939 British, black-and-white, documentary-style, propaganda, war film. The film was directed by Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, Alexander Korda and Michael Powell...
and Target for Tonight
Target for Tonight
Target for Tonight is a 1941 British documentary film billed as being filmed by and acted by the Royal Air Force, all while under fire. It was directed by Harry Watt. The film revolves for the most part around one crew in a single Wellington aircraft...
(British) and Sieg im Westen
Sieg im Westen
Sieg im Westen is a 1941 German propaganda film.It was produced by the Oberkommando des Heeres, the German Army High Command, rather than the Propaganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbels.Robert Edwin Hertzstein, The War That Hitler Won p281 ISBN 399-11845-4 Goebbels indeed sabotaged its release in...
(German).
By the early 1940s, the British film industry
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
began to combine documentary techniques with fictional stories in films like Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by David Lean and Noël Coward. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information ....
(1942), Millions Like Us
Millions Like Us
Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a wartime aircraft factory in documentary detail. It stars Patricia Roc, Eric Portman, Megs Jenkins, and Anne Crawford, was written by Sidney Gilliat, and directed by Gilliat and Frank Launder...
(1943) and The Way Ahead
The Way Ahead
The Way Ahead is a British Second World War drama released in 1944. It stars David Niven and Stanley Holloway and follows a group of civilians who are conscripted into the British Army to fight in North Africa. In the U.S., an edited version was released as The Immortal Battalion.The film was...
(1944). Others used the medium of the fiction film to carry a propaganda message; about the need for vigilance (Went the Day Well?
Went the Day Well?
"Went the Day Well?" is a British war film produced by Ealing Studios in 1942 as unofficial propaganda. It tells of how an English village is taken over by German paratroopers . Made during the war, it reflects the greatest potential nightmares of many Britons of the time, although the threat of...
) or to avoid "careless talk" (The Next of Kin
The Next of Kin
The Next of Kin, also known as Next of Kin, is a 1942 World War II propaganda film produced by Ealing Studios.The film was originally commissioned by the British War Office as a training film to promote the government propaganda message that "Careless talk costs lives"...
).
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
Selective Training and Service Act of 1940
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, was passed by the Congress of the United States on September 17, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription in United States history when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law two days later...
was passed by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
on September 16, 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
in United States history. Hollywood reflected the interest of the American public in Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
by having nearly every film studio bring out a military film comedy in 1941 with their resident comedian(s). Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
' Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello
William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...
came out with the first feature film on the subject Buck Privates
Buck Privates
Buck Privates is the 1941 comedy/World War II film that turned Bud Abbott and Lou Costello into bonafide movie stars. It was the first service comedy based on the peacetime draft of 1940. The comedy team made two more service comedies before the United States entered the war...
and followed it with the team In The Navy
In The Navy (film)
-Plot:Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts , a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world.Aboard the battleship...
and in the United States Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
to Keep 'Em Flying
Keep 'Em Flying
-Plot:Jinx Roberts is a stunt pilot and his assistants are Blackie and Heathcliffe . All three are fired from the carnival and air show that they work for after a disagreement. Jinx decides that he should join the Army Air Force, so they go to a nightclub to party one last time. While there...
. Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
' Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
was Caught In The Draft, Warner Brothers told Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...
and Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
You're In The Army Now, Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
put Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
in the army declaring You'll Never Get Rich, Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
gave his new comedy team of William Tracy
William Tracy
William Tracy was an American character actor. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Tracy is perhaps best known for the role of Pepi Katona, the delivery boy, in The Shop Around the Corner. He also starred in the John Ford film Tobacco Road . That same year, he began a recurring role as Sgt...
and Joe Sawyer Tanks a Million and 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
had the former Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
team of Laurel & Hardy going Great Guns
Great Guns
Great Guns is a 1941 film directed by Monty Banks, and produced by Sol M. Wurtzel for 20th Century Fox starring Laurel and Hardy.- Plot :...
. The minor studios such as Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
made Bob Crosby
Bob Crosby
George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:...
and Eddie Foy Jr Rookies on Parade and Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
enlisted Nat Pendleton
Nat Pendleton
Nathaniel Greene "Nat" Pendleton was an American Olympic wrestler and film actor.-Early life:Pendleton was born in Davenport, Iowa to Adelaide E. and Nathaniel G. Pendleton. He studied at Columbia University where he began his wrestling career. He was twice Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling...
as Top Sergeant Mulligan. However, the first comedians to hit the screen in an army comedy were The Three Stooges as Boobs in Arms
Boobs in Arms
Boobs in Arms is the 52nd short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
.
Serious 1941 films involving training for war included U.S. Cavalry in MGM's The Bugle Sounds, RKO's Parachute Battalion, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
I Wanted Wings and Warner Brothers' Dive Bomber
Dive Bomber (film)
Dive Bomber is a 1941 American propaganda film directed by Michael Curtiz. It is notable for both its Technicolor photography of pre-World War II United States Navy aircraft and as a historical document of the US in 1941, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, one of the best known World...
. 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
made the last pre-war military film about the U.S. Marine Corps To The Shores of Tripoli. When the Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
attack occurred the studio reshot the ending to have John Payne
John Payne (actor)
John Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in Miracle on 34th Street and the NBC western television series The Restless Gun.-Background:Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia...
reenlist in the Corps and march off with the Marines whilst his father implores him to 'Get a Jap for me'.
