the 5 most honest World War II films

1). Downfall: A refreshingly honest portrayal of the defensive Battle for Berlin, specifically the last ten days of Hitler’s life and how the Third Reich, which had once stretched from Berlin to the coast of the English Channel and as far as North Africa, had crumbled to little more than a few blocks of urban street. The story of Hitler and his generals barricaded inside the bunker is no new story, it had been told in numerous films before and Hitler had been portrayed by actors like Alec Guinness or Robert Carlyle but Downfall is one of the first films I’ve seen that portrays a rather realistic and human portrayal of the major players in the Third Reich in the closing days of the war. Past cinematic incarnations of Hitler portrayed him as this Machiavellian villain, sniveling and sneering from behind the shadows but the disturbing truth is he was a human being who was capable of committing some of the most disturbing acts of the century. Here, we see that Hitler was in fact a good boss to his secretaries, he reveals a nurturing, even fatherly side as he interacts with Traudl Junge or with Blondi, his German Shepherd. The movie highlights how the German Army fell into disarray at the end of the war, how Hitler’s generals began turning on one another, how the radical Nazis wanted to stay and fight until the end while the more rational German officers wanted to concede defeat to the Allies, how the defeat at the end of World War I discouraged Germans from surrendering and how blatantly obvious it had become that there would be no victory for the Third Reich. And the film manages all of this without taking attention away from the very true and very real atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

2). Saving Private Ryan: This film is distinctive because it’s the first war film to depict the brutality of frontline combat in a very real and honest portrayal. War films had been a tried and true genre prior to Saving Private Ryan but they had always seemed to maintain the cinematic ideal that a war film should be portrayed in a ‘good versus evil’ lens where ultimately good always wins. Saving Private Ryan showed that combat is not as glamorous as Hollywood films have a tendency to portray. The opening sequence at Omaha Beach shows US Army Rangers landing at Dog One Sector getting literally shot to bits within seconds of landing. It may seem like overkill but when you consider that prior to Saving Private Ryan, the most brutal war film was (probably) Full Metal Jacket, wherein the peak of onscreen violence entails Marines bleeding to death or committing suicide in bathrooms at Parris Island, Saving Private Ryan is kind of the type of film we’ve needed.

3). The Thin Red Line: One of the finest films ever put to screen, period. The acting in the The Thin Red Line is astounding, the score is deeply affecting. The lack of dialogue, the narration-every time I watch this film, I seem to experience it differently. While The Thin Red Line doesn’t necessarily achieve the same tactical accuracy as Saving Private Ryan (I suspect the cast of The Thin Red Line wasn’t put through the same training regimen as in Saving Private Ryan-it’s kind of blatantly obvious) the film, which follows an Infantry Company’s efforts to capture a Japanese Imperial Army stronghold on top of a well fortified hilltop position during The Battle of Guadalcanal, highlights that the same war is experienced differently by each man fighting it. In that sense, it’s incredibly psychological, emotional, moving. The exchange between Captain Staros and Tall when Staros is relieved of his command (‘look at this jungle-look at those vines, the way they twine around the trees, swallowing everything. Nature’s cruel, Staros’) is one of my favorite bits of dialogue. Sean Penn also has some zingers (‘In this world, a man himself is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one.’ ‘All a man can do is find something that’s his and make an island for himself. If I never see you in this life, let me feel the lack.’)

4). Dunkirk: My favorite movie of 2017, following a story that is criminally under-appreciated here in the United States, Dunkirk follows the story of Operation: Dynamo, wherein the British Expeditionary Force at the outset of the Second World War, having deployed to Europe to stop Hitler’s Forces advancing through Belgium and France were pushed all the way to the French coastal city of Dunkirk. Within hours, the BEF (which is to say literally every single fighting man that Great Britain could muster) was surrounded by German troops. In other words, it was a very, very real possibility that the Germans could have hit Dunkirk in force to destroy the BEF or Great Britain would have had to seriously consider surrender. Operation: Dynamo was the evacuation operation entailing British civilian vessels that sailed to Dunkirk to ferry the soldiers of the BEF back home. Christopher Nolan’s film achieves an on the ground look at the average British infantryman, pilot and civilian crafts, switching between land, sea and air. It’s an amazing story about the Dunkirk Spirit, the fortitude of British perseverance and how they absolutely refused to consider surrender.

5). Band of Brothers: Gonna break the rules a bit and post a miniseries instead of a film. Band of Brothers is an HBO miniseries that came out a few years back depicting the exploits of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during the European Theater of Operations in World War II from Basic Training at Camp Toccoa to the end of the war in Berchesgaden. More than any other film, Band of Brothers achieves the appropriate depiction of the bonds of brotherhood formed in warfare, you literally get to know even the most mundane member of Easy Company by name, their backstories, where they’re from. Band of Brothers makes you feel as though you too are a member of Easy Company.