Time Out's 50 Best World War II Films: "La Grande Illusion" (1937)

36. Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Directed by Brian G. Hutton

?Broadsword calling Danny Boy...? Eastwood and Burton raise hell for Jerry.

"Famous for its genre-shattering punch-up on a cable car, this behind-the-lines whodunit is also reputed to clock in with the highest body count of any film starring Clint Eastwood, with hundreds of Central Kasting Jerries throwing themselves headlong into a squinting, square-jawed storm of lead. The twisting plot, concerning the mission to rescue a captured American general from an Alpine castle, serves up a string of ice-pick-sharp set-pieces but, more importantly, provides an excuse for Burton, Eastwood and the gang to get out of their itchy, ill-fitting British togs and look sharp in German officers? uniforms. As de Gaulle once said of his Teutonic foes, ?No moral compass ? but what a tailor!? PF"

The director of this movie, Brian G. Hutton, gave up directing in the 80's and became a plumber. Write your own punch-line.

 

35. Germany, Pale Mother (1980)

Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms

War through the eyes of a German hausfrau.

"One of the lynchpins of the New German Cinema and, alas, one of two female directors on this list (which says a lot about war stories being a predominantly male preserve), Helma Sanders-Brahms?s film may be played in a minor-register, but the sentiments it evokes are both assertive and achingly trenchant. A dewy-eyed romance between Lene (Eva Mattes) and Hans (Ernst Jacobi) blossoms into marriage, but their bliss is short lived as Hans is called away to fight for the Fatherland. The film then traces Lene?s ensuing toil, as we see her give birth during an air raid, have to walk her young toddler over sprawling mounds of bricks and mortar, and flee to the countryside where she is forced to trudge through freezing fields and filch supplies from the solidified corpses that speckle the landscape. And when a ceasefire is finally declared, the relief is short-lived, as Hans has been indelibly scarred by the suffering he?s witnessed, Lene develops a twitch which deforms the left side of her face and ? most shocking of all ? is told that the only recourse is to have all her teeth removed, which Hans casually agrees to. OK, it may sound like a proto-Lars Von Trier movie, for which a saintly women is drafted in as a human pin cushion, but Sanders-Brahms never judges her characters (even though they are based on her own parents) and bluntly demonstrates how relentlessly grim life in Germany was for the women as well the men. DJ"

 

I read MacLean too in my adolescence. He doesn't hold up well when returned to later in life, in my experience. Where Eagles Dare isn't a great movie or anything; it looks good, but it's a little . . . lame-brained?

 

It's cacophonous. I expected a lot more from it, anyway.

 

Letters From Iwo Jima & Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Eastwood explores an iconic battle from both sides.

"Given his hard-bitten reputation, it?s surprising Clint Eastwood hadn?t got around to directing a World War Two movie before 2006. But he made up for it with this groundbreaking pair, exploring a major historical conflict ? the iconic battle of Iwo Jima ?from both the American and Japanese perspectives. First to be released was ?Flags of our Fathers? which, as the title suggests, explores the American culture of war, and the way military struggles are filtered and distorted through the kaleidoscope of patriotism and propaganda. Clint?s eye on his subject is clear-sighted, but the film suffers from weak characterisation and occasionally bland segments. ?Letters from Iwo Jima?, however, is a stunning piece of work: shot entirely in Japanese, it depicts a group of soldiers even more bound by tradition and honour than their American counterparts, trapped in an unwinnable war and dreaming only of home. To make a film treating Japanese soldiers as, in their own way, heroic ? even 60 years after the fact ? was a remarkably brave move from one of Hollywood?s most trusted insiders. TH"

 

33. The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov

Stirring Soviet Palme d?Or winner.