Prior to Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, Warner Brothers warned of Confessions of a Nazi Spy
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy thriller film and the first blatantly anti-Nazi film produced by a major Hollywood studio prior to World War II. The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated...
whilst PRC
Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation was one of the more lower-end Hollywood film studios on Poverty Row from the late '30s to the mid-'40s. PRC, as it was commonly known, made low-budget B-movies for the lower-half of a double bill. A few of its films have gained a respectable reputation over the...
told of Hitler, Beast of Berlin
Hitler, Beast of Berlin
Hitler, Beast of Berlin was one of the most popular "hiss and boo" films of the World War II era, based on the novel Goose Step by Shepard Traube. The film was the first production of Producers Releasing Corporation. It was recut and released as Beasts of Berlin the same year, having been banned...
. A metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for America was Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
as the real life Sergeant York
Sergeant York
Sergeant York is a 1941 biographical film about the life of Alvin York, the most-decorated American soldier of World War I. It was directed by Howard Hawks and was the highest-grossing film of the year....
who went from hillbilly
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
hell-raiser, to pacifist, to a draft
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
ee comparing the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to the History of the United States
History of the United States
The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The...
and deciding that his marksmanship against the Germans was righteous.
After the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entered the war in 1941 Hollywood began to mass-produce war films. Many of the American dramatic war films in the early 1940s were designed to celebrate American unity and demonize "the enemy." One of the conventions of the genre that developed during the period was of a cross-section of the American people who come together with a common purpose for the good of the country, i.e. the need for mobilization
Mobilization
Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Prussian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed...
.
The American industry also produced films designed to extol the heroics of America's allies, such as Mrs. Miniver
Mrs. Miniver (film)
Mrs. Miniver is a 1942 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and Teresa Wright. Based on the fictional English housewife created by Jan Struther in 1937 for a series of newspaper columns, the film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture,...
(about a British family on the home front), Edge of Darkness (Norwegian resistance fighters) and The North Star
The North Star (1943 film)
The North Star is a 1943 war film produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim...
(the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
). Towards the end of the war popular books became the source of films of higher quality and more serious tone, extoling more long-term values, including Guadalcanal Diary (film)
Guadalcanal Diary (film)
Guadalcanal Diary is a 1943 World War II war film starring Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and the film debut of Richard Jaeckel...
(1943), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a 1944 MGM war film. It is based on the true story of America's first retaliatory air strike against Japan four months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist. The screenplay by...
(1944) and They Were Expendable
They Were Expendable
They Were Expendable is a 1945 American war film directed by John Ford and starring Robert Montgomery and John Wayne. The film is based on the book by William L. White, relating the story of the exploits of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three, a PT boat unit defending the Philippines against Japanese...
(1945).
1950s
The years after World War II brought a large number of mostly patriotic war films, which used the war as a backdrop for dramas and adventure stories. Many films made in Britain drew on true stories, such as The Dam BustersThe Dam Busters (film)
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...
(1954), Dunkirk
Dunkirk (film)
Dunkirk is a 1958 British war film directed by Leslie Norman and starring John Mills, Richard Attenborough and Bernard Lee. It was based on two novels: Elleston Trevor's The Big Pick-Up and Lt. Col. Ewan Hunter and Maj. J. S...
(1958), Reach for the Sky
Reach for the Sky
Reach for the Sky is a 1956 British biographical film of aviator Douglas Bader, based on the 1954 biography of the same name by Paul Brickhill. The film stars Kenneth More and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film of 1956.-Plot:In 1928, Douglas Bader, a...
(1956) telling the life of Douglas Bader
Douglas Bader
Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, FRAeS, DL was a Royal Air Force fighter ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 20 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.Bader joined the...
and Sink the Bismarck!
Sink the Bismarck!
Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white British war film based on the book, the "Last Nine Days of the Bismarck" by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. To date, it is the only movie made that deals directly with the operations, chase, and...
(1960). The immediate aftermath of the war in Hollywood avoided the action film and delved into problems experienced by the returning veterans, turning out a number of high quality films that included The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell, a United States paratrooper who lost both hands in a military training accident. The film is about three United States...
(1946), Battleground (1949), Home of the Brave
Home of the Brave (1949 film)
Home of the Brave is a 1949 film based on a 1946 play by Arthur Laurents. It was directed by Mark Robson and stars Douglas Dick, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy, James Edwards, and Steve Brodie...
(1949), Command Decision (1948), and Twelve O'Clock High
Twelve O'Clock High
Twelve O'Clock High is a 1949 American war film about aircrews in the United States Army's Eighth Air Force who flew daylight bombing missions against Nazi Germany and occupied France during the early days of American involvement in World War II. The film was adapted by Sy Bartlett, Henry King ...
(1949). The latter two examined the psychological effects of combat and the stresses of command.
Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s were often inclined towards spectacular heroics or self-sacrifice in films like Sands of Iwo Jima
Sands of Iwo Jima
Sands of Iwo Jima is a 1949 war film that follows a group of United States Marines from training to the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. It stars John Wayne, John Agar, Adele Mara and Forrest Tucker. The movie was written by Harry Brown and James Edward Grant and directed by Allan Dwan...
