As you settle in for another sunny Memorial Day, fire up the barbecue and mount the American flag, you may find yourself taking place in yet another yearly tradition: watching World War II movies. For decades, classic films like The Dirty Dozen, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan and The Great Escape have been regular household staples, but there have been hundreds and hundreds of World War II movies that don’t get nearly as much attention. Well, we’d like to change that.
Related: The Best Movie Ever: World War II
So take a moment to consider watching some World War II films that are as great as the all-time classics but never got enough recognition, and some films that were once major award-winners but have since fallen out of mainstream consciousness, along with a few recent World War II movies that didn’t get enough credit from audiences and critics who weren’t on the right wavelength at the time. And let us know which World War II films you love that aren’t talked about enough, so we can bring them back into the conversation too.
Happy Memorial Day, everybody!
Eight Underrated World War II Movies for Memorial Day:
Top Photo: 20th Century Fox
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Eight World War II Movies We Don't Talk About Enough
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Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
Lots of World War II movies made during World War II were about the heroes fighting overseas. Preston Sturges' intense farce Hail the Conquering Hero is about a Marine named Woodrow (Eddie Bracken) who got kicked out, but only because he has debilitating hay fever. Afraid of going home in disgrace, he runs into a group of real Marines who decide - against Woodrow's wishes - to pretend he's a returning war hero just so he can see his mother again. But then the lie takes on a life of its own, the whole town wants Woodrow to run for mayor, and oh, it just becomes a spectacular, hilarious mess. Writer/director Preston Sturges was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but weirdly enough he lost to another movie about a guy named Woodrow: Woodrow, a biopic about the 28th President of the United States.
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Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr play a Marine Corporal and a novice nun, respectively, in this emotional and thrilling melodrama from legendary director John Huston. Stranded on a small Pacific island in 1944, Corporal Allison and Sister Angela are forced to hide from Japanese troops, and struggle with an obvious attraction they can never act upon. It all ends in a fantastic bit of sabotage, and a purely selfless act. Deborah Kerr received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but it's Mitchum really stands out in what may be his most ruggedly romantic role.
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Hell is for Heroes (1962)
Steve McQueen, Bobby Darrin, James Coburn and Bob Newhart star in one of the great underdog World War II movies, about a very small team of U.S. soldiers tasked with holding off an entire company of German soldiers along the Siegfried Line for 48 hours. In the hands of the great genre director Don Siegel (Dirty Harry), it becomes an impossibly suspenseful battle of wits, as our heroes trick the enemy into thinking they're overwhelming opponents, instead of easy pickings. The final battle is a showstopper, and Steve McQueen is at his best.
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Cross of Iron (1977)
Very few World War II films portray the Nazis with any sympathy, but director Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) straddles that murky line in his bleak and powerful Cross of Iron. James Coburn stars as Col. Rolf Steiner, a good man on the doomed Russian front, battling the enemy and also his "superior" officer, played by Maximillian Schell, who repeatedly jeopardizes his own men in a selfish attempt to earn The Iron Cross. Brutal, painful and disturbing, Cross of Iron is one of the best World War II films that most people haven't seen.
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The Inglorious Bastards (1978)
Quentin Tarantino took the name and not much else from Enzo G. Castellari's spaghetti World War II caper, starring Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson as death row soldiers who escape behind enemy lines. Teaming up with a German soldier, whose loyalty is always in question, these mismatched antiheroes eventually find themselves embarking on a daring train raid. Realism isn't the order of the day: grindhouse thrills are, and The Inglorious Bastards has them in droves.
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When Trumpets Fade (1998)
An ambitious HBO movie, completely overlooked in favor of Saving Private Ryan (which was released just one month later), When Trumpets Fade stars Ron Eldard as a soldier who just wants to stay alive, and winds up repeatedly looking like a hero by accident. Begging to be given a Section 8 (discharge due to combat stress), and consistently ignored, he might be just the man the 28th Infantry Division needs. Or he might get them all killed when he's forced to accept a leadership division. John Irvin (Hamburger Hill) directs a crackerjack ensemble cast, which also includes Timothy Olyphant, Dwight Yoakam, Bobby Cannavale, Martin Donovan, Dan Futterman, Jeffrey Donavan and Frank Whaley.
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Valkyrie (2008)
Another rare film from the Nazis perspective, Bryan Singer's stirring drama Valkyrie depicts a real-life 1944 plot by high-ranking German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and take back the country. We all know how it ends, but they come so impressively close that you may forget all about that as their risky, complicated mission starts unwinding. Tom Cruise leads an impressive cast that also includes Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson and Eddie Izzard, but it's the sharp direction and canny editing that keeps Valkyrie humming along and easy to follow, even when the clockwork machinery of "Operation Valkyrie" seems almost unbelievably complicated.
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Red Tails (2012)
Anthony Hemingway's vibrant and grand World War II drama about The Tuskegee Airmen was considered pretty hokey when it came out in 2012. And sure enough, the storytelling is blunt and the dialogue is pretty naive, but it's exactly the kind of forthrightly patriotic movie that should have been made about these American heroes in the 1940s, when a little hokeyness was still in vogue. So get in the right mindset and thrill to the adventures of these remarkable fighter pilots, featuring impressive dogfight action sequences and a stellar cast featuring Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., David Oyelowo, Michael B. Jordan and Bryan Cranston.
