Das Boot

Originally filmed as a 5-part miniseries for German TV, Das Boot follows a single mission of the German U-boat submarine, U-96 and its crew. Playing out almost entire within the under water confines of the U-boat, Das Boot submerges viewers into the cramped, uncomfortable, horrifically claustrophobic world of a WWII submarine. To maximize the effects, the film was shot sequentially (a rare filmmaking move), over the course of two years, so that the actors’ hair and beard growth and signs of strain would be more accurately portrayed. After watching this, you’ll never want to go under water again.

The Great Escape

Another terrific cast, led by Steve McQueen, The Great Escape is usually considered the best escape movie ever made. (Good thing: you don’t call your movie The Great Escape unless you mean it.) Concerning a mass escape attempt from a supposedly “escape-proof” German POW camp, it won only one Oscar (Best Editing) when it was released in 1963, but is currently listed among the top 100 of IMDb’s “Top 250? list.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Definitely the trippiest World War II movie you’ll ever see, Slaughterhouse-Five ends on an alien planet with the hero having sex with a movie star in a zoo — which happens after he dies of old age. The movie suggests that all the interspersed war scenes — in which he fights in Germany, gets captured, and witnesses the bombing of Dresden — are just as insane as the aliens and time travel. It can’t touch the ultra-brilliant classic novel by Kurt Vonnegut upon which it’s based, but Vonnegut fans would be remiss not to check it out. (And while you’re at it, watch the World War II-themed adaptation of his novel Mother Night, starring Nick Nolte as a former American spy who worked as a Nazi propagandist.

Come and See

Viciously brutal, unflinchingly gruesome and visually, aurally and emotionally breathtaking, Come and See follows a lone soldier through the wasteland of Eastern Europe and a soul-crushing series of horrific indignities. Using all resources in the filmmaker’s tool chest, director Elem Klimov’s 1985 masterpiece brings us as close as any film ever has to the nauseating, visceral realities of war.

Sands of Iwo Jima

As classics go, you could do a lot worse than this John Wayne movie, made only four years after the war ended. Wayne — arguably better as a marine sergeant than a cowboy — plays John Stryker, who leads his men into the bloody Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific campaign. The battle scenes are pretty sanitized by today’s standards — especially considering how bloody Iwo Jima really was — but it’s old-fashioned manly patriotism at its best.

The Great Escape

Another terrific cast, led by Steve McQueen, The Great Escape is usually considered the best escape movie ever made. (Good thing: you don’t call your movie The Great Escape unless you mean it.) Concerning a mass escape attempt from a supposedly “escape-proof” German POW camp, it won only one Oscar (Best Editing) when it was released in 1963, but is currently listed among the top 100 of IMDb’s “Top 250? list.

Saving Private Ryan

The cornerstone of all great modern war movies, Saving Private Ryan is hard to top, especially in its opening scene of the American soldiers landing at Omaha beach. Tom Hanks is obviously awesome, but it’s the cowardly soldier Timothy Upham (Jeremy Davies, recently seen on Lost) who sticks with you. And how about Adam Goldberg’s death scene? Damn.