(1949), Halls of Montezuma
Halls of Montezuma (film)
Halls of Montezuma is a 1951 World War II war film starring Richard Widmark, Jack Palance and Karl Malden. The film, which is about U.S. marines fighting on a Japanese-held island, was directed by academy-award winner Lewis Milestone. It also starred Robert Wagner in his first credited screen role...
(1950) or D-Day the Sixth of June
D-Day the Sixth of June
D-Day the Sixth of June is a 1956 romantic war film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Koster and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Harry Brown, based on the novel, The Sixth of June by Lionel Shapiro....
(1956). They also tended to toward stereotyping: typically, a small group of ethnically diverse men would come together but would not be developed much beyond their ethnicity; the senior officer would often be unreasonable and unyielding; almost anyone sharing personal information - especially plans for returning home - would die shortly thereafter and anyone acting in a cowardly or unpatriotic manner would convert to heroism or die (or both, in quick succession). Twentieth-Century Fox made a succession of war films realistically filmed in black-and-white in the early 1950s that highlighted little-known aspects of World War II, among them The Frogmen, Go For Broke!
Go for Broke! (1951 film)
Go for Broke! is a 1951 war film directed by Robert Pirosh, produced by Dore Schary and starred Van Johnson, several veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and Henry Nakamura....
, You're in the Navy Now
You're in the Navy Now
You're in the Navy Now is a Hollywood film released in 1951 by Twentieth Century Fox about the United States Navy in the first months of World War II. Its initial release was titled USS Teakettle...
, and Decision Before Dawn
Decision Before Dawn
Decision Before Dawn is a 1951 American war film directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Richard Basehart, Oskar Werner, and Hans Christian Blech. It tells the story of the American Army using potentially unreliable German prisoners of war to gather intelligence in the closing days of World War II...
.
Another large group of films emerged from the plethora of popular war novels penned after the war. Their quality was largely dependent on their faithfulness to the plot or theme of the original, casting, direction, and production values. Much of their appeal for the American public was that they covered virtually every branch of the service involved in the war. These include: The Young Lions
The Young Lions
The Young Lions is a 1958 war drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based upon the 1949 novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw, and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.-Outline:...
(1958), The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead is a 1948 novel by Norman Mailer. It was based on his experiences with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II...
(1958), Battle Cry
Battle Cry (film)
Battle Cry is a 1955 CinemaScope film, starring Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman...
(1955), Run Silent, Run Deep
Run Silent, Run Deep
Run Silent, Run Deep is a novel published first in 1955 by then-Commander Edward L. Beach, Jr.. The name refers to "silent running", a submarine stealth tactic. It is also the name of a 1958 movie based on the same novel...
(1958), Captain Newman, M.D.
Captain Newman, M.D.
Captain Newman, M.D. is a 1963 film starring Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall, Eddie Albert and Bobby Darin. It was directed by David Miller and filmed on location at Fort Huachuca, Arizona....
(1963), The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny (film)
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II, directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer. It stars Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, and is based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny. The film...
(1954), Away All Boats
Away All Boats
Away All Boats is a 1956 American war film produced by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Joseph Pevney and produced by Howard Christie from a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman based on the 1953 novel by Kenneth M. Dodson....
(1956), The Enemy Below
The Enemy Below
The Enemy Below is a 1957 war film which tells the story of the battle between the captain of an American destroyer escort and the commander of a German U-boat during World War II. It stars Robert Mitchum, Curt Jürgens, David Hedison and Theodore Bikel. The movie was directed and produced by Dick...
(1957), From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
(1953), Kings Go Forth
Kings Go Forth
Kings Go Forth is a 1958 black-and-white World War II film starring Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood. The screenplay was written by Merle Miller from the novel of the same name by Joe David Brown, and the film was directed by Delmer Daves...
(1958), Never So Few
Never So Few
Never So Few 1959 CinemaScope war film directed by John Sturges and starring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Charles Bronson, Dean Jones and Steve McQueen with uncredited roles by renowned Asian actors Mako, George Takei and James Hong. The script was loosely based on an actual OSS...
(1959), The Mountain Road
The Mountain Road
The Mountain Road is a 1960 war film starring James Stewart and directed by Daniel Mann. Based on a book by Theodore White, the film follows the attempts of a U.S. Army major to destroy bridges and roads potentially useful to the Japanese during World War II.Starting on Sunday, June 28, 1959,...
(1960), and In Harm's Way
In Harm's Way
In Harm's Way is a 1965 American epic war film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Stanley Holloway, Burgess Meredith, Brandon De Wilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews, and Henry Fonda.It was the last black-and-white...
(1965).
POW films
A popular sub-genreGenre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
war films in the 1950s and '60s was the prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
film. This was a form popularised in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and recounted stories of real escapes from (usually German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) P.O.W. camps in World War II. Examples include The Wooden Horse
The Wooden Horse
The Wooden Horse is a 1950 British Second World War war film starring Leo Genn, Anthony Steel and David Tomlinson and directed by Jack Lee. It is based on the book of the same name by Eric Williams, who also wrote the screenplay....
