WAR MOVIES BASED ON HISTORICAL EVENTS
“War brings out the worst and the best in people. Wars do not make men great, but they do bring out the greatness in good men.” - Dick Winters
THE IMITATION GAME (2014)
Director: Morten Tyldum
Main Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode
Length: 1h54min
During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians.
DUNKIRK (2017)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Main Actors: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy
Length: 1h47min
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
THE PIANIST (2002)
Director: Roman Polanski
Main Actors: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay
Length: 2h30min
A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.
GLADIATOR (2000)
Director: Ridley Scott
Main Actors: Russel Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen
Length: 2h51min
The film is loosely based on real events that occurred within the Roman Empire in the latter half of the 2nd century AD. The story is of a former Roman General that sets out to exact vengeance against the corrupt emperor who murdered his family and sent him into slavery.
1917 (2019)
Director: Sam Mendes
Main Actors: Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays
Length: 1h59min
April 6th, 1917. As a regiment assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.
MIDWAY (2019)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Main Actors: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore
Length: 2h18min
The story of the Battle of Midway, told by the leaders and the sailors who fought it.
BRAVEHEART (1995)
Director: Mel Gibson
Main Actors: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan
Length: 3h02min
Loosely based on a true story, Scottish warrior William Wallace leads his countrymen in a rebellion to free his homeland from the tyranny of King Edward I of England.
WAR DOGS (2016)
Director: Todd Phillips
Main Actors: Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Steve Lantz
Length: 1h54min
Loosely based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a three hundred million dollar contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.
HACKSAW RIDGE (2016)
Director: Mel Gibson
Main Actors: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey
Length: 2h19min
World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people, and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.
AMERICAN SNIPER (2014)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Main Actors: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Kyle Gallner
Length: 2h14min
Navy S.E.A.L. sniper Chris Kyle's pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home with his family after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
HOTEL RWANDA (2004)
Director: Terry George
Main Actors: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Joaquin Phoenix
Length: 2h02min
Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa.
SARAJEVO (2014)
Director: Kürt Munda, Andreas Prochaska
Main Actors: Florian Teichtmeister, Melika Foroutan, Edin Hasanović
Length: 1h38min
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is in Sarajevo with his wife, Sophie. While through the city by car, they are victims of an attack and die. This is the trigger of the First World War.
UNBROKEN (2014)
Director: Angelina Jolie
Main Actors: Jack O'Connell, Miyavi, Domhnall Gleeson
Length: 2h17min
After a near-fatal plane crash in WWII, Olympian Louis Zamperini spends a harrowing 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before he's caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
ANTHROPOID (2016)
Director: Sean Ellis
Main Actors: Jamie Dornan Cillian Murphy, Brian Caspe
Length: 2h00min
Based on the extraordinary true story of Operation Anthropoid, the WWII mission to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect behind the Final Solution and the Reich's third in command after Hitler and Himmler.
THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)
Director: John Sturges
Main Actors: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough
Length: 2h52min
Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.