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


Pan's Labyrinth
2006 · 1h 58m
country: Mexico
In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.


A Perfect Day
2015 · 1h 46m
country: Spain
Somewhere in the Balkans, 1995. A team of aid workers must solve an apparently simple problem in an almost completely pacified territory that has been devastated by a cruel war, but some of the local inhabitants, the retreating combatants, the UN forces, many cows and an absurd bureaucracy will not cease to put obstacles in their way.


The Truce
2025 · 2h 30m
country: Spain
Karlag, short for Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, was one of the largest labor camps within the Soviet Gulag system. Established in 1931, it was located in the Karagandy Region of Kazakhstan. The film will explore the hardships faced by people during the 1930s-1950s and the resilience of human dignity despite the daily struggle for survival. The atmosphere of Karlag will be conveyed through costumes, props, and sets created after extensive research in archives and museums.


Stoplight
2013 · 4m
country: Spain
Under the three lights of a Colombian stoplight, a beautiful circus act becomes a terrifying freak show.


Días rojos
2004 · 15m
country: Spain
In 1936, the Spanish Civil War has just begun. Rebel army is taking at force a republican village, So, Juan and "Bicho" are obligated to go away the death. They will try to arrive the mines, where some refugees want to create a resistance against the rebels. Will they get their purpose?


Unicorn Wars
2022 · 1h 33m
country: Belgium
An army of bear cubs train and indoctrinate young recruits for the war against the unicorns, which threatens the safety of the cubs. Brothers Bluey and Tubby, along with a group of inexperienced cadets, are sent on a dangerous mission to save the Magic Forest, where the unicorns live, and start a terrible battle.


Dead Horses
2016 · 7m
country: Spain
In an isolated and unknown place during a war, a child is forced to flee. Along the way, he sees horse corpses everywhere. Only dead horses. Why? Why have the horses decided to kill themselves?


Valley of the Dead
2020 · 1h 41m
country: Spain
During the Spanish Civil War, sworn enemies must work together when they encounter flesh-eating zombies created in a Nazi experiment.


Land and Freedom
1995 · 1h 49m
country: United Kingdom
Summer 1936: young unemployed communist David Carr leaves Liverpool to join the fight against fascism in Spain. He joins an international group of Militia-men and women, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). After being wounded, he goes to Barcelona, where he joins another group of fighters.


1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines
2016 · 2h 10m
country: Spain
The Philippines, 1898. Fifty Spanish soldiers arrive in the small village of Baler to rebuild an outpost. Although the war against the Filipinos and their American allies is almost lost, as is the Spanish Empire, the garrison will endure a cruel siege for eleven months. They will be the last to surrender.


All the Moons
2020 · 1h 42m
country: Spain
During the final throes of the last Carlist war, a little girl is rescued from an orphanage by a mysterious woman who lives deep inside the forest.


Tobruk
1967 · 1h 47m
country: United States
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.


Posición avanzada
1966 · 1h 25m
country: Spain
During the Spanish Civil War, a command takes the night to reach an advanced position, surrounded by the enemy, to protect the ford of a river. The next day, soldiers from both sides arrange a truce for fishing trouts and exchange cans and cigarettes. But foreign forces relieve the besiegers during the night and kill an unsuspecting soldier who was waving to return to fishing. While the position is strengthened, a soldier escapes to the nearby village to see his family.


Caleta Palace
2023
country: Spain
Eight foreign characters recall their exploits and fears in Malaga, a paradise city that starts a revolution on July 18th 1936, as the military coup is stopped by popular rebellion, until February 9th 1937, when Mussolini troops take Malaga and put it under the rule of Franco. Seven months that shape the stark tale of a besieged city, the first capital to be conquered in Spanish Civil War and a prelude of WW2.


The Aviators
2009 · 1h 25m
country: Spain
A bird that wants to become a hero, a carrier pigeon with an endless list of achievements under his belt and a mouse inventor who want to fly at all costs are some of the characters in this animated film. Peace reigns in a farm located in the forests of Argonne (France), where the rooster no mercy to his son how to wake up and the sheep are all one. But running the year 1918, and the war between humans begins to touch them closely when an army captain pigeon lands in order to enlist some birds, among which strain the little bird.


Parerga
2026 · 12m
country: Spain
A village, any village. Spain, 1945. German writes a letter to Amelia containing what will most likely be his final words of love. Meanwhile, his fate, along with that of the other maquis, hangs in the balance as they flee the Civil Guard through the mountains.


Guernica
2016 · 1h 50m
country: Spain
The fates of Henry - an American correspondent - and Teresa, one of the Republic's censors during the Spanish Civil War.


Chimes at Midnight
1965 · 1h 55m
country: Spain
Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.


Ay, Carmela!
1990 · 1h 42m
country: Italy
During the Spanish Civil War, a group of comics lightens the days of the Republican troops. Tired of life in the front lines, they make their way to Valencia, accidentally entering enemy land and falling prisoner.


The Girl of Your Dreams
1998 · 2h 1m
country: Spain
During the Spanish Civil War, a troupe of Spanish filmmakers is invited to shoot a film at UFA studios in Nazi Germany.


The (Silent) War
2019 · 2h 3m
country: Spain
Northern Spain, October 1944. Several groups of guerrilla fighters, former Republican soldiers exiled in France after the end of the Spanish Civil War, infiltrate the country in order to provoke a popular uprising against General Franco's dictatorship.


