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- The Great Escape. Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough. 29 votes. In the riveting drama The Great Escape, a group of Allied prisoners, led by Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen), are confined in an ostensibly escape-proof German POW camp during World War II.
- Unbroken. Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund. 15 votes. As a boy, Louis "Louie" Zamperini is always in trouble, but with the help of his older brother, he turns his life around and channels his energy into running, later qualifying for the 1936 Olympics.
- Empire of the Sun. Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson. 13 votes. Set amidst the turmoil of World War II, Empire of the Sun is a captivating tale of survival and resilience.
- The Deer Hunter. Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage. 8 votes. The Deer Hunter is a gritty war drama that explores the lives of three steelworkers whose existences are irrevocably shaken by the Vietnam War.
- Jeremy Urquhart
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- 'The Great Escape' (1963) Director: John Sturges. The Great Escape’s title is a perfect one, because it’s all about an escape, and it’s an indisputably great movie.
- 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' (1957) Director: David Lean. An adventure/war movie that won Best Picture, all the while also being an undeniably excellent epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai centers on a group of British prisoners forced to build a bridge by their Japanese captors during the Second World War.
- 'Devils on the Doorstep' (2000) Director: Jiang Wen. An incredibly underrated war movie that deserves a lot more attention than it gets, Devils on the Doorstep takes a unique approach to both the war genre broadly and the prisoner-of-war sub-genre more specifically.
- 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' (1983) Director: Nagisa Ōshima. Telling a story about a clash of cultures while being set almost entirely in a prisoner of war camp and partially qualifying as a Christmas movie, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence really does have it all.
May 3, 2024 · 16 Bullet in the Head (1990) Written, produced, and directed by John Woo, Bullet in the Head is a distinctive film that borrows from all genres, including action, crime, drama and war. It depicts ...
- La Grande Illusion (1937) Director: Jean Renoir. As the new French biopic Renoir makes clear, if anything separated the artistic temperament of director Jean Renoir from his painter father, Pierre-Auguste, it was his experiences as an aviator in the first world war, which gave him a much more politicised eye for beauty than the Impressionist ever had.
- Stalag 17 (1953) Director: Billy Wilder. Billy Wilder was among the many Austrian- or German-born émigré directors who fled to Hollywood during the rise of the Nazi party in Europe.
- The Colditz Story (1955) Director: Guy Hamilton. The 1950s were peak time for the prisoner-of-war film as a genre, with filmmakers capitalising on the many tales of heroism in captivity that came to light after the second world war.
- A Man Escaped (1956) Director: Robert Bresson. Critic David Thomson has pointed out that the title of Robert Bresson’s 1956 classic A Man Escaped gives away the ending.
A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan. Director Masaki Kobayashi Stars Tatsuya Nakadai Michiyo Aratama Chikage Awashima. 3. The Battle of Algiers. 1966 2h 1m Not Rated.
The majority of these prisoner-of-war movies revolve around World War II, and occasionally other 20th-century conflicts, like World War I and the Vietnam War. Some focus on survival, while others are centered around escape, and are generally based on true events/people or, at the very least, inspired by real-world events.
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Jul 1, 2022 · After he was captured, he was put in a prison camp where previously captured Americans were held. The movie highlights the mental disintegration of the captured soldiers in a jungle that’s omnipresent, a trap on its own, in a manner that reminds you of another masterpiece, ‘Apocalypse Now’. Read More: Best Philosophical Movies of All Time. 4.
