Best War Movies of 1943

Sergeant Joe Gunn and his tank crew pick up five British soldiers, a Frenchman and a Sudanese man with an Italian prisoner crossing the Libyan Desert to rejoin their command after the fall of Tobruk. Tambul, the Sudanese leads them to an abandoned desert fortress where they hope to find water. Soon a detachment of German soldiers arrives and attempts to barter food for water, but Gunn and his followers refuse. When the Germans attack, Gunn leads his desert-weary men in a desperate battle, hoping that British reinforcements can arrive in time.

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

The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian border who finds refuge at a remote desert hotel. He is helped by the hotel's owner, despite protest from the French chambermaid, afraid of the imminent arrival of Rommel and the Germans. John assumes the identity of the recently deceased waiter to survive.

Merchant Marine sailors Joe Rossi (Humphrey Bogart) and Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) are charged with getting a supply vessel to Russian allies as part of a sea convoy. When the group of ships comes under attack from a German U-boat, Rossi and Jarvis navigate through dangerous waters to evade Nazi naval forces. Though their mission across the Atlantic is extremely treacherous, they are motivated by the opportunity to strike back at the Germans, who sank one of their earlier ships.

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.

Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

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 film pivots around the local Norwegian doctor and his family. The doctor's wife (Ruth Gordon) wants to hold on to the pretence of gracious living and ignore their German occupiers. The doctor, Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), would also prefer to stay neutral, but is torn. His brother-in-law, the wealthy owner of the local fish cannery, collaborates with the Nazis. The doctor's daughter, Karen (Ann Sheridan), is involved with the resistance and with its leader Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn). The doctor's son has just returned to town, having been sent down from the university, and is soon influenced by his Nazi-sympathizer uncle. Captain Koenig (Helmut Dantine), the young German commandant of the occupying garrison, whose fanatic determination to do everything by the book and spoutings about the invincibility of the Reich hides a growing fear of a local uprising.

Relaxing with a carrot at an army air field, Bugs is reading "Victory Through Hare Power," and scoffs at the notion of "gremlins," little creatures who wreak havoc on planes with their "dia-bo-lickal sabo-tay-gee." His reading is interrupted by a clanging sound, and it turns out to be a little wing-headed being pounding on a bockbuster bomb with a mallet.

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.

A cocky Air Force pilot stationed in England during World War II falls for a daring female flier. After he's killed on a mission, he is sent back to Earth by heavenly General with a new assignment.

The Army nurses on Bataan need help badly, but when it arrives, it sure isn't what they expected. A motley crew, including a Southern belle, a waitress, and a stripper, show up. Many conflicts arise among these women who are thrown together in what is a desperate and ultimately hopeless situation.

In World War II, a British secret agent carrying a vitally important document is kidnapped en route to Washington. The British government calls on Sherlock Holmes to recover it.

Propaganda comedy promoting the benefits of saving for the war effort.

During Japan's invasion of the Philippines in 1942, Capt. Henry Lassiter, Sgt. Bill Dane and a diverse group of American soldiers are ordered to destroy and hold a strategic bridge in order to delay the Japanese forces and allow Gen. MacArthur time to secure Bataan. When the Japanese soldiers begin to rebuild the bridge and advance, the group struggles with not only hunger, sickness and gunfire, but also the knowledge that there is likely no relief on the way.

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.

A group of U.S. Army nurses leaves San Francisco for their tour of duty in Hawaii in December 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor changes their destination and their lives. Sent to Bataan, Philippines, the nurses are led by Lt. Janet Davidson. She is faced with untested nurses who expected an easy time in Honolulu, but who quickly become battle-weary veterans dealing with daily bombardments by the Japanese, overwhelmed by the numbers of wounded, and dwindling supplies. Some of "Davey's" unit also have to deal with romantic entanglements with men they met onboard ship. When Bataan falls, the American forces flee to the offshore island of Corregidor, where they find the Japanese assault just as intense.

Flagwaving story of a new American destroyer, the JOHN PAUL JONES, from the day her keel is laid, to what was very nearly her last voyage. Among the crew, is Steve Boleslavski, a shipyard welder that helped build her, who reenlists, with his old rank of Chief bosuns mate. After failing her sea trials, she is assigned to the mail run, until caught up in a disparate battle with a Japanese sub. After getting torpedoed, and on the verge of sinking, the Captain, and crew hatch a plan to try and save the ship, and destroy the sub.

An American gets caught up in wartime action in Turkey.

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

Concentrating on the personal lives of those involved, a war correspondent takes us through the preparations, landing and initial campaign on Guadalcanal during WWII.

This is a unique film in Disney Production's history. This film is essentially a propaganda film selling Major Alexander de Seversky's theories about the practical uses of long range strategic bombing. Using a combination of animation humorously telling about the development of air warfare, the film switches to the Major illustrating his ideas could win the war for the allies.

A gripping tale of WWII naval warfare in the Baltics, starring John Mills as Lt. Freddie Taylor, a British submarine Captain. The crew of the Sea Tiger are summoned from leave on shore with their families, and sent on a secret mission to intercept the Nazi battleship Brandenburg. In the ensuing battle the British submarine is damaged by a German destroyer. The submarine is leaking fuel so badly that the crew won't be able to make it back to Britain before running out somewhere along the Danish coast. When it seems that their only option may be to blow up the submarine and try to escape to Denmark, seaman James Hobson (Eric Portman) hatches a plan...Working from a well constructed script, Anthony Asquith adds a strong sense of dramatic tension to the interactions between the men in the dangerous, claustraphobic atmosphere of the cramped submarine. Mills and Portman also give good, realistic portrayals of men at war in this tense story.

