The 40 most popular 1960s war movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Lawrence of Arabia
1962 · 3h 48m
country: United Kingdom
During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.


Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1964 · 1h 35m
country: United Kingdom
After the insane General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, a war room full of politicians, generals and a Russian diplomat all frantically try to stop it.


The Great Escape
1963 · 2h 53m
country: United States
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.


Africa Blood and Guts
1966 · 2h 18m
country: Italy
A chronicle of the violence that occurred in much of the African continent throughout the 1960s. As many African countries were transitioning from colonial rule to other forms of government, violent political upheavals were frequent. Revolutions in Zanzibar and Kenya in which thousands were killed are shown, the violence not only political; there is also extensive footage of hunters and poachers slaughtering different types of wild animals.


The Longest Day
1962 · 2h 58m
country: United States
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"


The Dirty Dozen
1967 · 2h 29m
country: United Kingdom
12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.


The Guns of Navarone
1961 · 2h 40m
country: United Kingdom
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.


Where Eagles Dare
1968 · 2h 35m
country: United Kingdom
World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that's nearly impossible to breach. It's up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it's too late.


The Battle of Algiers
1966 · 2h 2m
country: Italy
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.


Patton
1969 · 2h 52m
country: United States
"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.


Doctor Zhivago
1965 · 3h 20m
country: Italy
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.


Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
1966 · 2h 12m
country: France
During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.


The Alamo
1960 · 3h 22m
country: United States
The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.


Shenandoah
1965 · 1h 45m
country: United States
Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of the Civil War he wants nothing to do with. When his youngest boy is taken prisoner by the North, the Civil War is forced upon him.


Battle of Britain
1969 · 2h 12m
country: United Kingdom
In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.


Koroghlu
1960 · 1h 33m
country: Soviet Union
The heroic Koroghlu is a poor youngster who leads a peasants' revolt against the tyrannic Khan.


Men in Soldier's Overcoats
1968 · 1h 31m
country: Soviet Union
The story of the war film is about paths of the Estonian Shooting Corps (formed by the Red Army) during the WW-2 and how the fight forms an usual man to a loyal soldier. Ideologic aspects of the movie are more hidden than in ordinary Soviet war films but they're still existing.


Two Women
1960 · 1h 40m
country: France
A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.


Is Paris Burning?
1966 · 2h 53m
country: France
Near the end of World War II, General Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he's unable to maintain control of the city. After much contemplation, Choltitz ignores orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, alongside Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a leader organise his forces.


In Harm's Way
1965 · 2h 45m
country: United States
A Naval officer, reprimanded after Pearl Harbor, is later promoted to Rear Admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.


Major Dundee
1965 · 2h 5m
country: United States
During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.


The Sand Pebbles
1966 · 3h 16m
country: United States
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.


Army of Shadows
1969 · 2h 25m
country: France
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.


The Heroes of Telemark
1965 · 2h 11m
country: United Kingdom
Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.


Battle of the Bulge
1965 · 2h 49m
country: United States
In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent it, Hitler orders an all-out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp.


The Fall of the Roman Empire
1964 · 3h 8m
country: United States
In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.


The 300 Spartans
1962 · 1h 54m
country: United States
The 300 Spartans is an account of the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, in which the Greek Spartan King Leonidas, played by Richard Egan, led a remarkably small number of Greek Sparta to victory over an invading Persian army led by evil King Xerxes that was thought to number over 25,000. This spectacular conflict gave the Grecians enough time to organize a force to ultimately repel the Persians, and thus change the course of Western civilization.


Zulu
1964 · 2h 18m
country: United Kingdom
In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, man-of-the-people Lt. Chard and snooty Lt. Bromhead are in charge of defending the isolated and vastly outnumbered Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes.


Captain Newman, M.D.
1963 · 2h 6m
country: United States
In 1944, Capt. Josiah J. Newman is the doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward, at an Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona. The hospital is under-resourced and Newman scrounges what he needs with the help of his inventive staff, especially Cpl. Jake Leibowitz. The military in general is only just coming to accept psychiatric disorders as legitimate and Newman generally has 6 weeks to cure them or send them on to another facility. There are many patients in the ward and his latest include Colonel Norville Bliss who has dissociated from his past; Capt. Paul Winston who is nearly catatonic after spending 13 months hiding in a cellar behind enemy lines; and 20 year-old Cpl. Jim Tompkins who is severely traumatized after his aircraft was shot down. Others come and go, including Italian prisoners of war, but Newman and team all realize that their success means the men will return to their units.


El Cid
1961 · 3h 7m
country: Italy
Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.


Fail Safe
1964 · 1h 52m
country: United States
Because of a technical defect an American bomber team mistakenly orders the destruction of Moscow. The President of the United States has but little time to prevent an atomic catastrophe from occurring.


The Night of the Generals
1967 · 2h 28m
country: France
A German intelligence officer investigates a prostitute's killing in Warsaw during World War II. He lands on three major Nazi generals as suspects, two of whom are also involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.


Ship of Fools
1965 · 2h 29m
country: United States
A varied group of passengers boarding a ship bound for pre-WWII Germany represents a microcosm of early-1930s society.


Ivan's Childhood
1962 · 1h 35m
country: Soviet Union
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.


The Charge of the Light Brigade
1968 · 2h 19m
country: United Kingdom
During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.


The Green Berets
1968 · 2h 22m
country: United States
Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for two missions in South Vietnam. The first is to strengthen a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy. The second is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.


The Hill
1965 · 2h 3m
country: United Kingdom
North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.


The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
1962 · 2h 33m
country: United States
In Argentina, one daughter of patriarch Madariaga is married to a Frenchman while the other is married to a German thus leading to a crisis when Nazi Germany occupies France and some Madariaga family members fight on opposite sides.


100 Rifles
1969 · 1h 50m
country: United States
When half-breed Indian Yaqui Joe robs an Arizona bank, he is pursued by dogged lawman Lyedecker. Fleeing to Mexico, Joe is imprisoned by General Verdugo, who is waging a war against the Yaqui Indians. When Lyedecker attempts to intervene, he is thrown into prison as well. Working together, the two escape and take refuge in the hills, where Lyedecker meets beautiful Yaqui freedom fighter Sarita and begins to question his allegiances.


The Cardinal
1963 · 3h 5m
country: United States
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
The 1960s broke the old rules everywhere at once — the French New Wave, the collapse of the Hollywood Production Code, and new waves across Europe and Japan reshaping what a film could show and say.
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.