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3. Stalag 17

While most movies like to depict the slaughter, carnage, and humanity of a war battlefield, Stalag 17 gives us a different and at times more harrowing perspective: the lives of prisoners of war in a German camp. Directed by the talented Billy Wilder and starring one of my favorites, William Holden - who won a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar in 1953 for his role here - the movie is set in a Luftwaffe prisoner of war camp and centers around a group of mostly Americans striving to survive while they try to uncover an unsuspected traitor in their midst.

What is most memorable about this movie is that it makes every character feel real, human, and truly affected by his condition. The plot is also suspenseful and unforgiving in the depiction of prisoner of war brutal conditions; it is interesting and deceptive in the denouement regarding the prisoner of war-turned-German spy and the efforts made by the prisoners to outwit him.

Ultimately, then, Stalag 17 is a worthy list-member today because, like many of the other movies I have listed today, it is about the people affected by and involved in the war, more than about broader war themes. Correction, the broader themes (here, isolation, betrayal, mistrust, and death) are explored subtly and effectively through the specific human story. That is a sign of a brilliant World War II movie.

2. Casablanca

One of many Best Picture Oscar winners that touch upon World War II, I admit it is somewhat of a stretch to include this movie here. Casablanca, the city in Morocco, was not exactly a major WWII theater. Yet the Bogart/Bergman classic is really such a flawless movie that it is too hard not to place on the list and the plot is World War II centric, telling the story of an American expatriate who helps a Czech woman smuggle her husband out of Nazi-controlled Morocco so he can continue fighting for the Czech resistance.

Yes, the movie is perhaps not about a particular battle during the war, and takes place somewhat removed from the main action. But the movie accurately depicts what’s always the greatest loss suffered by the survivors of a calamity: the loss of their humanity. It is my theory that movies that manage to connect with audiences, perennially, Titanic, do so in part because they tap into human emotion about suffering and loss. It is not just the physical destruction and physical violence - we are so used to it in movies and TV today, including the news - but the wrenching of one’s own soul. Thus, as the star-crossed lovers are unable to stay together as a result of their respective roles during the WWII, the viewer comes to feel loss that is deeper than any physical item.

Casablanca is also memorable for the star-studded cast of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in iconic career roles, and for its multitude of now timeliness lines. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” and “We’ll always have Paris” are among the best. Some, like “round up the usual suspects,” have even inspired entire movies. The movie is now timeless and classic.

To think that this movie was actually made during the war itself and ended up winning the Best Picture Oscar in 1944 while war still raged is nothing short of incredible. Thus, one of the first main movies about World War II is arguably also the best such of movies of all time, except for…

1. The Bridge Over the River Kwai

Before Unbroken told the story of the torture of one Olympic hero at the hands of Japanese internment camp guards, David Lean’s 1957 World War II drama provided *the* definitive story about torture of World War II fighters at the hands of Japanese internment camp guards.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai is considered one of the best movies of all time. It is also another of the Best Picture WWII winners (the others, from memory, are Casablanca, The Best Years of Our Lives, From Here to Eternity, The Sound of Music, Patton, Chariots of Fire, Out of Africa, Schindlers List, and The Kings Speech - about one per decade and maybe I missed one). The acting by Alec Guinness is haunting in its veracity. William Holden is also brilliant here. And the story is disturbing and ahead of its time for its portrayal of torture, starvation, and abject suffering and its effect on the human soul. Psychologically, it is a twisted thriller that combines elements of Stockholm Syndrome with excessive military loyalty and the nationalistic paternalism we experienced more subtly and therefore more effectively than in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

By the time the climactic scene rolls around, the viewer is not even sure who or what to root for anymore. Told from a British perspective (unlike most of the other movies in this genre that I have seen), the entire movie is arguably an allegory for the grandeur yet decline, the old age, of the entire British Empire. The intentions are mostly good, but the circumstances and the changed nature of conflict make it impossible for the old man to survive. Brilliant and subtle in its execution, The Bridge Over the River Kwai is arguably one of the top Best Picture winners of all time, and certainly my favorite World War II themed movie of all.

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