Two bumblers, failures as businessmen and air raid wardens, stumble across a nest of Nazi saboteurs bent on blowing up the local magnesium plant.

A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance

Japanese master spy Daka operates a covert espionage-sabotage organization located in Gotham City's now-deserted Little Tokyo, which turns American scientists into pliable zombies. The great crime-fighters Batman and Robin, with the help of their allies, are in pursuit.

Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the Mounties employ a ruse so that the spies, believing Steve to be sympathetic, enlist him in their plans.

A US Navy submarine, the USS Corsair, is operating in the North Atlantic, hunting German merchant raiders that are preying on Allied shipping. Its new executive officer, Lt. Ward Stewart (Power), has been transferred back into submarines after commanding his own PT boat. At the submarine base in New London, Connecticut, he asks his new captain, Lt. Cmdr. Dewey Connors (Andrews), for a weekend leave to settle his affairs before taking up his new assignment. On a train bound for Washington D.C., Stewart accidentally encounters New London school teacher Jean Hewlett (Baxter) and her students. Despite her initial resistance to his efforts, he charms her and they fall in love.

Zandra, white princess of a lost civilization, comes to Tarzan for help when Nazis invade the jungle with plans to conquer her people and take their wealth. Tarzan, the isolationist, becomes involved after the Nazis shoot at him and capture Boy: "Now Tarzan make war!"

A letter from Jane, who is nursing British troops, asks Tarzan's help in obtaining a malaria serum extractable from jungle plants. Tarzan and Boy set out across the desert looking for the plants. Along the way they befriend a stranded American lady magician.

The stooges are repairmen who get a job fixing the doorbell in large house which is the secret headquarters of some Nazi spies. They manage to ruin most of the house while working on the wiring and then subdue the spies and sink an enemy submarine by remote control.

The Stooges join the war effort by enlisting at Merchant Marines. While aboard, they have a brief run-in with (a secret German Nazi officer) Lt. Dungen (Vernon Dent), and then mistake a torpedo for a beached whale. Moe says they have to kill it, and it promptly explodes. After being lost at sea for several days, they come across the SS Schicklgruber and climb aboard. Now with fully grown beards, they come across Lt. Dungen again, who does not recognize them. After realizing they are in with a nest of German sailors, they eventually overtake the crew and toss them overboard.

In WW I dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the War, he becomes a producer. In WW II his son Johnny Jones, who was before his fathers assistant, gets the order to stage a knew all-soldier show, called THIS IS THE ARMY. But in his pesonal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."

Comedian Tommy Trinder plays it straight in this tribute to the wartime AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service). The dedicated band who kept the fires of London under control during the blitz and fire bombings of WWII.

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.

The third film of Frank Capra's 'Why We Fight" propaganda film series, dealing with the Nazi conquest of Western Europe in 1940.

A true-life epic that revolves around an exclusive bataillon of the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, "Carlson's Raiders," whose assignment is to take control of a South Pacific island once possessed by the United States but now under Japanese command.

The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation.

Shortly before Pearl Harbor, American opportunist Jones and partner Johnny are in China to sell oil to the invading Japanese army. Cynical about the sufferings of the Chinese, Jones meets compassionate teacher Carolyn Grant while travelling cross-country to Shanghai. Sparks fly between these strong-willed characters, neither budging an inch. But when Jones witnesses a Japanese atrocity, his feelings toward his customers (and Carolyn) begin to change...

Subtitled The Fighting Guerillas, Chetniks tells the story of Yugoslavian guerilla fighter General Draja Mihailovitch. Based on the General's own memoirs, the film depicts Mihailovitch (played here by Philip Dorn) as a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WW II.

A French Resistance fighter discovers he's a dead ringer for a Nazi official.

Commando Daffy Duck goes behind enemy lines and causes havoc for a Nazi German officer and his troops.

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.

British drama documentary from 1943, based on the true story of the 1940 rescue of the tanker MV San Demetrio by parts of her own crew after she had been set afire in the middle of the Atlantic by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer and then had been abandoned. When one of the lifeboats drifted back to the burning tanker the day after, and found that she still hadn't exploded, they decided to board her and put out the fires. Eventually, they managed to start the engine again and decided to try to reach Britain against all odds.

British Captain Terence Stevenson (Robert Donat) accepts an assignment even more dangerous than his everyday job of defusing unexploded bombs. Fluent in Romanian and German and having studied chemical engineering, he is parachuted into Romania to assume the identity of Captain Jan Tartu, a member of the fascist Iron Guard. He makes his way to Czechoslovakia to steal the formula of a new Nazi poison gas and sabotage the factory where it is being manufactured.

Goofy demonstrates a number of crazy vehicles.

Jaap van Leyden is in charge of a shipyard in newly occupied Holland. At first he collaborates with the Germans because it is the easiest course to follow. Later a child's rhyme reminds him of his patriotic duty, but how best to resist the Nazis without endangering his wife and fellow workers?