The 40 most popular 1920s war movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Battleship Potemkin
1925 · 1h 15m · SU
In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin revolt against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.


The General
1926 · 1h 19m · US
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.


Wings
1927 · 2h 24m · US
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.


The Hero
1923 · 1h 10m · US
Oswald Lane is welcomed by his hometown as a war hero and enjoys recounting his adventures to anyone who will listen. He accepts an invitation to stay in the home of his rather colorless brother, Andrew, and is soon not only making love to Martha, the Belgian maid, but is also finding Andrew's wife, Hester, receptive to his flirting. After stealing money entrusted to Andrew by his church, Oswald is on his way out of town when he passes a school fire, rescues several children, and is himself seriously burned. Andrew offers his own skin for grafting, and Oswald directs Hester to return the money.
Ruta gloriosa
Ruta gloriosa
1925 · ES
No overview available


Carry On!
1927 · 1h 26m · UK
'Admiral's son loves girl who becomes spy, and dies foiling her schemes.' (British Film Catalogue)


Mumsie
1927 · 2h 32m · UK
A pacifist gambler turns spy and gives his father's gas factory plans to the enemy.


True Heaven
1929 · 1h 1m · US
Phillip Gresson is in the employ of the British secret service, while heroine Judith is a spy for the Enemy. Hoping to gain possession of the usual Secret Plans, Judith pretends to be in love with Phillip. Only after nursing the seriously wounded Phillip back to health does Judith come to the realization that she genuinely loves him.


Cardigan
1922 · 1h 10m
Michael Cardigan is an American patriot in the months before the American Revolution. He fights to broker a peace deal between settlers and the Cayuga tribe and almost loses his life in the process. Despite the fact that he loves Silver Heels, the ward of the British governor, Michael joins with the famed Minute Men to plot revolution and, he hopes, a free American nation.


Napoleon
1927 · 7h 5m · FR
A biopic of former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant 1797 invasion of Italy.


Buck Privates
1928 · 1h 10m · US
Pvt. Smith, an American soldier stationed in a German town during the occupation of Germany after World War I, falls in love with the daughter of the town's leading citizen. The problem is that his sworn enemy, Sgt. Butts, also has designs on the girl. Butts comes up with a plan to get rid of his competition and get the girl for himself, but things don't go quite the way he planned.
Souls Aflame
Souls Aflame
1928 · US
Souls Aflame is a silent war drama released in 1928 directed by Raymond Wells


Jimmy Higgings
1928 · SU
Jimmy Higgings is a worker of the plant making weapons for the Tsarist Russia and the German Empire. During World War I, Jimmy speaks at a spontaneous rally against the war. He is arrested. When released, he becomes unemployed. He is happy to hear the news about the revolution; he volunteers into the American expeditionary force thinking that having the weapons he can fight against Germans – the enemies of the Russian revolution. However, finding himself in Russia, Jimmy soon realises that the expeditionary force of American volunteers fights not against the Germans, but against the young Socialist Russia. Without any hesitations, he takes the path of revolutionary struggle, he spreads propaganda among the American soldiers and distributes Bolshevik leaflets. Captured by the American military police, Jimmy Higgings does not betray his friends. He is sentenced to twenty years in a military prison. Jimmy cannot stand it and loses his mind. Lost movie.
El héroe de Cascorro
El héroe de Cascorro
1929 · 1h 1m · ES
No overview available


The Captain's Daughter
1928 · 1h 26m · SU
An adaptation of Pushkin's historical novel about the Pugachev's Rebellion in 1773–1774.


The Big Parade
1925 · 2h 31m · US
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
Flying Fool
Flying Fool
1926 · 39m · US
Donald is running so late for his own wedding that his bride-to-be, Wanda (Wanda Hawley), loses patience and returns home. Seizing the opportunity, the devious best man, Jack Bryan (Gaston Glass), attempts to charm the frustrated bride into marrying him instead. Jack isn't just a romantic rival; he steals a diamond necklace from Wanda’s family and whisks her away on his yacht, heading for the open sea. Donald takes to the sky in a desperate attempt to rescue her culminating in a series of spectacular action sequences on land, sea, and air.


Wrath of the Seas
1926 · 1h 37m · DE
The film portrays the Imperial German Navy during the First World War, particularly the Battle of Jutland and is based on a novel by Helmut Lorenz.


French Heels
1922 · 1h 11m · US
Returning from France after the war, John Tabor informs Palma May of her brother's death and offers the penniless girl his help, but she refuses it, preferring to work as a cabaret dancer. Later, John and Palma meet again, marry, and go west to manage a lumber camp, as instructed by John's wealthy father, Jarvis Tabor. Displeased by John's choice of wife, the elder Tabor tests the couple with difficult living conditions, which eventually discourage Palma, and she accepts the party invitation of Keith Merwyn, manager of the cabaret where she starred. Meanwhile, Merwyn effects a disturbance among the lumbermen, endangering John.


