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


Hacksaw Ridge
2016 · 2h 19m · AU
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.


The Pianist
2002 · 2h 30m · FR
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.


The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
2008 · 1h 34m · UK
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.


Pressure
2026 · 1h 41m · UK
In the tense 72 hours before D-Day, and the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Captain James Stagg face an impossible choice—launch the largest and most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether.


Civil War
2024 · 1h 49m · FI
In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.


Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1964 · 1h 35m · UK
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.


Lawrence of Arabia
1962 · 3h 48m · UK
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.


Enemy at the Gates
2001 · 2h 11m · US
A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.


The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 · 2h 42m · UK
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.


Where Eagles Dare
1968 · 2h 35m · UK
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.


'71
2014 · 1h 39m · UK
A young British soldier must find his way back to safety after his unit accidentally abandons him during a riot in the streets of Belfast.


The English Patient
1996 · 2h 42m · UK
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.


The Dirty Dozen
1967 · 2h 29m · UK
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 · UK
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.


The King
2019 · 2h 20m · AU
England, 15th century. Hal, a capricious prince who lives among the populace far from court, is forced by circumstances to reluctantly accept the throne and become Henry V.


Anthropoid
2016 · 2h · CZ
In December 1941, Czech soldiers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš parachute into their occupied homeland to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich.


The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
2023 · 1h 51m · UK
In the wake of King Edward's death, Uhtred of Bebbanburg and his comrades adventure across a fractured kingdom in the hopes of uniting England at last.


Threads
1984 · 1h 57m · AU
Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.


Eye in the Sky
2015 · 1h 42m · UK
A UK-based military officer in command of a top secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya discovers the targets are planning a suicide bombing and the mission escalates from “capture” to “kill.” As American pilot Steve Watts is about to engage, a nine-year old girl enters the kill zone, triggering an international dispute reaching the highest levels of US and British government over the moral, political, and personal implications of modern warfare.


Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
2019 · 1h 59m · AU
Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.


A Bridge Too Far
1977 · 2h 55m · US
The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.


Cold Mountain
2003 · 2h 34m · US
In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.


The Eagle Has Landed
1976 · 2h 15m · UK
When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.


Play Dirty
1969 · 1h 58m · UK
During World War II in North Africa, a group of British commandos disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital Nazi oil depot.


Green Zone
2010 · 1h 55m · US
During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of Army inspectors are dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that threatens to invert the purpose of their mission.


Lee
2024 · 1h 57m · AU
The true story of photographer Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.


Battle of Britain
1969 · 2h 12m · UK
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.


Doctor Zhivago
1965 · 3h 20m · IT
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.


One Shot
2021 · 1h 37m · UK
An elite squad of Navy SEALs, on a covert mission to transport a prisoner off a CIA black site island prison, are trapped when insurgents attack while trying to rescue the same prisoner.


Shining Through
1992 · 2h 12m · UK
Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill: discovering the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin.


Their Finest
2017 · 1h 57m · FR
During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.


The Men Who Stare at Goats
2009 · 1h 34m · UK
A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.


Operation Mincemeat
2022 · 2h 8m · UK
In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.


Khartoum
1966 · 2h 14m · UK
English General Charles George Gordon is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by the Prime Minister. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.


The Killing Fields
1984 · 2h 22m · UK
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.


Outlaw King
2018 · 2h 2m · UK
Forced into exile by the English after being crowned King of Scotland, legendary warrior Robert the Bruce fights to reclaim the throne.


The Aftermath
2019 · 1h 48m · US
In the aftermath of World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German widower who lives with them.


Ghosts of War
2020 · 1h 34m · US
A group of World War II American soldiers encounter a supernatural enemy as they occupy a French castle previously under Nazi control.


Firebird
2021 · 1h 47m · EE
At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.


The Wild Geese
1978 · 2h 14m · UK
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
British cinema spans Ealing comedies, kitchen-sink realism, Hammer horror, and the long-running national institution that is the Bond franchise. It's also functioned for decades as a production base and talent pipeline for Hollywood.
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.