While at War
2019 · 1h 48m
country: Argentina
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.


Ignatius of Loyola
2016 · 1h 58m
country: Spain
Historical biographical religious drama film based on the memoirs of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order who was also canonized as a saint in Roman Catholicism.


Trigo limpio
1962
country: Spain
No overview available
Ruta gloriosa
Ruta gloriosa
1925
country: Spain
No overview available


Cerro Cora
1978 · 1h 53m
country: Paraguay
A 1978 Paraguayan film set on the last days of the Paraguayan War.


Year of Enlightment
1986 · 1h 45m
country: Spain
April, 1940. Manolo, 16 years old, and Jesus, who is just 8, are taken by their older brother Pepe, a lieutenant in the Army, to a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis, situated on the border with Portugal. Once in the sanatorium, Manolo, surrounded by boys all much younger than he is, feels a bit like the cock of the walk since the only other man around is the handyman Emilio who looks after the gardens and does whatever needs to be done about the place. His wife, Rafaela, is the cook. Manolo meets Irene, a falangist who runs the sanatorium, and the school teacher, Miss Transito, a crabby spinster. He has his first sexual experience, albeit as a voyeur, with his nurse Vicenta. When she has to leave, her place is taken by a girl from the village, Maria Jesus, with whom Manolo falls hopelessly in love. A relationship grows up between them which will mark them both for ever.


Legionario
2017
country: Spain
No overview available


Rescue Under Fire
2017 · 1h 33m
country: Spain
The crew of a medical helicopter suffers an accident when helping a joint force of USA and United Nations troops under Spanish command division in Afghanistan. The Spanish army has only one night to organize the rescue of the crew and injured, but what seems routine turns into hell once they receive the order to rescue the helicopter as well. Things only get worse when during the night a huge a concentration of Talibans begin surround them.


The Sea
2000 · 1h 48m
country: Spain
Childhood friends reunite later in life in Spanish tuberculosis sanitorium. Pressures of death all around combine with dark secrets of their past.


Hidden Soldier
2010 · 12m
country: Spain
Normandy, 1944. Private Wilson is on a mission in enemy territory. Hunted down and out of ammunition, Wilson suffers strange interferences, catapulting him into the violence and madness of war with an unexpected ending.
El brigadista
El brigadista
1978 · 1h 59m
country: Cuba
The Castro revolution was just consolidating its power when, in 1961, over 100,000 students were sent from their schools into the countryside to teach the peasants there how to read. Coinciding with the Bay of Pigs invasion, in this docudrama, 15-year-old Mario (Salvador Wood) has come to a tiny village in the Zapata swamps and gradually wins the villagers over to his task. At the same time, he receives an education in the realities of rural life from the hard-working peasants.


Fort Yuma Gold
1966 · 1h 45m
country: Italy
Near the end of the Civil War, an imprisoned Confederate raider is sent under guard to warn both his men and the Army at Fort Yuma that an impending rebel raid is really nothing but a ruse by scoundrels from both sides, in cahoots to take the fort's gold for themselves during the chaos. Soon he slips his treacherous escort and attempts to complete the mission himself.


La Nueve
2020 · 15m
country: Spain
A young man accompanies his mother to a nursing home where he meets don Manuel, a World War II veteran.


In Praise of Older Women
1997 · 1h 45m
country: Spain
In the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, a young man comes of age sexually, through a string of relationships with a wide range of mature, older women.


Réquiem por un campesino español
1985 · 1h 35m
country: Spain
Hypocrisy and betrayal are the two dramatic pivots in this effective, emotionally gripping tragedy about the life and death of Paco (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish peasant who had been fighting against the feudal landowning system that kept farmers impoverished. Paco's life is told in flashbacks by a priest (Antonio Ferrandis) who is seen officiating at an anniversary mass attended by three wealthy landowners and no one else. The priest recalls Paco's baptism, his communion, his marriage ceremony and then his work for the peasants as he advocated and led them in a land-reform movement. The rest of the story will rest heavy on the priest's conscience, as he looks out at his empty church.


Frozen Silence
2012 · 1h 46m
country: Spain
Russian front, winter 1943. Soldier Arturo Andrade and Sergeant Fernando Espinosa are commissioned to investigate a mysterious murder while the Spanish Blue Division of the German Army endures the fierce counterattack of the Red Army.


The Hunt
2024 · 8m
country: Portugal
A group of soldiers, lost in the woods, must face the traumas of their past and the terrifying forces stalking them.


Crebinsky
2011 · 1h 30m
country: Spain
Torrential rains cause the swollen river, whose waters inundate a village. The current drags the cow Crebinsky and his brothers, who miraculously reappear alive in a place on the coast. Installed there at the foot of a lighthouse, which brings survive by sea. Isolated military conflicts, the brothers created their own world: a particular universe made of realism and fantasy.


Dragon Rapide
1986 · 1h 40m
country: Spain
The two weeks leading up to the Spanish Civil War in 1936 are dramatized from many different locations in Spain, Morocco and London.
Spanish cinema carries the surrealist streak of Buñuel through to Almodóvar's melodramas and a modern horror scene with real international reach. The post-Franco decades produced an unusually sharp break with what came before.
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.