Movies about World war one veteran
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Netflix, IMDB, Amazon Movie Title Year Rating Director Description from Netflix
Netflix IMDB Amazon Passchendaele 2008 NR Paul Gross Wounded in World War I, Canadian Michael Dunne (Paul Gross) falls in love with his nurse, Sarah (Caroline Dhavernas). When he learns that Sarah’s impetuous younger brother, David (Joe Dinicol), has been called to fight, the recuperated Michael sets out to protect him. But history will reveal that Michael is following David into the Battle of Passchendaele, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war. Gross writes and directs this powerful film.
Netflix IMDB Amazon War Horse 2011 PG-13 Steven Spielberg Adapted from a novel by Michael Morpurgo, this majestic World War I drama centers on Devon lad Albert and his steadfast horse, Joey, whose faithful bond cannot be shaken — even when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent off to France.
Netflix IMDB Amazon All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 NR Lewis Milestone Teenage German soldiers pass from idealism to despair in this poignant, Oscar-winning depiction of survival on the front lines, adapted from an anti-war novel by Erich Maria Remarque and banned in a number of countries during wartime. Awarded Best Picture in 1930, the film has lost little of its original impact, with brutal imagery and a peaceful message that also earned director Lewis Milestone an Academy Award for Best Director.
Netflix IMDB Amazon All Quiet on the Western Front 1979 NR Delbert Mann This remake of one of the great war stories of all time stars Richard Thomas as a gung-ho German student recruited into the army during World War I. But over time he begins to view the war as a tragedy for the fighting men on both sides.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The Lost Battalion 2001 NR Russell Mulcahy It began on October 2nd, 1918, when the men of the U.S. Army’s 77th Division, 308th Battalion were surrounded by German troops in the Argonne Forest. Without food, water or reserve ammunition, cut off from supply and communication lines, they managed to hold off the enemy until they were finally rescued.
Netflix IMDB Amazon Company K 2004 R Robert Clem [my grandfather fought in Company K of the 314th Infantry Regiment, so the title of this movie really resonated with me]
Based on William March’s acclaimed novel, this pensive drama centers on Joe Delaney (Ari Fliakos), a distraught World War I veteran who copes with the horrors he’s endured in battle by writing a memoir recounting his experiences. Featuring a first-rate ensemble cast that includes Tina Benko and Steve Cuiffo, director Robert Clem’s faithful adaptation paints a vivid picture of the psychological scars left on soldiers in the aftermath of war.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The African Queen 1951 NR John Huston Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), the booze-guzzling, rough-hewn captain of a broken-down East African riverboat, teams with a straitlaced, iron-willed missionary (Katharine Hepburn) to take on a menacing German gunboat during World War I.
Netflix IMDB Amazon Hell’s Angels 1929 PG Howard Hughes Siblings Roy and Monte Rutledge (James Hall and Ben Lyon) shirk Oxford’s academic demands and join the Royal Air Force Academy during World War I in this drama directed by Howard Hughes. Though they’re brothers, their personalities are like night and day — which may make the difference in their ability to survive. Co-star Jean Harlow is ahead of her time playing a woman who’s comfortable with her budding sexuality.
Netflix IMDB Amazon 1981 PG Peter Weir Australian Director Peter Weir takes on one of his country’s most tragic moments in history: the World War I confrontation with the German allied Turks. As the film leads up to the battle in act three, we get to know the young men destined to be casualties of war. A young Mel Gibson (on the heels of his successful turn in Mad Max) plays one of the innocent doomed. This poignant war drama swept the Australian Film Institute Awards with eight wins.
Netflix IMDB Amazon Lawrence of Arabia 1962 PG David Lean This Oscar-winning epic tells the true story of T.E. Lawrence, who helped unite warring Arab tribes to strike back against the Turks in World War I. This lush, timeless classic underscores the clash between cultures that changed the tide of war.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The Red Baron 2008 PG-13 Nikolai MüchöA Based on the true story of the notorious World War I flying ace, this drama explores the life of Manfred von Richthofen — aka the Red Baron — from his childhood fascination with flying to his renowned career in the German Luftwaffe.
Netflix IMDB Amazon Paths of Glory 1957 NR Stanley Kubrick Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) leads a weary regiment of French army soldiers during World War I. When French generals order the regiment to carry out what amounts to a suicide mission against German fire, some of the men refuse and are tried on charges of cowardice.
