Best History Movies of 1943

Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress

During World War II, Captain Cassidy and his crew of submariners are ordered into Tokyo Bay on a secret mission. They are to gather information in advance of the planned bombing of Tokyo. Along the way, the crew learn about each other as they face the enemy and some of them lose their lives.

During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.

The fifth film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War.

The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.

An American gets caught up in wartime action in Turkey.

After marrying a dour and disinterested lord for status, a young woman falls in love with a stage actor while her best friend from boarding school enters an affair with her husband.

In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.

The fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War. It was released in 1943 and concentrated on the German bombardment of the United Kingdom in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion.

The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

Story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi SS commander, by Czech partisans and the reprisals inflicted by the Nazis on the Czechs.

Plan for Destruction is a 1943 American short propaganda film directed by Edward Cahn. It looks at the Geopolitik ideas of the ex-World War I professor, General Karl Haushofer, who is portrayed as the head of a huge organization for gathering information of strategic value and the mastermind behind Adolf Hitler's wars and plans to enslave the world. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.

A British commando is on a one-man raid to destroy a bomb factory in Nazi-occupied France. He must enlist the aid of French farmers to complete his mission.

Produced in 1943 under the guidance of Army Air Force Lieutenant Clark Gable, this film follows a single 8th Air Force B-17 crew from training through a series of missions over Europe.

"Docudrama" about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 and its results, the recovering of the ships, the improving of defense in Hawaii and the US efforts to beat back the Japanese reinforcements.

Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to America as an advocate of Stalinism.

Military training film on the characteristics, capabilities, weaknesses, and recognition of the World War II Japanese fighter aircraft known as the Zero.

This Passing Parade series short examines the origins of three popular nursery rhymes.

Deerslayer, a white man who was brought up by the Mohicans, helps his old tribe when the Hurons steal Princess Wah Tah, the betrothed of his friend Jingo-Good. His friends, the Hutters, are a white family living on an ark in the middle of a lake. The Hurons attack them and Deerslayer enlists the aid of scout Harry March, who is escorting sixty-five brides to the near-by settlement. Deerslayer and Harry are both in love with Judith Hutter, who is secretly in love with Harry. The Hurons succeed in capturing her father and Harry, where-upon Judith's sister Hetty, playing on an Indian superstition never to harm an insane person, feigns madness and makes an escape. Hutter, Judith, Hetty and Princess Wah-Tah return to the ark, where they ate attacked by the waiting Hurons and Hetty is killed. Deerslayer, Harry and the settlement men arrive to time to drive the Hurons away.

Footage shot by German troops and confiscated by Allied forces of an attack in Warsaw.

Biographical film about Saint Rita da Cascia, who lived in Umbria in the 14th century.

Legends associated with the lost treasures of Incan gold, thought to be located at the bottom of one of the many shafts of what is called the hawk's nest above the city of Cusco, Peru are presented. These stories begin in 1531 with the arrival of explorer Francisco Pizarro, under the direction of King Charles V of Spain, Pizarro who is in search of the gold associated with the legendary El Dorado. Pizarro holds captive the Emperor of the Incas, Atahualpa, to discover the location of the gold. Atahualpa, in turn, promises a cave full of gold for his release. Receiving some gold, Pizarro, not trusting Atahualpa, murders him without ever finding the location of the gold, thought to be twenty thousand shiploads full, worth, in today dollars, in the billions. Legend now has it that the Incas have placed a curse on the gold to avenge Atahualpa's murder, the several attempts by outsiders to locate it leading to tragedy. Coincidence or curse?