Hacksaw Ridge (2016), Gandhi (1982), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), East of Eden (1955), The Quiet Man (1952), Black Book (2006), Destry Rides Again (1939), Frantz (2016) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Pacifist movies.
Storyline: The true story of Desmond T. Doss, the conscientious objector who, at the Battle of Okinawa, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his incredible bravery and regard for his fellow soldiers. We see his upbringing and how this shaped his views, especially his religious view and anti-killing stance. We see Doss's trials and tribulations after enlisting in the US Army and trying to become a medic. Finally, we see the hell on Earth that was Hacksaw Ridge.
Plot Keywords: world war two, soldier, medic, 1940s, embarrassing nudity, pacifism, combat ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1893, Mohandas K. Gandhi is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian and traveling in a first class compartment. Gandhi realizes that the laws are biased against Indians and decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. After numerous arrests and the unwanted attention of the world, the government finally relents by recognizing rights for Indians, though not for the native blacks of South Africa. After this victory, Gandhi is invited back to India, where he is now considered something of a national hero. He is urged to take up the fight for India's independence from the British Empire. Gandhi agrees, and mounts a non-violent non-cooperation campaign of unprecedented scale, coordinating millions of Indians nationwide. There are some setbacks, such as violence against the protesters and Gandhi's occasional imprisonment. Nevertheless, the campaign generates great attention, and Britain faces intense public pressure. Too weak...
Plot Keywords: india, independence, hindu, peace, world war two, brutality, year 1948 ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.
Plot Keywords: world war one, death of protagonist, dying young, teenage boy, friend, claim in title, steel helmet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the Salinas Valley, in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of their father Adam. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to estranged mother.
Plot Keywords: love triangle, military enlistment, sibling rivalry, borrowing money, jealousy, abandoned by mother, brother versus brother ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Sean Thornton has returned from America to reclaim his homestead and escape his past. Sean's eye is caught by Mary Kate Danaher, a beautiful but poor maiden, and younger sister of ill-tempered "Red" Will Danaher. The riotous relationship that forms between Sean and Mary Kate, punctuated by Will's pugnacious attempts to keep them apart, form the main plot, with Sean's past as the dark undercurrent.
Plot Keywords: misogyny, ireland, rural setting, brother sister relationship, conspiracy, accidental death, ex boxer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Israel 1956. Rachel, a Jew, rather unexpectedly meets an old friend at the kibbutz where she is working as a teacher. It brings back memories of her experiences in The Netherlands during the war, memories of betrayal. September 1944. Rachel is in trouble when her hiding place is bombed by allied troops. She gets in contact with a man from the resistance and joins a group of Jews who are to be smuggled across the Biesbosch by boat to the freed South Netherlands. Germans from a patrol boat murder them all however. Only Rachel is able to escape. She is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers. When Kuipers' son is captured after trying to smuggle weapons, he asks Rachel to seduce SS-hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze. Soon she will find out the attack in the Biesbosch wasn't a coincidence.
Plot Keywords: gestapo, 1940s, seduction, 1960s, german soldier, sadism, female rear nudity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Kent, the unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game that gives Kent a stranglehold over the local cattle rangers. The mayor, who is in cahoots with Kent appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale, as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control. But what the mayor doesn't know is that Dimsdale was a deputy under famous lawman, Tom Destry, and is able to call upon the equally formidable Tom Destry Jr to be his deputy. Featuring a career reviving performance from Marlene Dietrich as bar singer Frenchie, which could well have been the inspiration for Madeline Kahn's "Blazing Saddles" character, Lili Von Schtupp.—Mark Thompson <mrt@oasis.icl.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: deputy, corruption, western town, card cheat, lawlessness, bar shootout, singer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1919 Quedlinburg, Germany, a young woman named Anna is still mourning the death of her fiance, Frantz Hoffmeister, in the Great War while living with his equally devastated parents. One day, a mysterious Frenchman, Adrien Rivoire, comes to town both to pay his respects to Frantz's grave and to contact that soldier's parents. Although it is difficult for both sides with the bitterness of Germany's defeat, Adrian explains that he knew Frantz and gradually he wins Anna and the Hoffmeisters' hearts as he tries to connect with them. Unfortunately, Adrien and Anna discover the truth of his motives and things seem shattered for all. However, when Adrien leaves, Anna has her own struggles with the truth and her feelings until she sets out to find Adrien in France. With that, Anna has her own journey to make in more than one sense, even as they both realize that neither have easy answers to their complex personal conflicts with each other and the dead man linking them.
