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


Kingdom of Heaven
2005 · 2h 24m · US
After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.


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.


All Quiet on the Western Front
2022 · 2h 27m · DE
Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.


Tom Clancy's Without Remorse
2021 · 1h 50m · US
An elite Navy SEAL uncovers an international conspiracy while seeking justice for the murder of his pregnant wife.


Das Boot
1981 · 2h 30m · DE
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.


The Tank
2025 · 1h 57m · DE
A German Tiger tank crew is sent on a dangerous mission to rescue the missing officer Paul von Hardenburg from a top-secret bunker behind enemy lines. As they make their way through the lethal no-man's land, they must confront not only the enemy, but also their own fears and inner demons. Fueled by the Wehrmacht's methamphetamine, their mission increasingly becomes a journey into the heart of darkness.


Downfall
2004 · 2h 35m · AT
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.


The Tin Drum
1979 · 2h 42m · FR
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.


Persian Lessons
2020 · 2h 7m · RU
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.


Fridericus
1937 · 1h 38m · DE
In 18th century Europe, King Friedrich II of Prussia leads his army through the seven-years-war with neighboring states, and after numerous near defeats, eventually brings a victorious army back to Berlin.


Chess Story
2021 · 1h 50m · AT
1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.


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.


Rose
2026 · 1h 34m · AT
In the early 17th century, a soldier arrives at an isolated Protestant village in Germany claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farmstead. Even though he proves to be a good man, the villagers’ suspicions about his identity grow and they force a reckoning.


Rommel
2012 · 2h · AT
The story of the final seven months in the life of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.


Stalingrad
1993 · 2h 14m · DE
A German Platoon is explored through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After half of their number is wiped out and they're placed under the command of a sadistic captain, the platoon lieutenant leads his men to desert. The platoon members attempt escape from the city, now surrounded by the Soviet Army.


Tannenberg
1932 · DE
Shortly after the outbreak of World War I August 1914, Eastern Front. The Russian surprise attack on the northeasternmost part of the country causes serious problems for the German defenders.


Kolberg
1945 · 1h 50m · DE
During Napoleon's victorious campaign in Germany, the city of Kolberg gets isolated from the retreating Prussian forces. The population of Kolberg refuses to capitulate and organizes the resistance against the French army, which immediately submits the city to massive bombardments.


Spähtrupp Hallgarten
1941 · 1h 40m · DE
Two German soldiers in the Norwegian Campaign.


Cross of Iron
1977 · 2h 13m · DE
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.


Sunshine
1999 · 3h 1m · AT
The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.


Blood & Gold
2023 · 1h 40m · DE
At the end of World War II, a German soldier is looking for his daughter while an SS troop is looking for a Jewish treasure.
Marshal Forward
Marshal Forward
1932 · DE
No overview available


Coup de Grâce
1976 · 1h 35m · DE
A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.


She Devils of the SS
1973 · 1h 35m · CH
In the last days of WW2, women are volunteering from all over Germany to serve in the front lines by having sex with the brave Nazi soldiers. But when they start having sex with each other, things get complicated. Especially with the increasing danger from the revengeful Soviet army!


The Captain
2018 · 1h 58m · DE
Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of a Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.


Reichshauptstadt privat
1987
Anna and Kurt spent their youth in Berlin, then the capital of the Greater German Reich. In the summer of 1938, they met on board the "Strength through Joy" cruise ship "Ozeana" during a trip to Norway. Kurt and Hanna fell in love and almost got married later, but the war broke them up. While Anna stayed in Berlin, Kurt was taken prisoner. Twenty years after the end of the war, the two met by chance in Düsseldorf and since then Kurt, who now lived in Canada, had come to Berlin from time to time. It was here that he proposed to Anna for the second time. As a preliminary answer, however, Anna had given him her diary from those days...


Canaris
1954 · 1h 52m · DE
Admiral Canaris is chief of the intelligence service of Nazi Germany. His department is quite successful and Hitler grants him all the money he wants for new developments. Still he's a thorn in the side of the Nazi chiefs, since he's not as unscrupulous as they want him and is known to criticize their ideology.


The Fox
2023 · 1h 58m · AT
At the dawn of World War II, a young motorcycle courier in the Austrian army encounters a wounded fox cub and takes it with him to occupied France. The soldier and the fox develop an unlikely bond. Based on the true story of Franz Streitberger, director Adrian Goiginger’s great-grandfather.


Alone in Berlin
2016 · 1h 43m · FR
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.


Stukas
1941 · 1h 41m · DE
This Nazi propaganda film details the exploits of a group of German Luftwaffe pilots flying Stukas--fighter-bombers--in the Battle of France in the early days of World War II.


Deathwatch
2002 · 1h 34m · DE
In the brutal trench fighting of the First World War, a British Infantry Company is separated from their regiment after a fierce battle. Attempting to return to their lines, the British soldiers discover what appears to be a bombed out German trench, abandoned except for a few dazed German soldiers. After killing most of the Germans, and taking one prisoner, the British company fortifies to hold the trench until reinforcements can arrive. Soon, however, strange things being to happen as a sense of evil descends on the trench and the British begin turn on each other.


Circle of Deceit
1981 · 1h 48m · DE
To escape his crumbling marriage, German journalist Laschen travels to Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay. Together with his photographer, he meets some influential people and discovers the everyday face of the war.


Lost Transport
2022 · 1h 40m · DE
In the spring of 1945, a train deporting hundreds of Jewish prisoners gets stranded near a small German village occupied by the Red Army. Condemned to each other and in a context of deep mistrust, desperation and revenge, an unexpected friendship emerges between Russian sniper Vera, village girl Winnie and Jewish-Dutch woman Simone.


As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me
2001 · 2h 38m · DE
The German soldier Clemens Forel - determined to be reunited with his beloved family - makes a dramatic escape through bitter cold winters, desolate landscapes, and life threatening ventures from a Siberian labor camp after World War II. 8000 miles and three endless years of uncertainty later, he is finally about to reach his destination... An edge of your seat drama that celebrates the power of the human spirit and the force of will, while inspired and impowered by love.


The Counterfeiters
2007 · 1h 38m · DE
The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.


The Children of Huang Shi
2008 · 2h 5m · AU
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.


Port Arthur
1936 · 1h 23m · FR
French-language version of Port Arthur (1936), a German language film (q.v.) co-produced by German, French and Czechoslovakian film interests. About espionage, action and romance in the Russo-Japanese War, as the conflict threatens Russian naval officer Boris Ranewsky and his Japanese wife Youki.


Nakam
2022 · 34m · DE
Ukraine during the German occupation in 1943. 12-year-old orphan Mitka earns a living in a tavern under a false name by playing music every night for the mainly German guests. He is accompanied in his playing on the violin by the pianist Yegor. Even beyond the music, he tries to be a friend and mentor to the boy. Mitka, however, finds it difficult to accept the budding friendship. This is because none of the people involved has any idea that Mitka belongs to a Jewish partisan movement.


The Bridge
1959 · 1h 43m · DE
A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.


Darfur
2009 · 1h 38m · CA
American journalists in Sudan are confronted with the dilemma of whether to return home to report on the atrocities they have seen, or to stay behind and help some of the victims they have encountered.
German cinema's two great periods bookend the century: Weimar-era Expressionism, whose shadows and angles built the visual grammar of horror and noir, and the New German Cinema of the 1970s under Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders.
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.