Netflix IMDB Amazon A Farewell to Arms 1932 NR Frank Borzage While serving in the Italian ambulance corps during World War I, adventurous American Lt. Frederick Henry (Gary Cooper) falls in love with English nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes). But the tumult of war and green-eyed rival Maj. Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou) conspire to separate the impassioned lovers. Director Frank Borzage’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s illustrious novel chalked up a richly deserved Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Netflix IMDB Amazon A Farewell to Arms 1957 NR Charles Vidor Adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s World War I novel, this drama centers on American soldier Lt. Frederick Henry (Rock Hudson). While serving in the Italian Army, Henry has an affair with nurse Catherine Barkley (Jennifer Jones), and she becomes pregnant. The two lose touch, and Catherine is certain Henry’s moved on to greener pastures. But he manages to track her down in Switzerland and arrives at her hospital bedside to find her clinging to life.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The Fighting 69th 1940 NR William Keighley When streetwise Brooklyn boy Jerry Plunkett (James Cagney) joins the all-Irish 69th Regiment during World War I, his cocky attitude creates problems. Battling in France, his recklessness causes the deaths of several soldiers. But while awaiting punishment, Plunkett receives a chance to redeem himself. Based on the experiences of real-life military priest Father Francis Duffy (played by Pat O’Brien), this exciting war drama co-stars George Brent.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The Blue Max 1966 NR John Guillermin Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), a poor German soldier, rises through the ranks of the distinguished air force in spite of the prejudice hurled against him by the much more affluent aristocrats in the military. His aeronautical prowess soon captures the attention of a general’s wife (Ursula Andress) and may even earn him the prestigious «Blue Max» medal. James Mason co-stars.
Netflix IMDB Amazon The Dawn Patrol 1938 NR Edmund Goulding Errol Flynn and David Niven co-star as beleaguered British fighter pilots coming to grips with the realities of combat in this soaring wartime drama — a remake of the 1930 classic starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. — directed by Edmund Goulding. Facing enemy fire, open-air cockpits and ballooning casualties, the flyers look to their stern squadron commander (Basil Rathbone) for leadership and support.
The 16 best World War I movies of all time
World War I has inspired not just some of the greatest war films, but a few of the greatest films ever made. Maybe because they’ve wrestled with complex themes of sacrifice, trauma, justice, social hierarchy, nationhood and the nature of comradeship, and eschewed simpler heroics, films like Paths of Glory, All Quiet on the Western Front and La Grande Illusion have only grown in stature over the years.
And the war’s enduring place in the public consciousness has seen a new wave of Great War films, with 1917, They Shall Not Grow Old and Journey’s End, and Germany producing its biggest contribution to the canon with Netflix’s new take on All Quiet on the Western Front.
To rank these films is a tricky task, so we enlisted the help of military historian, author and podcaster Paul Reed to cast an expert eye over them. A long-time interviewer of Great War veterans himself and the host of The Old Front Line podcast, he brings a unique perspective on their historical strengths – and weaknesses.
Best World War I movies
1. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
Not just a violent crucible but also a petri dish for technological, medical and social leaps, the First World War is still indirectly fuelling innovation a century later. Peter Jackson’s sui generis documentary joins 1917 in reinventing the grammar of war films, painstakingly colourising reams of archive footage and adding the sounds of the war – including the actual voices of veterans – to create a truly haunting immediacy. Hearing some of the soldiers recalling their sadness when the Armistice finally came is a useful reminder that the experience of war was far from homogeneous.
The expert view: ‘It’s an incredible film in the way it brings the archives to life and it’s so powerful for featuring the recordings of the veterans. It shocked me to the core to hear the voices of men who’d been dead for 30 years that I’d once interviewed. Anyone with even a passing interest in the war should see it.’
2. Journey’s End (2018)
Frequently revived as a stage play, RC Sherriff’s claustrophobic and nail-gnawingly tense snapshot of a British dugout on the eve of the German Spring Offensive of 1918 isn’t immediately cinematic. But ‘The Duchess’ director Saul Dibbs’s adaptation – unlike the 1930 James Whale version – uses nimble camerawork and imaginative framing to expand the canvas and deliver a powerful human drama of doomed men in the subterranean world of the trenches. Strung out over a thin khaki line, the British Army is about to be battered – and this small but richly drawn platoon is at the sharpest end of it.
The expert view: ‘It depicts what, to me, is that essential moment on the eve of battle: a great storm is coming, and the men all sense it. It also shows how the officers in an infantry company lived and worked and fought and existed with each other, written by a veteran, which gives it that extra level of credibility. Adding Sheriff’s postscript showing how the losses affected those left at home – which is always missing in the play – is a nice touch.’
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The Blockbuster World War I Film that Brought Home the Traumatic Impact of War
The United States had entered the war with high hopes and dreams—aiming to make the world “safe for democracy” as President Woodrow Wilson would proclaim, but by the 1920s there were strong feelings that the U.S. should never have gotten itself involved in the byzantine affairs of the European powers. Isolationist sentiments grew across the country especially after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the U.S. Congress in 1920. These feelings of bitterness and disappointment found their fullest expression in the literature of the day, written by members of what has become known as the “Lost Generation,” most notably John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Much of that same disillusionment was expressed in popular movies—from fantasies such as Začarovaná chaloupka (1924) to westerns such as Ukradený ranč (1926). But few other films from the 1920s struck such a responsive chord in the hearts and minds of Americans as the 1925 film, Velká přehlídka.