Cyrano de Bergerac
1923 · 1h 53m · FR
Cyrano de Begerac is joyous, witty, a poet, a leader and filled with plenty of charisma and bravado in 17th Century France. He has only one flaw: an unusually long nose which makes him unattractive to any woman. Thus, he cannot have the woman he loves, his cousin Roxanne. Roxanne loves an officer in his army who gets tongue-tied in front of women. Who will Roxanne love? Will Cyrano ever find love? Or will he find happiness in helping the officer woo Roxanne? This is a story of split personalities, human frailty and unrequited love.


The Chess Player
1927 · 2h 20m · FR
In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.


Shirt of Fire
1923 · TR
Ayse who lost her husband and child during the occupation of Izmir by Greek Army in 1919 goes to Istanbul to attend demonstrations which are arranged against the occupation of Anatolia. And then she passes to Anatolia to be a nurse and meets with Ihsan there. At that time Turkish War of Independence starts and they participate to this battle together.


Private Izzy Murphy
1926 · 1h 20m · US
Isadore "Izzy" Goldberg changes his name to I. Patrick Murphy because his store is in an Irish-neighborhood in New York City. He meets Eileen Cohannigan, the daughter of a meat-packer, and he tells her he is Irish and a romance begins. When America enters World War I, "Izzy" enlists, is sent to France, and is wounded while engaged in a heroic rescue during a big battle. While recovering in an overseas hospital, he writes Eileen and tells her he is Jewish and not Irish. Returning home, he is parading with his regiment and he sees Eileen with Robert O'Malley, his old rival. He thinks she has thrown him over because he is Jewish. An Irish lodge comes to bestow an honor on the man they think is Patrick Murphy, an Irish hero. But O'Malley tells them his real name is Goldberg. But Eileen tels him it is he she loves, and they head for the marriage-license bureau.


Gigolo
1926 · 1h 20m · US
The heir to a family business travels to Paris to try to stop his youth-obsessed mother from squandering the family fortune with her new husband, who's married her for her money. After he returns from service in World War I, he finds his mother, now broke and abandoned by her gigolo husband....


Johan Ulfstjerna
1923 · 1h 7m · SE
The story of a man who makes a great sacrifice for his country and for his son. Based on the play of the same title by Tor Hedberg.


U 9 Weddigen
1927 · DE
a silent war movie by Heinz Paul


Bolibar
1928 · 1h 24m · UK
Hessian officers' flirtations with an artist's daughter accidentally give signals to the attacking English.


The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
1921 · 2h 36m · US
Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.


The White Black Sheep
1926 · 1h 10m · US
Robert Kincairn, the dissolute son of a British colonel, is gallant enough to take the blame for a robbery perpetrated by his fiancee Enid. Thrown out of his home, he changes his name and joins the army.


People in Need
1925 · DE
No overview available


The Spirit of the USA
1924 · 1h 30m · US
Johnnie Gains, son of a farming couple, is industrious and imbued with a spirit of sacrifice. Rejected for military service because of an eye injury, he enlists in the Salvation Army.


I Want My Man
1925 · 1h 10m · US
Gulian Eyre, an American soldier blinded in action during the World War, remains in France after the cessation of hostilities and marries his nurse, Vida. Gulian is later operated on by a skilled French surgeon and recovers his sight, only to find that Vida has left him and obtained a divorce. Gulian returns to his family in the United States and becomes engaged to Lael, a girl he had known before the war. During this time, Vida has also come to the United States and has become the companion of Gulian's mother. Gulian does not recognize Vida, whom he has never seen; in any event, she had told him that she was terribly disfigured in order to make him believe that she did not pity him. Gulian's wedding to Lael is halted when his brother-in-law kills himself after squandering the Eyre fortune. Lael soon breaks her engagement to the impoverished Gulian, who declares his love to Vida. Vida involuntarily reveals her identity, and Gulian's happiness is complete.
Schweik in Russian Captivity
Schweik in Russian Captivity
1927
Directed by Svatopluk Innemann.
Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
1926 · 1h 40m · DE
Helmuth von Rhaden is a second lieutenant who is bored with his time in the army. He therefore resigns from it. But when he learns that his regiment must leave for the African colonies, he requests to be reinstated, even if it is in a lower position.


The Shopworn Angel
1928 · 1h 22m · US
Shortly after the United States enters World War I in 1917, a Broadway actress agrees to let a naive soldier court her in order to impress his friends, but a real romance soon begins.


The Raider Emden
1926 · 1h 5m · DE
No overview available


Das deutsche Mutterherz
1926 · DE
No overview available


The Sporting Lover
1926 · 1h 10m · US
Captain Terrance Connaughton loses his stable of horses in a card game with Algernon Cravens.
Namenlose Helden
Namenlose Helden
1925 · 1h 40m · AT
A family suffers greatly during the First World War.


Noah's Ark
1928 · 2h 15m · US
The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story of soldiers in the First World War.
The 1920s were silent cinema's artistic peak, when directors had perfected a purely visual storytelling language just as sound arrived to displace it. German Expressionism and Soviet montage both date from here.
War films range from combat spectacle to anti-war argument, and often try to be both at once. The genre is a reliable index of how a country understands its own history.