Plot Keywords: germany, world war one, post world war one, guilty conscience, black and white segues into color, hotel, poem ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his corn field tell him, "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this message as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. When the voices continue, Ray seeks out a reclusive author to help him understand the meaning of the messages and the purpose for his field.
Plot Keywords: baseball, baseball field, farmer, hearing voices, ghost, father son estrangement, doctor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Upon moving to Britain to get away from American violence, astrophysicist David Sumner and his wife Amy are bullied and taken advantage of by the locals hired to do construction. When David finally takes a stand it escalates quickly into a bloody battle as the locals assault his house.
Plot Keywords: rape, home invasion, outsider, sexual desire, mini skirt, alcoholism, death of pet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It is the time of the Crusades during the Middle Ages - the world shaping 200-year collision between Europe and the East. A blacksmith named Balian has lost his family and nearly his faith. The religious wars raging in the far-off Holy Land seem remote to him, yet he is pulled into that immense drama. Amid the pageantry and intrigues of medieval Jerusalem he falls in love, grows into a leader, and ultimately uses all his courage and skill to defend the city against staggering odds. Destiny comes seeking Balian in the form of a great knight, Godfrey of Ibelin, a Crusader briefly home to France from fighting in the East. Revealing himself as Balian's father, Godfrey shows him the true meaning of knighthood and takes him on a journey across continents to the fabled Holy City. In Jerusalem at that moment--between the Second and Third Crusades--a fragile peace prevails, through the efforts of its enlightened Christian king, Baldwin IV, aided by his advisor Tiberias, and the military ...
Plot Keywords: 12th century, jerusalem, palestine, medieval times, muslim, sword, sword and shield ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It is 1776 in colonial South Carolina. Benjamin Martin, a French-Indian war hero who is haunted by his past, now wants nothing more than to live peacefully on his small plantation, and wants no part of a war with the most powerful nation in the world, Great Britain. Meanwhile, his two eldest sons, Gabriel and Thomas, can't wait to enlist in the newly formed "Continental Army." When South Carolina decides to join the rebellion against England, Gabriel immediately signs up to fight...without his father's permission. But when Colonel William Tavington, British dragoon, infamous for his brutal tactics, comes and burns the Martin Plantation to the ground, tragedy strikes. Benjamin quickly finds himself torn between protecting his family, and seeking revenge along with being a part of the birth of a new, young, and ambitious nation.
Plot Keywords: hero, standoff, father son relationship, loss of son, loss of wife, massacre, military officer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It's two years after the Nazi's invasion of Norway, and in a small fishing village that is headquarters to one hundred fifty German soldiers, the eight hundred locals are stewing, waiting for a supply of arms so they can revolt. Leaders include Karen Stensgard (Ann Sheridan), whose father, Dr. Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), is not all that sure that an open revolt will accomplish much, and whose brother has previously proven to be disloyal to Norway, and Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn), a fisherman who was planning to sail to England to fight, but changed his mind on hearing of English arms being delivered. Although the Nazi's cruelty is evident, the townspeople bide their time, until one incident causes the stewpot to boil over.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>
Plot Keywords: based on novel, schoolteacher, flag, collaborator, brother sister relationship, book burning, betrayal ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Laschen, a German journalist, travels to the city of Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay about the situation. Together with his photographer, he meets some important people and discovers the everyday face of the war. He also has to figure out about his home life, where his marriage is in a big crisis.—Benjamin Stello
Plot Keywords: adoption, explosion, extramarital affair, father daughter relationship, father son relationship, fear, female frontal nudity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A German living in India during World War II is blackmailed by the English to impersonate an SS officer on board a cargo ship leaving Japan for Germany carrying a large supply of rubber for tyres. His mission is to disable the scuttling charges so the captain cannot sink the ship if they are stopped by English warships.—Daniel Bruce <danbec@one.net.au>
Plot Keywords: sabotage, world war two, based on novel, suicide mission, nazi, explosive, cargo ship ...
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