Films about American war veterans who return angry and alienated to civilian society are common today. In the 2008 film Hurt Locker, Army Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) returns from Iraq to his home and family, but feels out of place—especially when standing in a supermarket aisle staring silently at an endless row of breakfast cereals. In the 2009 Bratři, Marine Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) returns from Afghanistan to his home and family, but erupts with uncontrollable rage when he believes that his brother is having an affair with his wife. And let’s not forget Sylvester Stallone, who as John Rambo in the four films from 1982 to 2008, developed a character whose name has become synonymous with the alienation and bitterness of the Vietnam Vet traumatized by the wartime experience and the painful memory of a homecoming to a country much divided.
What many viewers today may not realize, however, is that the same basic formulas, themes and characterizations of the alienated and disaffected veteran were similarly employed in movies about Americans returning from Korea, World War II, and (in its most influential formulation) World War I. In spite of what we may have heard about “the greatest generation” or “the great war,” the cinematic veterans of those earlier wars did not return to celebratory parades and optimistic outlooks for the future—or at least not in the movies that were made immediately following the return of those veterans to civilian life.
If there had been Academy Awards in the mid-1920s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Velká přehlídka produced by Irving Thalberg, directed by King Vidor, and starring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée, would have swept the prizes. And although box-office records were not carefully monitored in the 1910s and 1920s, the Guinessova kniha filmových faktů a výkonů (1988) to tvrdí Velká přehlídka was the highest-grossing silent film ever, earning approximately $22 million in box-office rentals. It made MGM a powerhouse among Hollywood studios and established actor John Gilbert as one of the top stars of the 1920s, alongside Greta Garbo, with whom he appeared romantically in four films between 1926 and 1933.
The film’s plot is relatively simple. Jim Apperson (played by Gilbert) is a wealthy businessman’s son, who after becoming swept up in the nation’s patriotic fervor, suddenly joins the Army. He’s overcome by his fiancée’s suggestion that he’ll “look gorgeous in an officer’s uniform.” In true democratic fashion—another formula of American war films—Jim becomes best friends with two working class stiffs: Slim Jensen, a riveter; and Bull O’Hara, a bartender. The trio endure training camp together, as well as the travails of living in a small French village, where they meet Melisande (played by Adorée), a farmer’s daughter. Jim and Melisande fall in love just before he and his buddies are sent to the front. Slim and Bull are killed in combat; Jim survives and returns home to his family.
Several scenes in the film remain as powerful today as they were when the film premiered nearly 90 years ago. Take the scene when Jim’s unit is suddenly called to the front, Melisande frantically searches for him among the troops. As a truck takes him away, Jim tosses her his wristwatch, his dogtags and even one of his shoes, which she lovingly caresses. In another, Jim’s unit advances cautiously through the Belleau Woods (the scene was actually shot in Los Angeles’s Elysian Park), the film’s director used long tracking shots and synchronized the slow cadence of the American troops to the beat of a bass drum. And high drama ensues when Jim tries to avenge the deaths of his buddies. Pursuing a wounded German soldier into a shell hole, he prepares to kill with a bayonet, but instead shares a cigarette with the enemy soldier.
The veteran’s return to peacetime society after battle is a dramatic narrative that dates to the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Homer’s Odysea (ca. 750 BCE) and Vergil’s Aeneid (ca. 20 BCE) are masterpieces of this genre. Nevertheless, there are several compelling reasons why the First World War established the formula and the framework for this narrative in motion pictures. This war produced the first large-scale demobilization of tens of thousands of returning American veterans. It was also the first time that contemporary feature-length motion pictures were produced in the immediate aftermath of a war. And perhaps most dramatically, World War I marks a profound shift in the nature of warfare that distinguishes it (and its postwar aftermath) from all previous episodes of combat. Never before were so many nations engaged in combat, and never before was there so much death and destruction. Accordingly, it was known at the time not by what we call it today—World War I, as if it’s simply the first in a series of global cataclysms—but rather the Great War.
In terms of battlefield hardships and loss of life, the American experience in World War I was profound, but still relatively mild compared with that of the other principal combatants. During the final 19 months of the conflict, between April 1917 and November 1918, the U.S. was fighting intensely but for only the final 25 weeks of the conflict. The U.S. sustained some 117,000 service-related deaths (more than half of them victims of disease, not battle). By contrast, there were approximately 2.8 million Russian dead, 2.2 million German, 1.8 million Austro‑Hungarian, 1.7 million French, 1.1 million Italian, and 1 million from the British Empire.
Encapsulating that devastation, then, is the powerful scene near the close of the film, when Jim returns from the war, riding in his father’s open-top car—he has lost a leg, and also his fiancée, who has fallen in love with a brother who had remained at home. The cold stare on Jim’s face, smoking a cigarette, is a brilliant visual representation of the classic bitterness and alienation of the returning vet. When his brother exclaims, “You look great, Jim, old man,” the angry veteran snarls, “Don’t try to kid me! I know what I look like!”
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James Deutsch is a curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where he has helped develop exhibitions on the Peace Corps, China and World War II, among others. In addition, he serves as an adjunct professor—teaching courses on American film history and folklore—in the American Studies Department at George Washington University.
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