"Made in the brief proto-Glasnost that followed the death of Joseph Stalin, Kalatozov?s masterpiece is more akin to the ?40s British morale boosters like ?This Happy Breed? than to Soviet propaganda pieces of the immediate post-war period. The story, of young lovers torn apart and taken where the currents of war pull them, was nothing new in the West, but here it added a personal stamp to a tale more usually laced with willing sacrifice and noble collective spirit. Still, despite the new individualistic tone, this was still the USSR, home to black bread, deep thoughts and 20 million fewer people than at the war?s start; don?t hold out for any happy endings. Kalatozov and cinematographer Sergei Uresevsky went on to make ?Soy Cuba? together and their photographic style that made that film so mesmeric is evident here too, with a startling blend of audacious framing and hand-held shots that wouldn?t be evident in Western cinema for years. PF"

 

32. Millions Like Us (1943)

Directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat

"A poignant testament to British pluck and a call for social realignment.
No film evokes the everyday British experience of WW2 better than Launder & Gilliat?s self-sacrificial, stiff-upper-lipped epic. It?s also a masterpiece of social observation, reflecting the national shift away from class repression towards something more inclusive in its depiction of the lives, loves and heartrending losses endured by the lower-middle-class Crowson family. The closing sequence ? in which munitions worker Celia (Patricia Roc) forcibly represses her grief over her dead lover and joins in a rousing factory canteen singalong ? is almost unbearably moving. TH"

Never even heard, let alone seen, this movie. Sounds interesting, though.

 

32. Millions Like Us (1943)

Directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat

"A poignant testament to British pluck and a call for social realignment.
No film evokes the everyday British experience of WW2 better than Launder & Gilliat?s self-sacrificial, stiff-upper-lipped epic. It?s also a masterpiece of social observation, reflecting the national shift away from class repression towards something more inclusive in its depiction of the lives, loves and heartrending losses endured by the lower-middle-class Crowson family. The closing sequence ? in which munitions worker Celia (Patricia Roc) forcibly represses her grief over her dead lover and joins in a rousing factory canteen singalong ? is almost unbearably moving. TH"

 

"The Cranes are Flying" is wonderful.

 

I hope Objective Burma makes the list.

 

31. Downfall (2004)

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Wintertime for Hitler and Germany in this searing, claustrophobic drama.

"We?ve all been there. You haven?t slept for days. The place is a wreck. There are empties everywhere and you don?t even know who half these people are ? but you just can?t come to admit it: The Party?s over. This unflinching account of the last days of Nazi Germany is told almost entirely within the dank and sweaty corridors of Hitler?s bunker beneath Berlin and is almost unbearably claustrophobic. But Bruno Ganz?s mesmerising, foaming, eye-rolling Herr Hitler is only one of a thousand reasons to see this incredibly bleak take on the final days of the Swastika. The sense of impending doom is palpable and, as much of what goes on is based on the recollections of Hitler?s personal secretary, scenes like the wild champagne jazz party to the backbeat of weeping and Russian artillery, ring bizarrely true. Sadly for these guests, history was about to gatecrash the shindig and the phrase, ?I was only there for the nibbles!? simply wouldn?t wash. PF"

 

Never seen it. Don't know if I could ever watch it either, thanks to all those 'Hitler Rants' on YouTube (which take a scene of Hitler ranting and change the subtitles to whatever the issue of the day is - from the delays with Starcraft 2 and having his World of Warcraft account suspended to the death of Michael Jackson and the price of Panasonic TVs and iPads).

 

Which, I hasten to add, are one of the greatest of all internet memes.

 

30. Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

Directed by J Lee Thompson

"The Sahara Desert is the only thing standing between John Mills and flagon of weak lager.
Easily caricatured as a festival of heat-damning pluck and British reserve, this purportedly fact-based tale of John Mills?s Eighth Army captain guiding a rag-bag ambulance crew across the North African desert is a complex psychological thriller. The Germans barely bother Mills ? his big battle is with the case of gin he?s hidden in the vehicle and which, even without ice and lemon, sings a constant siren song to his dipsomaniac soul. The final scenes in the bar at Alexandria were re-shot for the American dry states in a mocked-up malt shop, with John Mills downing a chocolate-chip and macadamia milkshake. There is an apocryphal story that, after twelve takes , the actor had a terrible ice-cream headache. Whatever the truth, that bowdlerised print is long lost, and the film remains a heartfelt homage to the lengths to which a Brit will go for a swift half after work. PF"