(1950), Albert R.N. (1953) and The Colditz Story
The Colditz Story
The Colditz Story is a 1955 prisoner of war film starring John Mills and Eric Portman and directed by Guy Hamilton.It is based on the book written by P.R...
(1955). Hollywood also made its own contribution to the genre with The Great Escape
The Great Escape (film)
The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
(1963) and the fictional Stalag 17
Stalag 17
Stalag 17 is a 1953 war film which tells the story of a group of American airmen held in a German World War II prisoner of war camp, who come to suspect that one of their number is a traitor...
(1953). Other fictional P.O.W. films include The Captive Heart
The Captive Heart
The Captive Heart is a 1946 British war drama, directed by Basil Dearden for Ealing Studios. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...
(1947), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), King Rat
King Rat (1965 film)
King Rat is a 1965 World War II film adapted from the James Clavell novel King Rat. The film was directed by Bryan Forbes and starred George Segal as Corporal King and James Fox as Marlow, two World War II prisoners of war in a squalid camp near Singapore...
(1965), Danger Within
Danger Within
Danger Within is a 1959 British war film set in a prisoner of war camp in northern Italy during the summer of 1943.-Plot:After a clever escape plan fails, the escape committee, led by Lieutenant Colonel David Baird suspects that there is an informer in their ranks...
(1958), The Secret War of Harry Frigg
The Secret War of Harry Frigg
The Secret War of Harry Frigg is a 1968 comedy film set in World War II. It was directed by Jack Smight and starred Paul Newman.-Plot:Several brigadier generals are unexpectedly taken prisoner by the Italians while in the sauna - which is a public relations disaster. The generals are held in an...
(1968). Unusually, the British industry also produced a film based on German escaper Franz von Werra
Franz von Werra
Franz Xaver Baron von Werra was a German World War II fighter pilot and flying ace who was shot down over England and captured...
, The One That Got Away in (1957).
1960s and 1970s
By the early 1960s films based on commandoCommando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
missions like The Gift Horse (1952) based on the St. Nazaire Raid
St. Nazaire Raid
The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a successful British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War. The operation was undertaken by the Royal Navy and British Commandos under the auspices of Combined...
, and Ill Met by Moonlight (1956) had begun to inspire fictional adventure films such as The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone (film)
The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...
(1961), The Train (1964), The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 film directed by Robert Aldrich and released by MGM. It was filmed in England and features an ensemble cast, including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, and Robert Webber. The film is based on E. M...
(1967) and Where Eagles Dare
Where Eagles Dare
Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 World War II action-adventure spy film starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It was directed by Brian G. Hutton and shot on location in Upper Austria and Bavaria....
(1968), which used the war as the backdrop for spectacular action films. The latter films had American producers, stars and financing but were filmed in England or on location with British film crews, supporting actors, and expertise.
The late 1950s and 1960s also brought some more thoughtful big war films like Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
's Ivan's Childhood (1962), David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
(1962) as well as a fashion for all-star epics based on battles which were often quasi-documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
in style and filmed in Europe where extras and production costs were cheaper. This trend was started by Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
's production The Longest Day
The Longest Day (film)
The Longest Day is a 1962 war film based on the 1959 history book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about "D-Day", the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II....
in 1962, based on the first day of the 1944 D-Day landings. Other examples included Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge (film)
Battle of the Bulge is a widescreen war film produced in Spain that was released in 1965. It was directed by Ken Annakin. It starred Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews and Charles Bronson...
(1965), Anzio (1968), Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain (film)
Battle of Britain is a 1969 Technicolor film directed by Guy Hamilton, and produced by Harry Saltzman and S. Benjamin Fisz. The film broadly relates the events of the Battle of Britain...
(1969), The Battle of Neretva
The Battle of Neretva
Battle of Neretva is a 1969 Yugoslavian partisan film. The film was written by Stevan Bulajić and Veljko Bulajić, and directed by Veljko Bulajić. It is based on the true events of World War II. The Battle of the Neretva was due to a strategic plan for a combined Axis powers attack in 1943 against...
(1969), Waterloo (1970), Tora! Tora! Tora!
Tora! Tora! Tora!
is a 1970 American-Japanese war film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to the extent these facts were known at the time of production. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars an all-star cast, including So Yamamura, E.G...
(1970) (based on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
), Midway
Midway (film)
Midway is a 1976 war film directed by Jack Smight and produced byWalter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford. The music score was by John Williams and the cinematography by Harry Stradling, Jr...
(1976) and A Bridge Too Far (1977).
In Japan, war films from the Japanese perspective were popular, such as Japan's Longest Day, Submarine I-57 Will Not Surrender
Submarine I-57 Will Not Surrender
is a 1959 Japanese war film directed by Shūe Matsubayashi.Special effects were made by Eiji Tsuburaya.-Cast:* Ryō Ikebe* Tatsuya Mihashi* Akihiko Hirata* Akira Kubo* Susumu Fujita* Minoru Takada* Maria Laurenti* Andrew Hughes* Hisaya Ito- See also :...
(1959) and Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
(1971).
