Films about the Cold War and Wars of Decolonization
This collection provides information on selected movies, TV productions and documentaries on the themes of gender, military and war in the period covered by the Oxford Handbook.
The most important wars for this period include:
- Cold War (1946–91)
- Arab-Israeli Conflicts (1947ff)
- War of Indonesian Independence (1945–49)
- Korean War (1950–53)
- African Wars for Independence (1952ff)
- Algerian War (1954–62)
- Indochina Wars (1946–79)
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Through a focus on the life of Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976), this film examines the effects on individuals and families of a congressional pursuit of Hollywood Communists after World War II. Trumbo was one of several writers, directors, and actors...
Two adolescents form a connection despite the conflicts in Israel/Palestine. Tal, recent French immigrant, struggles with comprehending the violence engulfing Jerusalem. After a bombing, she tosses a bottle into the sea filled with questions for...
In this melodramatic tragedy, director Régis Wargnier explores the emotional costs of war on a French woman. Shortly after Jeanne marries Louis, he leaves for war. She channels her sadness and anger into a series of affairs that span from World...
An example of Cold War B-movies, Unknown World concerns a scientific expedition seeking livable space deep beneath the Earth's surface in the event a nuclear war makes living above ground impossible. Dr. Jeremiah builds the "cyclotram"...
An internationally acclaimed animated documentary, filmmaker Ari Folman works to uncover his lost memories as an Israeli solider in the 1982 Lebanon War. Folman interviews fellow soldiers, old friends, and journalists to reconstruct his war...
Stop Train 349 (German: Verspätung in Marienborn, French: Le train de Berlin est arrêté, Italian: Un treno è fermo a Berlino), is a 1963 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Rolf Hädrich. Based on...
An Algerian immigrant living on the outskirts of Paris strives to achieve his goals in the last year of the Algerian War of Independence. After saving his money and living in a shantytown, he sets off to find a decent place to live for his family...
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, this movie provides an allegorical tale of life under Stalin in the Soviet Union during the 1950s. A poor, migrant war-widow and her son meet a dashing man masquerading as an army officer who...
Vreme leoparda is a 1985 Yugoslav-Mozambican co-production and the first Mozambican feature film. Set in Mozambique in 1971, during the last years of Portuguese colonial occupation, the film is a fictional account of the anti-colonial ...
WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War science fiction techno-thriller film. The plot follows David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to predict and...
When the Wind Blows is a British animated disaster film based on a comic book of the same name by Raymond Briggs, initially published in 1982. The film accounts a rural English couple's attempt to survive a nearby nuclear attack and...
An allegory of the failed state of colonialism, a white woman's refusal to leave her coffee plantation in a fictional African country brings the civil war to her. Warned by French officials and military to leave, Maria is determined to see the...
Winter Soldier is a 1972 documentary film chronicling the Winter Soldier Investigation, which took place in 1971. The film documents the accounts of American soldiers who returned...
An American journalist investigates political intrigue during the Lebanon Civil War. Don Stevens thought he landed an interview with a top leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization only to discover he had been duped. Finding out why leads...
This French and Arabic biographical documentary (with English subtitles), directed by Amin Rashidi, explores the life and work of Louisette Ighilahriz (b. 1936), an Algerian writer and a former member of the Front de Libération Nationale...
A documentary about American women's involvement in war from Vietnam to the present as soldiers, nurses, journalists, spies, and diplomats. The participants stories range from breaking the glass ceiling to ongoing sexual harassment and from...
In a year when women are mobilizing and running for office in unprecedented numbers, Women, War & Peace demonstrates how some of the biggest international stories of recent memory are shaped by women. An all-female cast of directors...
World for Ransom is a 1954 Cold War film noir. Mike Callahan (Dan Duryea) is an Irish émigré and war veteran working in Singapore as a private detective. He takes on a case from a former lover, now a nightclub singer. She thinks her...
The famed comic book series The X-Men finds its origin story in the global politics of the Cold War. In 1944, in Poland, the boy Erik Lehnsherr unleashes his magnetic power when his mother is sent to a concentration camp. The evil Dr....
On the Eve of the "War of Independence," the Palestine-Israel War of 1947-49, a girl loses her way and ends up at a small strategic outpost by the Dead Sea. Populated by youths who just finished their army service in the Palmach, an elite...