The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Under sandet (2015), Empire of the Sun (1987), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Vera Drake (2004), Europa Europa (1990), Cross of Iron (1977), Before the Fall (2004) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Pow movies.
Storyline: DurinWW II, allied POWS in a Japanese internment camp are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge, but under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson they're persuaded the bridge should be built to help morale, spirit. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of Japanese Commandant Colonel Saito, But, soon they realise it's a monument to Nicholson, himself, as well as a form of collaboration with the enemy.
Plot Keywords: railroad, british army, discipline, coercion, briton abroad, pow, hot weather ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In post-World War II Denmark, the Danish government puts their hated German prisoners of war to work clearing the 1.5 million landmines from the western beaches of the country. At one such beach, Sgt. Carl Leopold Rasmussen finds himself in charge of one such labor unit and finds they are largely all inexperienced boys. As the boys struggle to complete and survive their dangerous work, Sgt. Rasmussen's hate for Germans gradually cools as he grows to understand the horrific situation these child soldiers are in even as the mines claim more and more victims. Eventually, the boys and the Sergeant must decide what can be done in a situation that would be later be denounced by later generations as the worst war crime committed by the Danish government in its history.
Plot Keywords: beach, minefield, teenager, world war two, post world war two, dog, child soldier ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, tells the story of a boy, James Graham, whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, December 8, 1941. Separated from his parents, he is eventually captured, and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp, next to a captured Chinese airfield. Amidst the sickness and food shortages in the camp, Jim attempts to reconstruct his former life, all the while bringing spirit and dignity to those around him.
Plot Keywords: betting, air raid, salute, separation from family, welding, race relations, survival ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>
Plot Keywords: title spoken by character, reputation, self sacrifice, friendship, scotland, soldier, nobility ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Vera Drake is a selfless woman who is completely devoted to, and loved by, her working class family. She spends her days doting on them and caring for her sick neighbor and elderly mother. However, she also secretly visits women and helps them induce miscarriages for unwanted pregnancies. While the practice itself was illegal in 1950s England, Vera sees herself as simply helping women in need, and always does so with a smile and kind words of encouragement. When the authorities finally find her out, Vera's world and family life rapidly unravel.
Plot Keywords: pregnancy, abortion, birth control, double standard, rape, injustice, adultery ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A Jewish boy, separated from his family in the early days of WWII, poses as a German orphan and is thereafter taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually made a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are cornerstones of the film, it is based upon a true story.
Plot Keywords: circumcision, nazi, jewish, german, pubic hair, based on true story, male nudity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1943, on the Russian front, decorated leader Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) is promoted to Sergeant after another successful mission. Meanwhile, upper-class and arrogant Prussian Captain Hauptmann Stransky (Maximilian Schell) is assigned as the new commander of his squad. After a bloody battle of Steiner's squad against the Russian troops led by the brave Lieutenant Meyer (Igor Galo), who dies in combat, the coward Stransky claims that he led his squad against the Russian and requests to be awarded with the Iron Cross to satisfy his personal ambition together with that of his aristocratic family. Stransky gives the names of Steiner and of the homosexual Lieutenant Triebig (Roger Fritz) as witnesses of his accomplishment, but Steiner, who has problems with the chain of command in the Army, and with the arrogance of Stransky, refuses to participate in the fraud. When Colonel Brandt (James Mason) gives the order to leave the position in the front, Stransky does not retransmit the order ...
Plot Keywords: homosexual, ammunition, battlefield, bombing, gay subtext, heil hitler, military uniform ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) - high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls, seeing this as his ticket out of factory life to university and a good salary. During his year in seventh column (fifth form), this innocence is altered as Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education; a night in the forest hunting for escaped Russian POWs brings things to a head.
Plot Keywords: boxing, male objectification, nazi germany, suicide, teenage boy, boarding school, year 1942 ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1965, while bombing Laos in a classified mission, the propeller plane of the German-American US Navy pilot Dieter Dengler is hit and crashes in the jungle. Dieter is arrested by the peasants, tortured by the Vietcong and sent to a prisoner camp, where he meets five other mentally deranged prisoners and guards. He becomes close to Duane and organizes an escape plan; however, the unstable Gene opposes to Dieter's plan. When they discover that there is no more food due to the constant American bombings in the area and their guards intend to kill them, Dieter sets his plan in motion. However, an unexpected betrayal splits the group and Dieter and Duane find that the jungle is their actual prison.
