Films about the Age of First World War
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:
- First World War (1914–18)
- Russian Civil War (1917–22)
- Irish War of Independence and Civil War (1919–23)
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The Informer explores guilt and personal morals during the Irish War for Independence. Ousted by the Irish Republican Army, Gypo Nolan turns his friend over to the Black and Tans for reward money and indirectly causes his death. His...
Based on the novel by Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September charts the decline of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy during the Irish War for Independence. Set at County Cork estate in the fall of 1920, an aristocratic couple hosts their young...
Widely considered a masterpiece, directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger explore the changing notions of modern warfare against the tradition of British military systems from the Boer War to World War II. Centered on Clive Candy, an aging...
This film takes place in 1914, and analyzes the reactions of a French village "under the German boot" at the moment of the battle of the Marne, while two adolescents live a love story like Romeo and Juliette. A German officer has been killed, and...
The horrors of modern warfare during World War I left men horrifically disfigured. This film recounts the story of Adrien, a handsome French soldier who becomes one of the "gueules cassées" ("broken faces") after a German shell explodes in his...
Outskirts is an internationally renowned masterpiece of early sound cinema. In a remote Russian village during World War I, colorful and nuanced characters experience divided loyalties: family loyalty vs. personal desire, nationalism vs....
This romanticized account of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the famed German fighter pilot, interrogates his role in World War I. Richthofen orders his men to save the lives of the enemy pilots in downed aircraft, and his romance with a nurse...
A documentary on the life and death of Michael Collins, leader of the Irish independence movement during the early 20th century. It investigates the mystery of his death surrounding his death in 1922 at Béalnabláth in West Cork.
A made-for-television movie about the politics and drama behind the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Irish War for Independence and created a free Irish state. Negotiations between the British and Irish leaders, which include Lloyd George and ...
A former Russian countess and a blind American form a relationship in Shanghai before the Second Sino-Japanese War. Countess Sofia Belinskaya supports her aristocratic family, all of whom fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, by driving a...
Against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, two brothers fight a guerrilla war against British forces. [IMBd]
In this winner of the 2006 Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this film explores the lives and politics of two brothers during the Irish War for Independence and the Irish Civil War. Damian initially believes independence is futile, while...
Based on the novel by Jean Cocteau, a French aristocrat and commoner forge an unshakable bond in World War I. Princess of Bormes shepherds wounded soldiers from the front to her Parisian home for medical care. Thomas, assuming the identity of a...
Villa Rides turns the Mexican Revolution into a spaghetti western. Revolutionary Pancho Villa forces an American pilot and gunrunner to join his campaign.
A story of doomed love within a corrupt political world, based on the semi-autobiographical debut novel of the same title by Ayn Rand (produced, however, without securing the rights from her). At 18, the beautiful and smart Kira comes to...
One of the most popular films in the Soviet Union and Russia, White Sun of the Desert portrays the Russian Civil War in the vein of a classic American western. Fyodor Sukhov, a Red Army soldier on his way home, wanders in Central Asia...
This short documentary raises questions about women's changing roles in England during World War I. Women took on traditionally men's roles by becoming factory workers, police officers, and surgeons as well as by forming football (soccer) leagues...