 

Downfall is indeed extremely good; it'd be just to easy to demonize Hitler and I doubt anyone would have seriously objected if the film had, but it didn't (at least, not to my eyes-there's that scene where he has a conversation with his new secretary and he comes off as anything but a murderous sociopath) and I appreciated seeing Hitler as a person as opposed to a ranting demagogue.

 

I love Ice Cold in Alex. One of my favourite war films. I think the whole cast is good, though Quayle has the most attention-getting role.

 

29. The Great Escape (1963)

Directed by John Sturges

"Sturges prints the legend in this rousing under-the-wire epic.

Maybe the most flat-out enjoyable WWII film of them all, this bank holiday classic continues to win fans, inform ad campaigns and drown out England football matches every time an impromptu rendition of its impossibly chipper theme tune bleats from thousands of dayglo promotional kazoos. Steve McQueen heads a top-notch cast of international talent ? all of whom are given plenty to do by the lively script, and nimbly wrangled by Sturges?s muscular direction. It may rely a little heavily on cartoon Krauts and an extraneous motorbike finale (tacked on at McQueen?s insistence so he could showboat his facility with big boys? toys), but otherwise it keeps closer to the facts than might be imagined and delivers in every department that counts. ALD"

Despite the rotten quality of this clip, you do get some idea of Sturges' ability to compose on the big scene and the dynamism of this movie

 

There is no such thing as an extraneous motorcycle scene. All scenes involving motorcycles are absolutely crucial to their respective films.

Also, in general, it's just an awesome film. What an incredible concentration of great badass actors. It's like the ultimate guys' movie. Also, it's a pretty great, taut, entertaining war adventure that doesn't shy away from the harshness of war and turn it into a happy-ending lark.

 

The film plays a bit loose with history (there were no Americans involved in the escape - they had been relocated to another camp) but still a stirring adventure regardless, played brilliantly by a top notch cast (Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, Donald Pleasance etc).

Fun Fact: The famous motorcycle jump was actually performed by McQueen's stunt double (one of his best mates) - McQueen did the original attempt but nuffed it.

Fun Fact #2: The German whom McQueen knocks off the motorcycle to steal (by having a wire across the road) was McQueen himself.

 

This is an interesting little movie. I think the cast is what makes it, of course. All top notch, and it truly is the ultimate guys movie. The plot, not so much. Had all the characters actually focused on escaping, instead of treating it with all the urgency of "Sex in the City, WWII Edition," I think they would have gotten what they wanted.

There is no such thing as an extraneous motorcycle scene. All scenes involving motorcycles are absolutely crucial to their respective films.

Heh. You aren't kidding. For all the time McQueen spent prancing around in the "crucial" motorcycle scene, he could have driven the stupid thing to the US, and that includes skipping it across the Atlantic Ocean on one wheel....

 

28. Mephisto (1981)

Directed by István Szabó

What could be so wrong with being a Nazi matinee idol? Oh?

?What do they want from me? After all I?m just an actor,? intones a repentant Henrik Hoefgen (Klaus Maria Brandauer), the limp-wristed matinee idol who sells his soul to the Nazi Party in order to secure personal stardom and absolution from his past dalliances with the commies. Hungarian director István Szabó never bettered this adaptation of Klaus Mann?s 1936, novel which went on to pick up the 1981 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Although the simplest reading of this magnificently multi-textured film is as a comment on the chasm between extreme politics and art, its most enjoyable facet is Brandauer?s tour de force central performance as the foppish Hoefgen ? sure to go down as one of cinema?s most intense portrayals of stifled inner turmoil. And as corrupted souls on screen go, this would make a perfect double bill with Bertolucci?s ?The Conformist?. DJ