Plot Keywords: friendship, endurance, survivor, emaciation, airplane, ant, automatic rifle ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1942 British soldier Jack Celliers comes to a Japanese prison camp. The camp is run by Yonoi, who has a firm belief in discipline, honor and glory. In his view, the allied prisoners are cowards when they chose to surrender instead of committing suicide. One of the prisoners, interpreter John Lawrence, tries to explain the Japanese way of thinking, but is considered a traitor.
Plot Keywords: prisoner, uniform, world war two, prisoner of war, katana sword, japanese army, homoeroticism ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In World War II, the German pilots Lieutenant Horst Schopis, Josef Schwartz and Wolfgang Strunk crash their airplane in the wilderness of Norway after shooting down a British airplane. They walk through a snow storm until they reach shelter in an abandoned hunter cabin. Soon the British pilot Captain Charles P. Davenport and the gunner Robert Smith arrive in the cabin and they become prisoners of the German pilots. However, after the initial friction between the enemies, they realize that they should team-up to survive in the wilderness in the beginning of an improbable friendship.
Plot Keywords: cold weather, airplane shot down, mountain cabin, cold, nazi soldier, color in title, german abroad ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After 28 years building and managing a vast Siemens plant in Nanking, John Rabe is ordered by the new Nazi regime to close it down. Before he can pack, the Japanese army, lead unofficially by a bloodthirsty imperial uncle, lays siege to the city. Rabe accepts, as prominent representative of Japans' major European ally, to head the Western ex-pats society's plan to start and run an international zone, like worked in Shangai. Rabe however wants it to save his workers and their close ones, over 200,000, and sacrifices all his personal interests.—KGF Vissers
Plot Keywords: piano, mass murder, typewriter, flashlight, drunkenness, gun, gun held to head ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: WWII is entering its last phase: Germany is in ruins, but does not yield. The US army lacks crucial knowledge about the German units operating on the opposite side of the Rhine, and decides to send two German prisoners to gather information. The scheme is risky: the Gestapo retains a terribly efficient network to identify and capture spies and deserters. Moreover, it is not clear that "Tiger", who does not mind any dirty work as long as the price is right, and war-weary "Happy", who might be easily betrayed by his feelings, are dependable agents. After Tiger and another American agent are successfully infiltrated, Happy is parachuted in Bavaria. His duty: find out the whereabouts of a powerful German armored unit moving towards the western front.—Eduardo Casais <eduardo.casais@research.nokia.com>
Plot Keywords: year 1944, bombing, seizure, ss, nazi officer, sentenced to death, court martial ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer, fighting and opening a boxing club training aspiring boxers. Maggie has since married Danny's best friend, who is also imprisoned for his I.R.A. activities. Although he has not denounced the I.R.A. or denigrated his I.R.A. colleagues, Danny has decided to live a life free of political violence. His boxing club is nonsectarian, open to both Catholics and Protestants. This move irks some of his old I.R.A. colleagues since they feel working with the Protestants will not resolve their David versus Goliath struggle. Danny's old I.R.A. colleagues, especially their unofficial leader Harry, resort to traditional tactics of violence to stop Danny. Maggie's father, Joe, also an I.R.A. activist, ...
Plot Keywords: boxer, boxing, release from prison, boxing match, irish republican army, anger, balloon ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Major Charles Rane comes back from the war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero. Some greedy thugs decide that they want to steal a number of silver dollars from him. In the process they also manage to kill his wife and son and destroy his hand. The Major wants revenge so he enlists the help of his war buddy Johnny to meet the thugs in a final showdown.—Josh Pasnak <chainsaw@intouch.bc.ca>
Plot Keywords: violence, home invasion, military veteran, social decay, hairy chest, hometown, shootout ...
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