The war was not all about the prowess of the outfit shown in a film, the comedy genre used as well the war time as a background like in La Grande Vadrouille
La Grande Vadrouille
La Grande Vadrouille is a 1966 Franco-British comedy film about how the crew of a Royal Air Force B-17 shot down over Paris must then make their way through German-occupied France with the main help of two French citizens with very different mindsets.For over forty...
(1966) and Kelly's Heroes
Kelly's Heroes
Kelly's Heroes is an offbeat 1970 comedy/war film about a group of World War II soldiers who go AWOL to rob a bank behind enemy lines. Directed by Brian G...
(1970).
Though trouble in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
was shown in Jack L. Warner's Brushfire (1961), and Marshall Thompson
Marshall Thompson
Marshall Thompson was an American film and television actor.He was born James Marshall Thompson in Peoria, Illinois. In 1943 Thompson, known for his boy-next-door good looks, was signed by Universal Pictures...
's A Yank in Viet-Nam (1964) and To the Shores of Hell (1966), the major Hollywood studios refused to make any Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
films with the exception of John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
's The Green Berets
The Green Berets (film)
The Green Berets is a 1968 war film featuring John Wayne, George Takei, David Janssen, Jim Hutton and Aldo Ray, nominally based on the eponymous 1965 book by Robin Moore, though the screenplay has little relation to the book....
based on the best-selling book by Robin Moore
Robin Moore
Robert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an American writer who is most known for his books The Green Berets, The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Moore also co-authored...
and using the theme song "Ballad of the Green Berets
Ballad of the Green Berets
"The Ballad Of The Green Berets" is a patriotic song in the ballad style about the Green Berets, an elite special force in the U.S. Army. It is one of the very few songs of the 1960s to cast the military in a positive light, yet it became a major hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard charts for five...
". No Vietnam war films followed until Jack Starrett
Jack Starrett
Jack Starrett was an American actor and film director. He is credited as Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. in some of his films...
's Nam Angels AKA The Losers (1970) filmed on Philippine sets left over from Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich was an American film director, writer and producer, notable for such films as Kiss Me Deadly , The Big Knife , What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? , Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte , The Flight of the Phoenix , The Dirty Dozen , and The Longest Yard .-Biography:Robert...
's Too Late the Hero
Too Late the Hero
Too Late the Hero is a 1970 Anglo-American war film directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Ken Takakura, Denholm Elliott, Ian Bannen, Lance Percival, Ronald Fraser, Harry Andrews and Percy Herbert.-Plot:...
(also 1970).
Post-Vietnam films
The effects of the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
tended to diminish the appetite for fictional war films by the turn of the 1970s. American war films produced during and just after the Vietnam War often reflected the disillusion of the American public towards the war. Most films made after the Vietnam War delved more deeply into the horrors of war than films made before it (This is not to say that there were no such films before the Vietnam War). Later war films like Catch-22
Catch-22 (film)
Catch-22 is a 1970 satirical war film adapted from the book of the same name by Joseph Heller. Considered a black comedy revolving around the "lunatic characters" of Heller's satirical anti-war novel, it was the work of a talented production team which included director Mike Nichols and...
(set in WWII) and the black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
MASH
MASH (film)
MASH is a 1970 American satirical dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on Richard Hooker's novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. It is the only feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise...
(set in Korea), reflected some of these attitudes.
In the decades following the War, the American film industry produced many war films either critical of American involvement in Vietnam, depicting American war crimes or the negative effects of war on combatants. These films included works by the most prominent actors and directors in American film and garnering the highest accolades and commercial success including:
- Taxi DriverTaxi DriverTaxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
(1976) — nominated for four Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, directed by Martin ScorseseMartin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
. - Coming Home (1978) — winner of three Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, directed by Hal AshbyHal AshbyHal Ashby was an American film director and film editor.-Birth and early years:Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby grew up in a Mormon household and had a tumultuous childhood as part of a dysfunctional family which included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide and his...
. - The Deer HunterThe Deer HunterThe Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...
(1978) — winner of five Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture, directed by Michael CiminoMichael CiminoMichael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
. - Apocalypse NowApocalypse NowApocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
(1979) — winner of two Academy Awards, directed by Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
. - Full Metal JacketFull Metal JacketFull Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S...
(1987) — directed by Stanley KubrickStanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
. - Hamburger HillHamburger HillHamburger Hill is a 1987 American war film about the actual assault of the U.S. Army's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division 'Screaming Eagles', on a well-fortified position, including trenchworks and bunkers, of the North Vietnamese Army on Ap Bia...
(1987) — directed by John IrvinJohn IrvinJohn Irvin is an English film director. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, he began his career by directing a number of documentaries and television works, including the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...
. - Casualties of WarCasualties of WarCasualties of War is a 1989 war drama directed by Brian De Palma, with a screenplay by David Rabe, based on the actual events of the incident on Hill 192 in 1966 during the Vietnam War. It starred Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn....
(1989) — directed by Brian De PalmaBrian De PalmaBrian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
.
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
trilogy of Vietnam War films:
- PlatoonPlatoon (film)Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
(1986) — winner of Academy Award for Best Picture. - Born on the Fourth of JulyBorn on the Fourth of July (film)Born on the Fourth of July is a 1989 American film adaptation of the best selling autobiography of the same name by Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic. Tom Cruise plays Kovic, in a performance that earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Oliver Stone co-wrote the screenplay with Kovic, and also...
