War
Joe, a young American soldier, is hit by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I. He lies in a hospital bed in a fate worse than death – a quadruple amputee who has lost his arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. Unbeknown to his doctors, he remains conscious and able to think, thereby reliving his life through strange dreams and memories and unable to distinguish whether he is awake or dreaming. He remains frustrated by his situation, until one day when Joe discovers a unique way to communicate with his caregivers.
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean’s best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, Cromwell is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.
A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation. Catch-22 is a parody of a “military mentality” and of a bureaucratic society in general.
Hogan, on his way to do some reconnaissance for a future mission to capture a French fort, encounters Sister Sara, a nun in trouble. Before he knows it, Hogan is accompanying Sister Sara in the dangerous frontier while she seeks to achieve a hidden goal.
A misfit group of World War II American soldiers goes AWOL to rob a bank behind German lines.
“Patton” tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with patton’s career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton’s numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.
One of the world’s most acclaimed comedies, MASH focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
In WW2, a RAF squadron leader mourns the death of a comrade and receives a bombing mission against a secret Nazi V-2 rocket testing facility in France.
In March of 1945, as the War in Europe is coming to a close, fighting erupts between German and American troops at the last remaining bridgehead across the Rhine.
When half-breed Indian Yaqui Joe robs an Arizona bank, he is pursued by dogged lawman Lyedecker. Fleeing to Mexico, Joe is imprisoned by General Verdugo, who is waging a war against the Yaqui Indians. When Lyedecker attempts to intervene, he is thrown into prison as well. Working together, the two escape and take refuge in the hills, where Lyedecker meets beautiful Yaqui freedom fighter Sarita and begins to question his allegiances.
The British High Command finds itself in the thick of a huge dilemma when it is realized that they have long been infiltrated by spies from a German intelligence group. This all happens during the preliminary stages of the Battle of Britain.
The Dirty Dozen meet the Stiff Upper Lip. A British Petroleum executive (Michael Caine) is assigned to work with the British Army in North Africa handling port duties for incoming fuels.
Pulled into the Mexican Revolution by his own greed, Texas gunrunner & pilot Lee Arnold joins bandit-turned-patriot Pancho Villa & his band of dedicated men in a march across Mexico battling the Colorados & stealing women’s hearts as they go. But each has a nemesis among his friends: Arnold is tormented by Fierro, Villa’s right-hand-man; and Villa must face possible betrayal by his own president’s naiveté
A chronicle of events that led to the British involvement in the Crimean War against Russia and which led to the siege of Sevastopol and the fierce Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 which climaxed with the heroic, but near-disastrous calvary charge made by the British Light Brigade against a Russian artillery battery in a small valley which resulted in the near-destruction of the brigade due to error of judgement and rash planning on part by the inept British commanders.
1968 American war film about the formation and first mission of the joint Canadian-American WWII special forces winter and mountain unit formally called 1st Special Service Force, but commonly known as “The Devil’s Brigade”. The film dramatises the Brigade’s first mission in the Italian Campaign, the task of capturing the German mountain stronghold Monte la Difensa, in December 1943. The film is based on the 1966 book of the same name, co-written by American novelist and historian Robert H. Adleman and Col. George Walton, a member of the brigade.
Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for a mission in South Vietnam. First off is to build and control a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy the second mission is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General
World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that’s nearly impossible to breach. It’s up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it’s too late.
The murder of a prostitute in Nazi occupied Warsaw draws Wehrmacht Major Grau into an investigation where the evidence points to one of three high ranking Generals. The trail leads Grau from Warsaw to Paris and straight into the 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, of which two of the Generals are deeply involved. Grau’s case goes unfinished and it is not until 1965 when the true killer is brought to justice.
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.
Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels’ struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.
English General Charles George Gordon, a devout Christian, is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by Prime Minister Gladstone. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, General Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
Without hostile intent, a Soviet sub runs aground off New England. Men are sent for a boat, but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed.
The title is Adolf Hitler’s question to his chief of staff Alfred Jodl on the eve of the liberation of Paris (August 25): the military governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, had been ordered to destroy Paris rather than let it fall undamaged into the hands of the Allies, but von Choltitz disobeyed.The film follows historical events as U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, head of the Allied invasion, refuses to divert troops to liberate Paris. His hand is forced by the French military leader, Philippe Leclerc, and by a Resistance uprising in the city. Von Choltitz keeps details of the uprising from the German high command in an effort to save the city being destroyed in retaliation. The film follows his turmoil as a soldier and as the man who doesn’t wish to be seen by history as the cause of a beautiful city’s destruction.
When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942 the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. This was a POW detention center like no other. There were no walls or barbed-wire fences for the simple reason that there was no place for the prisoners to escape to. Included among the prisoners is the American Cpl. King, a wheeler dealer who has managed to established a pretty good life for himself in the camp. While most of the prisoners are near starvation and have uniforms that are in tatters, King eats well and and has crisp clean clothes to wear every day. His nemesis is Lt. Robin Grey, the camp Provost who attempts to keep good order and discipline. He knows that King is breaking camp rules by bartering with the Japanese but can’t quite get the evidence he needs to stop him. King soon forms a friendship with Lt. Peter Marlowe an upper class British officer who is fascinated with King’s élan and no rules approach to life…
Von Ryan’s Express stars Frank Sinatra as a POW colonel who leads a daring escape from Nazi Germany by taking over a freight train, but he has to win over the British soldiers he finds himself commanding.
American and Japanese soldiers, stranded on a tiny Pacific island during World War II, must make a temporary truce and cooperate to survive various tribulations. Told through the eyes of the American and Japanese unit commanders, who must deal with an atmosphere of growing distrust and tension between their men.
A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.
Passengers on a ship traveling from Mexico to Europe in the 1930s represent society at large in that era. The crew is German, including the ship’s Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with one of the passengers, La Condesa. A young American woman, Jenny, is traveling with the man she loves, David. Jenny is fascinated and puzzled by just who some of the other passengers are.
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant.The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.
Doctor Zhivago is the filmed adapation of the Russian novel by Boris Pasternak from director David Lean that was an international success and today deemed a classic. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie play two protagonists who in fact love each other yet because of their current situation cannot find a way be together.
Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of the Civil War he wants nothing to do with. When his youngest boy is taken prisoner by the North the Civil War is forced upon him.
During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.
In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent this occurrence, Hitler orders an all out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp. “The Battle of the Bulge” shows this conflict from the perspective of an American intelligence officer as well as from a German Panzer Commander
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France’s greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
Culloden is a 1964 docudrama written and directed by Peter Watkins for BBC TV. It portrays the 1746 Battle of Culloden that resulted in the British Army’s destruction of the Scottish Jacobite uprising and, in the words of the narrator, “tore apart forever the clan system of the Scottish Highlands”. Described in its opening credits as “an account of one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain”, Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its cinematography as well as its use of non-professional actors and its presentation of an historical event in the style of modern TV war reporting. The film was based on John Prebble’s study of the battle.