Best War Movies of 1945

Two sailors, Joe and Clarence have four days shore leave in spend their shore leave trying to get a girl for Clarence. Clarence has his eye on a girl with musical aspirations, and before Joe can stop him, promises to get her an audition with José Iturbi. But the trouble really starts when Joe realizes he's falling for his buddy's girl.

A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States.

Marine hero Al Schmid is blinded in battle and returns home to be rehabilitated. He readjusts to his civilian life with the help of his soon to be wife.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a squadron of PT-boat crews in the Philippines must battle the Navy brass between skirmishes with the Japanese. The title says it all about the Navy's attitude towards the PT-boats and their crews.

Life on a British bomber base, and the surrounding towns, from the opening days of the Battle of Britain, to the arrival of the Americans, who join in the bomber offensive. The film centres around Pilot Officer Peter Penrose, fresh out of a training unit, who joins the squadron, and quickly discovers about life during war time. He falls for Iris, a young girl who lives at the local hotel, but he becomes disillusioned about marriage, when the squadron commander dies in a raid, and leaves his wife, the hotel manageress, with a young son to bring up. As the war progresses, Penross comes to terms that he has survived, while others have been killed.

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans.

In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount.

An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Nick Condon, an American journalist in 1945 Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.

Originally made with a German soundtrack for screening in occupied Germany and Austria, this film was the first documentary to show what the Allies found when they liberated the Nazi extermination camps: the survivors, the conditions, and the evidence of mass murder. The film includes accounts of the economic aspects of the camps' operation, the interrogation of captured camp personnel, and the enforced visits of the inhabitants of neighboring towns, who, along with the rest of their compatriots, are blamed for complicity in the Nazi crimes - one of the few such condemnations in the Allied war records.

Robert L. Scott has dreamed his whole life of being a fighter pilot, but when war comes he finds himself flying transport planes over The Hump into China. In China, he persuades General Chennault to let him fly with the famed Flying Tigers, the heroic band of airmen who'd been fighting the Japanese long before Pearl Harbor. Scott gets his chance to fight, ultimately engaging in combat with the deadly Japanese pilot known as Tokyo Joe.

The seventh and final film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight World War II propaganda film series. This entry attempts to describe the factors leading up to America's entry into the Second World War.

Documentary short film depicting the American assault on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima and the massive battle that raged on that key island in the Allied advance on Japan. Four cameramen died bringing this footage to the public

A "know-your-enemy" propaganda film similar to "Know Your Enemy: Japan" and "My Japan", films about Japan with the same objective. It contains a history of the prelude to WW II, the death camps and other Nazi war crimes, and commentary on the character of the German people. Directed by Frank Capra, this film is in essentially the same format as his "Why We Fight" series. It was intended to be shown to American troops participating in the invasion and occupation of Germany. But by the time it was ready, events had overtaken it -- Germany was already well on its way to falling -- so the film was shelved. Although it is readily available for public-domain viewing on the Internet, it has never been widely distributed or shown.

During WW2 a former railway employee who had been drafted, goes AWOL to hunt down the spiv and draft dodger who is having an affair with his wife.

An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.

Two Russians fight to escape the seven Nazi soldiers trapped with them in a bombed building.

Major Joppolo and his men are assigned to restore order to the war-torn Italian town of Adano. He has to manage getting supplies into town without interfering with troop movements, all the while dealing with colorful citizens of the town. One of his quests is to replace the bell which orders the town's life.

During World War II, Chief Aviation Pilot Ned Trumpet is in charge of an airship at Lakehurst, New Jersey naval base. Trumpet orders an unauthorized and premature attack on a German submarine but the bomb misses and the submarine fires back, hitting the airship. Trumpet takes over the controls and sinks the submarine, The pilot faces a court-martial for disobeying orders but the older man takes the blame for his actions. Weaver transfers to the Ferry Command, and while on assignment in Burma, his aircraft crashes in Japanese territory. Trumpet rushes to the scene with a rescue team. Both are successfully brought out and are decorated for their heroism. Afterward, Weaver indicates that he will be returning to the lighter-than-air service in Lakehurst, to reunite with his "father".

Two Englishmen (Richard Attenborough, Jack Watling) train with the Royal Air Force, ending with a bombing raid on Berlin.

In commissioning Halas & Batchelor, the War Office recognised the potential of cartoons as an unobtrusive and entertaining medium by which official messages could be conveyed - in this case some rather unsavoury warnings pertaining to foot rot, dysentery and VD. Aimed at soldiers serving in the Far East, the antics of six sprightly soldiers stationed in the jungle illustrate with humour and clarity the potential pitfalls of poor personal hygiene.