(1989) — winner of two Academy Awards. - Heaven & Earth (1993)
Another subgenre were films that portrayed the American government cynically by reflecting upon the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue
Vietnam War POW/MIA issue
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia...
, the most known of which were Missing in Action
Missing in Action (film)
Missing in Action is a 1984 action B-movie directed by Joseph Zito and starring Chuck Norris. It is set in the context of the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. Colonel Braddock, who escaped a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp 10 years earlier, returns to Vietnam to find American soldiers listed as missing...
(1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rambo: First Blood Part II is a 1985 action film. A sequel to 1982's First Blood, it is the second installment in the Rambo series starring Sylvester Stallone, who reprises his role as Vietnam veteran John Rambo...
(1985).
An exception was the 1982 South Korean-American production Inchon
Inchon (film)
Inchon is a 1982 war film about the Battle of Inchon, considered to be the turning point of the Korean War. The film was directed by Terence Young and financed by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. It stars Laurence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur, who led the United States surprise...
about a battle in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, although both a critical and commercial failure.
World War II
The success of Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's realistic Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....
in 1998 helped to usher in a revival of interest in World War II films. A number of these, such as Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor (film)
Pearl Harbor is a 2001 American action drama war film directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplay...
and Enemy at the Gates
Enemy at the Gates
Enemy at the Gates is a 2001 war film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins and Ed Harris set during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II....
were aimed at the blockbuster market, while others, like Enigma
Enigma (2001 film)
Enigma is a 2001 British film about the Enigma codebreakers of Bletchley Park in World War II. The film, directed by Michael Apted, stars Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet. The film's screenplay was by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel Enigma by Robert Harris...
, Dark Blue World
Dark Blue World
Dark Blue World is a 2001 film by Czech director Jan Svěrák about Czechoslovak pilots who fought for the British Royal Air Force during World War II. The screenplay was written by Zdeněk Svěrák, the father of the director....
, Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a 2001 film directed by John Madden and based on the novel of the same name by Louis de Bernières. It stars Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz.-Plot:...
, and Charlotte Gray
Charlotte Gray (film)
Charlotte Gray is a 2001 British-Australian-German feature film directed by Gillian Armstrong, based on the novel of the same name by Sebastian Faulks...
, were more nostalgic in tone. Others were trying to represent a more harrowing side of the reality of the war such precursor movies as the german Joseph Vilsmaier
Joseph Vilsmaier
Joseph Vilsmaier is a German film director.-Work:After attending a boarding school near Augsburg, he was trained as a technician to make film cameras and then spent nine years at a music conservatory. Following this he was a member of a jazz group...
's Stalingrad
Stalingrad (film)
Stalingrad is a 1993 war drama film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. It depicts combat on the Eastern Front of World War II, specifically the Battle of Stalingrad and showing the German Wehrmacht in a sympathetic light....
, Wolfgang Petersen
Wolfgang Petersen
Wolfgang Petersen is a German film director and screenwriter. His films include The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine, Outbreak, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, Troy, and Poseidon...
's Das Boot
Das Boot
Das Boot is a 1981 German epic war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann...
and the later, american, Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick
Terrence Frederick Malick is a U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning almost four decades, Malick has directed five feature films....
's The Thin Red Line
The Thin Red Line (1998 film)
The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Mount Austen in World War II. It portrays men in: C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division; in particular those soldiers played by Sean Penn, Jim...
.
Other notable films and TV series of the period dealing with World War II include:
Band of Brothers,
The Pacific
The Pacific (miniseries)
The Pacific is a 2010 television series produced by HBO, Seven Network Australia, Sky Movies, Playtone and DreamWorks that premiered in the United States on March 14, 2010....
,
The English Patient
The English Patient (film)
The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture...
,
Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
,
The Pianist
The Pianist (2002 film)
The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
,
Defiance
Defiance (2008 film)
Defiance is a 2008 World War II era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland during the Second World War...
,
Atonement
Atonement (film)
Atonement is a 2007 British romantic suspense war film directed by Joe Wright. It is a film adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name by Ian McEwan. The film stars James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, and Saoirse Ronan. It was produced by Working Title Films and filmed throughout the summer of 2006...
,
Katyn
Katyn (film)
Katyń is a 2007 Polish film about the 1940 Katyn massacre, directed by Academy Honorary Award winner Andrzej Wajda. It is based on the book Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn by Andrzej Mularczyk...
,
Pornografia
Pornografia (film)
Pornografia is the name of a number of films, with the 2003 version being the best known one. In 1992, a short film with the same name was made in Brazil. The 2003 version was a collaboration of the Polish and French film industries.-2003 version:...
,
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (film)
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2008 historical-drama film based on the novel of the same name by Irish writer John Boyne. Directed by Mark Herman and produced by David Heyman, it stars Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga and Rupert Friend.A Holocaust drama, the film...
,
Adam Resurrected
Adam Resurrected
Adam Resurrected is an American-German-Israeli film, directed by Paul Schrader and adapted from Yoram Kaniuk's novel of the same name published in Israel in 1968 .Jeff Goldblum stars as the titular character, alongside Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi and Ayelet Zurer...
,
The Reader
The Reader
The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997...
