Best War Movies of 1957

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson , the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

The crew of the American destroyer escort, the USS Haynes, detects a German U-Boat—resulting in a prolonged, deadly battle of wits.

A Roman Catholic nun and a hard-bitten US Marine are stranded together on a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific during World War II. Under constant threat of discovery by a ruthless enemy, they hide in a cave and forage for food together. Their forced companionship and the struggle for survival forge a powerful emotional bond between them.

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only german prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.

Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits his guilt and Edwards' superiors are impatiently pushing Edwards to move this case to court martial, Edwards becomes convinced of Cargill's innocence.

Four sisters in New Zealand fall for four U.S. soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.

In this wacky military spoof, Lemmon plays a terminally bored Army private waging a war of wits as he tries to throw a party under the nose of his obnoxious commanding officer.

The story of Frank W. "Spig" Wead - a Navy-flyer turned screenwriter.

During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.

Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher's efforts are threatened when the Korean "police action" breaks out in 1950.

Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island's German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.

Opposing his commanding officer's decision to attack a group of innocent Indians and wipe them out, Lt. Frank Hewitt leaves his post and heads home to Texas. He knows that the attack will send all of the tribes on the warpath and he wants to forewarn everyone. He gets a chilly reception back home however. With most of the men away having enlisted in the Confederate army Frank, a Union officer, is seen by the local women as a traitor. He convinces them of the danger that lies ahead and trains them to repel the attack that will eventually come.

An English nurse and an American soldier on the Italian front during World War I fall in love, but the horrors surrounding them test their romance to the limit.

As Kenya's Mau Mau uprising tears the country apart, former childhood friends Kimani (Sidney Poitier), a native, and Peter (Rock Hudson), a British colonist, find themselves on opposite sides of the struggle in this provocative drama. Though each is devoted to his cause, both wish for a more moderate path -- but their hopes for a peaceful resolution are thwarted by rage, colonial arrogance and escalating violence on both sides.

While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire. In charge, Lietenant Commander Kerans was not however prepared for his crew and his ship to remain as a hostage for the Chinese to use as an international pawn.

Three navy war heroes are booked on a morale-building "vacation" in San Francisco. Once they manage to elude their ulcerated public relations officer, the trio throw a wild party with plenty of pretty girls.

Escaping British prisoners of war hide out in German occupied France.

The Commanding Officer of an RAF Training School must deal with a difficult cadet, but the cadet reminds the C.O. of himself when young.

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border.

Fourteen years after he was blinded in a WWII concentration camp, a Canadian perfume executive travels to London on business and recognizes the voice of the traitor who betrayed him and his fellow prisoners to the Germans.

At the breaking of the Civil War the garrison of Fort Laramie splits between the sympathezers of the two different factions, but when the fort is attacked by the Sioux, they unite their forces to fight them.

Future "first couple" Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis made their only joint film appearance in Hellcats of the Navy. Ronnie plays Casey Abbott, commander of a WW2 submarine, while Nancy portrays navy nurse Helen Blair, Abbott's off-and-on girlfriend. During a delicate mission in which his sub is ordered to retrieve a revolutionary new Japanese mine, Abbott is forced to leave frogman Wes Barton (Harry Lauter) behind to save the rest of his crew. But Abbott's second-in-command Don Landon (Eduard Franz) is convincing that Abbott's sacrifice of Barton was due to the fact that the dead man had been amorously pursuing Helen.

Madison Avenue-trained Navy men handle public relations on a South Pacific island during World War II.

Mayerling is the name of a notorious Austrian village linked to a romantic tragedy. At a royal hunting lodge there, in 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf--desperate over his father's command to put away his teenage mistress, the Baroness Marie Vetsera--shot her to death and killed himself. The misfortune may indeed have been a murder-suicide, but perhaps it was a political assassination, or even the result of a lunatic family vendetta: scholarship is still catching up with the facts.

In 1942, a cargo ship jammed with British evacuees from Singapore is sunk by a Japanese sub. A small lifeboat carries a beautiful woman, an army officer, a bigoted administrator, and a black seaman. Only the seaman knows the woman is a nun. The men reveal their true selves under the hardships of survival. Told in a too-long flashback frame.

Director Kurt Neumann's 1957 film version of the James Fenimore Cooper tale set in colonial America stars Lex Barker, Forrest Tucker, Rita Moreno, Cathy O'Donnell and Jay C. Flippen.

Italian move on the battle of El Alamein

An Army lawyer defends a World War II hero and his men accused of desertion.

True story of Lt.Cdr. Howard W.Gilmore who was awarded the Medal of Honor for sacrificing himself to save his submarine, February 1943.

In 1946, Chiang Kaishek commits 200,000 troops to an attack on the Communist-held central plains of China. After the PLA main force in the area retreats, the Nationalists also capture the area around the Dabie Mountains. County Party Committee Secretary Liu and county organizations department director Mo Wenjie lead a guerrilla troop against the KMT forces. Will the film belief of the revolutionary cadre be able to overcome not only the enemy, but cold, hunger and betrayal?

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Re-edited version of The North Star (1943), to remove positive references to Soviet Union and include narration about the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

Two generals prepare for battle at the Plains of Abraham.

Dutch patriots, a U.S. officer (Jeffrey Hunter) and a British spy (Nigel Patrick) fool the Nazis with a fake Soho film company.

A drama set in 1956, during the unsuccessful Hungarian uprising against the Russians.