The fisherman from a Cornish village have a friendly rivalry with the fishermen (and one formidable woman) from a French port. Then war comes and they must all rethink their petty differences.

An American businessman returns from a hunting trip to find fascists have overrun the country in this propaganda film.

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945

A soldier survives a bombing in which his three fellow soldiers were killed. When he recovers he discovers he has amnesia, and since his companions' bodies were burned beyond recognition, the army doesn't know which one of the four he is. He goes AWOL and searches out the families of the three dead soldiers, hoping to find out his own identity.

Newsreel footage from both sides of World War II make a case for convicting Nazi war criminals.

A debutante, a serviceman's bride and a girl from a military family join the Women's Army Corps.

Frank Capra-directed propaganda film produced during World War II depicting the United States' new enemy: Japan.

Constance Bennett both produced and starred in the espionager Paris Underground. Bennett and Gracie Fields play, respectively, an American and an English citizen trapped in Paris when the Nazis invade. The women team up to help Allied aviators escape from the occupied city into Free French territory. The screenplay was based on the true wartime activities of Etta Shiber, who engineered the escape of nearly 300 Allied pilots. British fans of comedienne Gracie Fields were put off by the scenes in which she is tortured by the Gestapo, while Constance Bennett's following had been rapidly dwindling since the 1930s; as a result, the heartfelt but tiresome Paris Underground failed to make a dent at the box-office. It would be Constance Bennett's last starring film--and Gracie Fields' last film, period.

During World War II, an American mission hospital is headed up by Dr. Gray Thompson and Dr. Sara Durand. Sara is secretly in love with Gray but hides her feelings as his new wife, Louise, arrives at the hospital. Sparks fly, however, when Louise becomes jealous of Sara, and then tries to convince her husband to leave war-torn China behind for a calmer life in the United States. But Thompson is attached to both Sara and the people who need his help.

When a British pilot is hospitalized after a plane crash, the woman he loves sits by his bedside and remembers, in flashbacks, key episodes from their life together.

The U.S. Army Signal Corps Pictorial Division made this short documentary shortly after the end of WWII to look at the after-effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no credited crew or cast.

A U.S. pilot undergoes plastic surgery and drops into Japan to get a captive scientist's (Marc Cramer) atomic secrets.

The occupation of the Channel Islands.

Documentary detailing the activities of American fighter escort pilots during bombing raids over Germany.

During the Austrian-Prussian war, Anna Marie is a dancer who is forced to flee her country after she is accused of being a spy. She ends up in a lawless western town in Arizona, where she uses her charms and dancing skills to transform herself into "Salome" during her dance routines.

In this propaganda film, a courageous group of Chinese children risk their lives to assist downed American pilots escape the ruthless Japanese oppressors.

An Army corporal and his con-man sidekick take a shortcut to heroism in World War II France.

A tribute to the pioneering achievements of the Negro combat pilots trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

A group of sailors kid their shipmate Frank about his constant reading, when they would all rather play cards. But each of them has a dream for the future that they consider impossible. Harry wants a better world for his two kids, Shorty and Eddie want to start a trucking company, Joe wants to learn about engines, and another of the gang just wants to know how to write well. When Frank reveals that he's been studying to get his high school diploma and to have a career in the Navy, the others realize that the educational benefits offered by the Armed Forces Institute can help them achieve their dreams.

From the Department of the Navy.This historical recording from the National Archives may contain variations in audio and video quality based on the limitations of the original source material.

A propaganda short film produced by the US Navy in 1945 about the naval engagements of the invasion of Okinawa.

A WWII military training film in which a Navy officer is being treated for combat fatigue after his ship was torpedoed and sunk. The narrative explores the way his combat fatigue has affected him and proper treatment to help him recover.

Well before he made the Westerns for which he would primarily be remembered, director Budd Boetticher put together this documentary of World War II's Battle of Okinawa from footage shot by Navy cameramen in the thick of the fighting.

Before the outbreak of WWII, Nazi sympathizers plot to undermine America.

Documentary short film depicting the correct methods of surviving the crash landing of a military aircraft in the desert. Methods of conserving water, providing shelter, and signaling for help are depicted.

A returning GI searches for the wife who left him and gave away their son.

Escaped Nazi POWs hold the denizens of a California resort hostage.