,
Valkyrie
Valkyrie (film)
Valkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country...
,
Good
Good (film)
Good is a British-German-Hungarian motion picture based on the stage play by C. P. Taylor and starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs and Jodie Whittaker...
,
Life is Beautiful
Life Is Beautiful
Life Is Beautiful is a 1997 Italian film which tells the story of a Jewish Italian, Guido Orefice , who must employ his fertile imagination to help his family during their internment in a Nazi concentration camp.At the 71st Academy Awards in 1999, Benigni won the Academy Award for Best Actor and...
,
Downfall
Downfall (film)
Downfall is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic war film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945....
,
The Counterfeiters
The Counterfeiters (film)
The Counterfeiters is a 2007 Austrian-German film written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. It fictionalizes Operation Bernhard, a secret plan by the Nazis during the Second World War to destabilize Great Britain by flooding its economy with forged Bank of England bank notes.The film centres on a...
,
Letters from Iwo Jima
Letters from Iwo Jima
is a 2006 war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the...
,
Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of Our Fathers (film)
is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...
,
Miracle at St. Anna
Miracle at St. Anna
Miracle at St. Anna is a 2008 war film, directed by Spike Lee and written by James McBride, based on McBride's novel of the same name. The film was released on September 26, 2008, and is set during World War II, in fall of 1944 in Tuscany and in the winter of 1983 in New York City and Rome...
,
The Good German
The Good German
The Good German is a 2006 feature film adaptation of the novel by Joseph Kanon. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire...
,
Inglourious Basterds,
Days of Glory,
Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun (film)
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...
.
Other wars
A notable film dealing with World War I is PasschendaelePasschendaele
The Battle of PasschendaeleThe Battle of Passchendaele...
.
Notable films dealing with contemporary conflict include:
Red Dawn (2012 film),
Children of Men
Children of Men
Children of Men is a 2006 science fiction film loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in England, where the last...
,
Taking Chance
Taking Chance
Taking Chance is a 2009 historical drama film based upon the experiences of Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl , who escorts the body of a fallen Marine, PFC Chance Phelps , back to his hometown from the Iraq War....
,
The Men Who Stare at Goats
The Men Who Stare at Goats
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a book by Jon Ronson about the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them...
,
Black Hawk Down,
Behind Enemy Lines,
Jarhead
Jarhead (film)
Jarhead is a 2005 biographical drama war film based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford's 1991 Gulf War memoir of the same name, directed by Sam Mendes, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford with co-stars Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, and Chris Cooper. The title comes from the slang term used to refer to...
,
Battle for Haditha,
Body of Lies
Body of Lies (film)
Body of Lies is a 2008 American spy film directed by Ridley Scott. Set in the Middle East, it follows the attempts of the CIA and Jordanian Intelligence to catch "al-Saleem", a fictional jihadist terrorist...
,
Border,
Syriana
Syriana
Syriana is a 2005 geopolitical thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, and executive produced by George Clooney, who also stars in the film with an ensemble cast. Gaghan's screenplay is loosely adapted from Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil...
,
Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond (film)
Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou...
,
G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane is a 1997 American action film directed by Ridley Scott, produced by Largo Entertainment, Scott Free Productions and Caravan Pictures, distributed by Hollywood Pictures and starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen. The film tells the fictional story of the first woman to undergo training...
,
Tomorrow, When the War Began (film)
Tomorrow, When the War Began (film)
Tomorrow, When the War Began is a 2010 Australian adventure film written and directed by Stuart Beattie and based on the novel of the same name by John Marsden. The film is produced by Andrew Mason and Michael Boughen. The story follows Ellie Linton, one of eight teenagers waging a guerrilla war...
,
Rendition
Rendition (film)
Rendition is a 2007 drama film directed by Gavin Hood and starring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, Jake Gyllenhaal and Omar Metwally. It centers on the controversial CIA practice of extraordinary rendition, and is based on the true story of Khalid El-Masri who was...
,
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner (film)
The Kite Runner is a 2007 drama film directed by Marc Forster based on the novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is tormented by the guilt of abandoning his friend Hassan, the son of his father's...
,
Tears of the Sun
Tears of the Sun
Tears of the Sun is a 2003 American war film, depicting a United States Navy SEAL team rescue mission amidst a civil war in the West African country of Nigeria. Lt. A.K. Waters commands the team sent to rescue U.S. citizen Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks from the civil war en route to her jungle hospital...
,
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker is a 2009 American war film about a three-man United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb...
,
In the Valley of Elah
In the Valley of Elah
In the Valley of Elah is a 2007 film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon. The film’s title refers to the Biblical valley where the battle between David and Goliath is said to have taken place....
,
No Man's Land
No Man's Land (2001 film)
No Man's Land is a 2001 tragic war drama that is set in the midst of the Bosnian war. The film is a parable and marked the debut of Bosnian writer and director Danis Tanović...
,
Three Kings,
Welcome to Sarajevo
Welcome To Sarajevo
Welcome to Sarajevo is a British war film from 1997. It is directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay is by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book Natasha's Story by Michael Nicholson.- Synopsis :...
