This list of World War II films (1950–1989) contains fictional feature films or miniseries released since 1950 which feature events of World War II in the narrative.
The entries on this list are war films or miniseries that are concerned with World War II (or the Sino-Japanese War) and include events which feature as a part of the war effort.
Please add Japanese kanji to this article, where needed.
Common topics
Many aspects of this conflict have repeatedly been the subject of drama. These common subjects will not be linked when they appear in the film descriptions below:
In 1945 the fate of Vienna's famous Lipizzaner stallions hangs into balance. American general Patton could save them but first he asks to see them perform.
In World War II, a Romanian gentile peasant is denounced by the village gendarme and sent to a concentration camp for Jews where, due to an error, he's drafted into the S.S.
US Army demolition squad on mission to destroy records in evacuated headquarters as German forces advance in Italy; remake of 1958 film Suicide Battalion
Drama based on book by Ramanand Sagar (writer). Indian Army and Indian Air Force action against a secret Japanese Air Strip construction between Burma and Assam, near Indian state of Nagaland, 1942
During the Battle of France an RASCfemale impersonator entertaining the troops avoids capture when the Germans capture his audience. On his way to England he comes across an English girls school group and a downed RAF pilot, 1940
Profound yet hilarious perspective on Nazism and the human condition in Danzig he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and creates a disturbance by tin drum in order to bring attention to a cause.
Musical drama. Four musical families of different backgrounds and nationalities followed from 1930s–1980s as their paths cross; film also released as TV miniseries, 1981
In early 1943, a teenage boy joins the partisans in the German-occupied Byelorussian SSR. He discovers the reality of war and the barbarity of the SS and collaborating auxiliary police on the civilian population.
House of Dolls is a 1953 novella by Ka-tzetnik 135633. The novella describes "Joy Divisions", which were groups of Jewish women in the concentration camps during World War II who were kept for the sexual pleasure of Nazi soldiers.
The Night Porter is a 1974 Italian psychological war drama film co-written and directed by Liliana Cavani. It stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, with Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti and Isa Miranda in supporting roles. Set in Vienna in 1957, the film centers on the sadomasochistic relationship between a former Nazi concentration camp officer (Bogarde) and one of his inmates (Rampling).
SS-Totenkopfverbände was a major branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. It was responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. It was both the successor and expanded organisation to the SS-Wachverbände formed in 1933. While the Totenkopf was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations.
Robert Clary was a French actor who was mainly active in the United States. He is best known for his role as Corporal Louis LeBeau on the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971). He also had recurring roles on the soap operas Days of Our Lives (1972–1987), and The Bold and the Beautiful (1990–1992).
The phrase "life unworthy of life" was a Nazi designation for the segments of the populace which, according to the Nazi regime, had no right to live. Those individuals were targeted to be murdered by the state via involuntary euthanasia, usually through the compulsion or deception of their caretakers. The term included people with disabilities and later those considered grossly inferior according to the racial policy of Nazi Germany. This concept formed an important component of the ideology of Nazism and eventually helped lead to the Holocaust. It is similar to but more restrictive than the concept of Untermensch, subhumans, as not all "subhumans" were considered unworthy of life.
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
Nazi exploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves Nazis committing sex crimes, often as camp or prison overseers during World War II. Most follow the women in prison formula, only relocated to a concentration camp, extermination camp, or Nazi brothel, and with an added emphasis on sadism, gore, and degradation. The most infamous and influential title is a Canadian production, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974). Its surprise success and that of Salon Kitty and The Night Porter led European filmmakers, mostly in Italy, to produce similar films, with just over a dozen being released over the next few years. Globally exported to both cinema and VHS, the films were critically attacked and heavily censored, and the sub-genre all but vanished by the end of the seventies.
Muselmann was a term used amongst prisoners of German Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust of World War II to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation and exhaustion, as well as those who were resigned to their impending death. The Muselmann prisoners exhibited severe emaciation and physical weakness, an apathetic listlessness regarding their own fate, and unresponsiveness to their surroundings owing to their barbaric treatment.
The Nuremberg Trials is a 1947 Soviet-made documentary film about the trials of individual members of the former Nazi leadership after World War II. It was directed by Elizaveta Svilova, produced by Roman Karmen, and was an English-language version of the Russian-language film Суд народов.
Kapò is a 1960 historical war drama film directed and co-written by Gillo Pontecorvo. It was one of the first narrative films to deal explicitly with the subject of the Holocaust, with graphic depictions of concentration camps which made it controversial at the time. A co-production of Italian, French, and Yugoslavian companies, the film stars American actress Susan Strasberg, along with Laurent Terzieff, Emmanuelle Riva, Didi Perego and Gianni Garko. The title refers to a prisoner functionary in the Nazi concentration camps.
The Portraitist is a 2005 Polish television documentary film about the life and work of Wilhelm Brasse, the famous "photographer of Auschwitz", made for TVP1, Poland, which first aired in its "Proud to Present" series on January 1, 2006. It also premiered at the Polish Film Festival, at the West London Synagogue, in London, on March 19, 2007.
Night and Fog is a 1956 French documentary short film. Directed by Alain Resnais, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The title is taken from the Nacht und Nebel program of abductions and disappearances decreed by Nazi Germany. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek established in occupied Poland while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration with scriptwriter Jean Cayrol, a survivor of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. The music of the soundtrack was composed by Hanns Eisler.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a museum on the site of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland.
Fort de Romainville, was built in France in the 1830s and was used as a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust is a 2004 documentary film directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman that examines the treatment of the Holocaust in Hollywood films over a period of sixty years and the impact of the films on public perception and thinking, and vice versa. The film was originally produced for the American cable network, American Movie Classics.
QB VII is an American television miniseries produced by Screen Gems; it was also the final program from Columbia Pictures's television division to be made under the Screen Gems banner. It began airing on ABC on April 29, 1974. Adapted to the screen by Edward Anhalt from the 1970 novel QB VII by Leon Uris, it was produced by Douglas S. Cramer and directed by Tom Gries. The original music was written by Jerry Goldsmith and the cinematography by Paul Beeson and Robert L. Morrison.
Ela Stein-Weissberger was a Czech Holocaust survivor who became well known for her roles as a contemporary witness and intelligence officer for the Israel Defense Forces. In her later years she traveled the world discussing her time in concentration camps during World War II. She even wrote about her experiences in a book titled The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin.
Nazi Concentration Camps, also known as Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps, is a 1945 American film that documents the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces during World War II. It was produced by the United States from footage captured by military photographers serving in the Allied armies as they advanced into Germany. The film was presented as evidence of Nazi war crimes in the Nuremberg trials in 1945, and the Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961.
References
Note
^† This English language title is a literal translation from its original foreign language title. This title should always be replaced by an English language release title when that information becomes available.
1 2 3 This film is available for download at the Internet Archive. Refer to the film's main page for the link.
↑ The "director". IMDb. of this title is still unidentified (as of January 2015) on IMDb.
↑ Zhang, Yingjin. Chinese National Cinema, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 166. ISBN9780415172905. Sun, Moon and Star is a Hong Kong film in Mandarin, rather than Cantonese.
Leyda, Jay. Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film – A study of the development of Russian cinema, from 1896 to the present. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 3rd edition, 1983. 513 pp. ISBN0-691-00346-7
World War 2 movies – reviews and trailers for popular World War II movies.
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