Movies Like 24 Hours to D-Day

Svítalo celou noc

1980

The Czech film Svítalo All Night was made to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army and is dedicated to all those who fought and gave their lives in Prague in the May Uprising of 1945. Behind the historical events, the creators see mainly their simple, unassuming participants. Thus, we are presented with a number of apt portraits, whether it is the central hero Dr. Soukup and nurse Daniela on the side of the fighting Czechs, or a captain and a simple private in a Red Army unit coming to the aid of the fighting Prague, or an old, war-weary German major, who only realises the senselessness of the war at the sight of a fanatical, cynical lieutenant for whom Nazi ideology represents the meaning of life.

Les Enfants de Terezin et le Monstre à Moustache

2019

The Great Escape

1963

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

Forbidden Games

1952

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

Germany, Year Zero

1948

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

The Longest Day

1962

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

The Reader

2008

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

Ashes and Diamonds

1958

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

The Counterfeiters

2007

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

A Bridge Too Far

1977

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.

The 12th Man

2017

After a failed anti-Nazi sabotage mission leaves his eleven comrades dead, a Norwegian resistance fighter finds himself fleeing the Gestapo through the snowbound reaches of Scandinavia.

The Scarlet and the Black

1983

Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.

36 Hours

1964

Germans kidnap an American major and try to convince him that World War II is over, so that they can get details about the Allied invasion of Europe out of him.

The Dam Busters

1955

The story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ruhr industrial complex and the execution of the raid by 617 Squadron 'The Dam Busters'.

Munich - The Edge of War

2021

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog

2020

Follow the perilous journey to freedom when a young boy and his dog attempt to escape a concentration camp during World War II. Based on true events.

The One That Got Away

1957

Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.

The Young Lions

1958

The lives of three young men, a German and two Americans, during WWII.