,
Rambo
Rambo (film)
Rambo is a 2008 German/American Action film starring Sylvester Stallone returning and reprising his famous role as legendary Cold War/Vietnam veteran John Rambo. Stallone also co-wrote and directed the film. It is the fourth and most recent installment in the Rambo franchise, twenty years since...
,
Brothers,
Green Zone
Green Zone (film)
Green Zone is a 2010 American war thriller film written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Paul Greengrass. The film was inspired by the non-fiction 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life in the Green Zone, Baghdad...
.
The military and the film industry
Many war films have been produced with the cooperation of a nation's military forces. The United States NavyUnited States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
has been very cooperative since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in providing ships and technical guidance; Top Gun
Top Gun
Top Gun may refer to:* Top Gun is a 1986 film starring Tom Cruise.**Top Gun , soundtrack to the movie**Top Gun , a number of games based on the movie...
is the most famous example. The U.S. Air Force provided considerable verisimilitude for The Big Lift
The Big Lift
The Big Lift is a 1950 drama film shot on location in the city of Berlin, Germany, that tells the story of "Operation Vittles", the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift, through the experiences of two U.S...
, Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command (film)
Strategic Air Command is a 1955 American film starring James Stewart and June Allyson, and directed by Anthony Mann. Released by Paramount Pictures, it was the first of four films that depicted the role of the Strategic Air Command in the Cold War era....
and A Gathering of Eagles
A Gathering of Eagles
A Gathering of Eagles is a 1963 film about the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War and the pressures of command. The plot is patterned after the World War II film Twelve O'Clock High, which producer-screenwriter Sy Bartlett also wrote, with elements also mirroring Above and Beyond and Toward the...
, filmed on Air Force bases and using Air Force personnel in many roles.
Typically, the military will not assist filmmakers if the film is critical of them. Sometimes the military demands some editorial control in exchange for their cooperation, which can bias the result. Critics point out that the film Pearl Harbors US-biased portrayal of events is a compensation for technical assistance received by the US armed forces. For another example, the U.S. Navy objected to elements of Crimson Tide
Crimson Tide (film)
The film has uncredited additional writing by Quentin Tarantino, much of it being the pop-culture reference-laden dialogue.The U.S. Navy objected to many of the elements in the script — particularly the aspect of mutiny on board a U.S. naval vessel — and as such, the film was produced...
, especially mutiny on board an American naval vessel, so the film was produced without their assistance.
If the home nation's military will not cooperate, or if filming in the home nation is too expensive, another country's may assist. Many 1950s and 1960s war films, including the Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning films Patton
Patton (film)
Patton is a 1970 American biographical war film about U.S. General George S. Patton during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, and Karl Michael Vogler. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner from a script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H...
, Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
, and Spartacus
Spartacus (film)
Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast...
, were shot in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, which had large supplies of both Allied and Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
equipment. The Napoleonic epic Waterloo was shot in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(then part of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
), using Soviet soldiers. The D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....
were shot with the cooperation of the Irish army because the French couldn't afford to close down the real Omaha Beach due to it being a monument. All of the major sequences in Dark Blue World
Dark Blue World
Dark Blue World is a 2001 film by Czech director Jan Svěrák about Czechoslovak pilots who fought for the British Royal Air Force during World War II. The screenplay was written by Zdeněk Svěrák, the father of the director....
were shot in the Czech Republic, at a disused air force base. In the "Crimson Tide" example, the French Navy (Marine Nationale) assisted the production team with the French aircraft carrier Foch
Foch (R 99)
Foch was the second of the French Navy. She was the second warship named in honour of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, after a heavy cruiser commissioned in 1932, and scuttled in Toulon on 27 November 1942....
and one SNLE
Le Triomphant class submarine
The Triomphant class of ballistic missile submarines of the French Navy is the active class of four boats that entered service in 1997, 1999, 2004, and 2010...
.
See also
- PropagandaPropagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
- Genre film theory
- List of war films
- List of films based on war books
- Cinema and television about the American Civil WarCinema and television about the American Civil War-Before 1920:*Barbara Frietchie: The Story of a Patriotic American Woman *The Guerrilla *The Fugitive *The House with Closed Shutters *In the Border States *The Battle , directed by D.W...
- List of World War II films
- Euro WarEuro WarMacaroni Combat, also known as Macaroni War or Euro War films, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of war film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by European co-productions notably Italians....
- Fiction based on World War IFiction based on World War IWorld War I was never quite so fertile a topic as World War II for American fiction, but there were nevertheless a large number of fictional works created about it in Europe, Canada, and Australia...
- Fiction based on World War IIFiction based on World War IIMany types of fiction have involved events in the World War II time period. This list is a chronological collection of significant events from such fiction. It includes events that were set in World War II but have never occurred...
- Fiction based on the Vietnam War
- Military science fictionMilitary science fictionMilitary science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking place, normally in space, or on a planet other than Earth...
- Battles in film
- The United States Marine Corps on film
External links
- http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/Warflicks/
- The Lost Art of War, City Journal, Winter 2008
- Top War Movies at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- War Movies & Literature Discussion Forum
- War Movie Reviews and News at WarMovieBlog
- WWII Movie news at War in Film
- Index of all known Vietnam War Films with links to reviews and criticism From La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA
- War Movies Lists of War Movies with trailers and reviews