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


Hacksaw Ridge
2016 · 2h 19m
country: Australia
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.


Pressure
2026 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
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.


The Pianist
2002 · 2h 30m
country: France
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
country: United Kingdom
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.


Civil War
2024 · 1h 49m
country: Finland
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.


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.


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


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 English Patient
1996 · 2h 42m
country: United Kingdom
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.


Cold Mountain
2003 · 2h 34m
country: United States
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.


Green Zone
2010 · 1h 55m
country: United States
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.


The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
2023 · 1h 51m
country: United Kingdom
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.


Eye in the Sky
2015 · 1h 42m
country: United Kingdom
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.


The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 · 2h 42m
country: United Kingdom
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 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.


The Aftermath
2019 · 1h 48m
country: United States
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.


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


A Bridge Too Far
1977 · 2h 55m
country: United States
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.


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.


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


The Men Who Stare at Goats
2009 · 1h 34m
country: United Kingdom
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
country: United Kingdom
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.


K-19: The Widowmaker
2002 · 2h 18m
country: Canada
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.


The King
2019 · 2h 20m
country: Australia
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.


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.


Resistance
2020 · 2h
country: Czech Republic
The story of mime Marcel Marceau as he works with a group of Jewish boy scouts and the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II.


The Exception
2017 · 1h 47m
country: United Kingdom
Nothing is as it seems in this riveting World War 2 thriller as a wary soldier goes to investigate a mysterious German monarch at his secluded mansion, leading him into a web of deceit and a dangerous love affair with a local Jewish woman.


The Wind That Shakes the Barley
2006 · 2h 7m
country: Ireland
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.


Their Finest
2017 · 1h 57m
country: France
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 Killing Fields
1984 · 2h 22m
country: United Kingdom
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.


The Wild Geese
1978 · 2h 14m
country: United Kingdom
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.


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


All Quiet on the Western Front
1979 · 2h 30m
country: United Kingdom
At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.


Captain Corelli's Mandolin
2001 · 2h 11m
country: France
When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander.


Cross of Iron
1977 · 2h 13m
country: Germany
It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.


Valiant
2005 · 1h 16m
country: United Kingdom
Set in 1944, Valiant is a woodland pigeon who wants to become a great hero someday. When he hears they are hiring recruits for the Royal Homing Pigeon Service, he immediately sets out for London. On the way, he meets a smelly but friendly pigeon named Bugsy, who joins him, mainly to get away from clients he cheated in a game of find-the pebble, and helps him sign up for the war.


The Eagle Has Landed
1976 · 2h 15m
country: United Kingdom
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.


Benediction
2021 · 2h 17m
country: United Kingdom
Poet Siegfried Sassoon survived the horrors of fighting in the First World War and was decorated for his bravery, but became a vocal critic of the government's continuation of the war when he returned from service. Adored by members of the aristocracy as well as stars of London's literary and stage world, he embarked on affairs with several men as he attempted to come to terms with his homosexuality.


Palestine 36
2025 · 2h
country: Palestinian Territory
Year 1936. As villages across Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe and some arriving with nefarious Zionist-colonial ambitions, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.
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.