Nuit et Brouillard
1959
8
Filmmaker Fang Li and his crew explore exhaustive historical investigation, as far as possible to find the core of the British, American, Japanese and Chinese parties and descendants, trying to infinitely close to the truth of the World War II "Death Ship" — "Lisbon Maru", which is 30 meters under the sea off the East Polar Island in Zhoushan, China.
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
Nuit et Brouillard
1959
8
The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.
The Silent Village
1943
6
The story of Estelle Ishigo, one of the few Caucasians interned with Japanese Americans during World War II. The wife of a Japanese American, Ishigo refused to be separated from her husband and was interned along with him. Based on the personal papers of Estelle Ishigo and her novel Lone Heart Mountain.
Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo
1991
7
When World War II broke out, John Ford, in his forties, commissioned in the Naval Reserve, was put in charge of the Field Photographic Unit by Bill Donavan, director of the soon-to-be-OSS. During the war, Field Photo made at least 87 documentaries, many with Ford's signature attention to heroism and loss, and many from the point of view of the fighting soldier and sailor. Talking heads discuss Ford's life and personality, the ways that the war gave him fulfillment, and the ways that his war films embodied the same values and conflicts that his Hollywood films did. Among the films profiled are "Battle of Midway," "Torpedo Squadron," "Sexual Hygiene," and "December 7."
John Ford Goes to War
2002
5
Ireland, June 1944. The crucial decision about the right time to start Operation Overlord on D-Day comes to depend on the readings taken by Maureen Flavin, a young girl who works at a post office, used as a weather station, in Blacksod, in County Mayo, the westernmost promontory of Europe, far from the many lands devastated by the iron storms of World War II.
Storm Front in Mayo
2019
7
Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.
To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb
2023
7
Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of nuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2007
7
Live footage from concentration camps after the liberation, and the complex transport and lodging of masses of prisoners of war and other deported people back to their home countries, at the end of World War II. A 45min 35mm print also exists (shown at Cinémathèque française in 2023).
Le retour
1946
6
Guy joins an ambitious engineering project to recover a crashed WW2 Lancaster Bomber – and the remains of its missing crew members – from the depths of the Dutch lake where it’s lain for 80 years.
Guy Martin's Lost WW2 Bomber
2024
7
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75 Years Later is told entirely from the first-person perspective of leaders, physicists, soldiers and survivors.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75 Years Later
2020
6
Using restored, colorized archives and testimonies from all the players in this conflict, this documentary covers the hundred days of apocalyptic fighting that wrote History. June 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy. This odyssey was meticulously prepared for months. The construction of two artificial ports, the transport of Anglo-American troops, their training cost colossal efforts, and caused many cold sweats: the secret of D-Day almost came to light several times. The documentary reveals the inner workings of Operation Overlord, it also deciphers the military operations, and evokes the choices of the high command. Placed at human level, it retraces the fate of Norman civilians subjected to deadly bombings, the attitude of the Allied soldiers and their German adversaries, as well as the aspirations of the French population, torn between fear and hope.
D-Day, 100 jours pour la liberté
2024
7
Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.
The Last Days
1998
7
Is it morally acceptable to use the civilian population as yet another tool for waging war? Is it possible to justify death and destruction for the sake of supposedly lofty ideals? The question remains as pertinent today as it was at the beginning of World War II, and it is becoming increasingly urgent to answer, as countless tragedies have been caused by unethical political decisions.
Die Naturgeschichte der Zerstörung
2022
7
The incredible story of the Avro Lancaster, one of the finest bombers of the Second World War, which played a crucial role in the long and savage campaign to defeat Hitler's Third Reich. This documentary features interviews with surviving veterans of Bomber Command, who share frank personal accounts of their part in an aerial battle of attrition which claimed the lives of 55'000 aircrew.
The Lancaster at War
2009
6
Eighty years on, the BBC has been gathering first-hand accounts from the UK's D-Day veterans – some now more than 100 years of age. Rachel Burden traces their stories in Normandy and hears memories of the massive beach invasion and the battles that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War in Europe.
D-Day 80: We Were There
2024
7
The story of the iconic WW2 bomber told through the words of the last surviving crew members, re-mastered archive material and extraordinary aerial footage of the RAF’s last airworthy Lancaster.
Lancaster
2022
6
Using never-before-seen footage, Japan's War In Colour tells a previously untold story. It recounts the history of the Second World War from a Japanese perspective, combining original colour film with letters and diaries written by Japanese people. It tells the story of a nation at war from the diverse perspectives of those who lived through it: the leaders and the ordinary people, the oppressors and the victims, the guilty and the innocent. Until recently, it was believed that no colour film of Japan existed prior to 1945. But specialist research has now unearthed a remarkable colour record from as early as the 1930s. For eight years the Japanese fought what they believed was a Holy War that became a fight to the death. Japan's War In Colour shows how militarism took hold of the Japanese people; describes why Japan felt compelled to attack the West; explains what drove the Japanese to resist the Allies for so long; and, finally, reveals how they dealt with the shame of defeat.
Japan's War In Colour
2005
8
A tribute to the cameramen of the newsreel companies and the service film units, in the form of a compilation of film of the cameramen themselves, their training and some of their most dramatic film.
Cameramen at War
1943
5
A documentary looking at Operation Anthropoid during World War II.
Opération Anthropoïde - Eliminer le SS Heydrich
2014
6
Nazi troops massacre 30,000 Jews over a three-day period in September 1941. Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Бабий Яр. Контекст
2021
6