Films about the Age of Second 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:

  • 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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Director(s): van den Bergh, Regardt
Year of Publication: 1984
Abstract:

Boetie Gaan Border Toe! is a 1984  film set during the "South African Border War", or the Namibian War of Independence (1966-1990), which was fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the People's Liberation Army of...

Director(s): van den Bergh, Regardt
Year of Publication: 1985
Abstract:

Boetie op Manoeuvres,  directed by Regardt van den Bergh, is the sequel to the commercially successful 1984 South African  film Boetie Gaan Border Toe!The film is set...

Director(s): Douglas, Gordon
Year of Publication: 1957
Abstract:

Bombers B-52, released in the United Kingdom as No Sleep Till Dawn, concerns the introduction of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber into the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) inventory during the Cold War era of the 1950s.  A...

Director(s): Geffen, Shira
Year of Publication: 2014
Abstract:

An identity swap reveals the similarities of women's lives across the Israel/Palestine divide. An Israeli performance artist and Palestinian suicide bomber accidently trade identities at a border checkpoint. This dark comedy explores how they...

Director(s): Stone, Oliver
Year of Publication: 1989
Abstract:

This second Vietnam War film by director Oliver Stone, which is based on the biography of Vietnam war veteran an antiwar activist Ron Kovic (born 1946), explores how an all-American boy becomes disillusioned with his nation and how a war-hungry...

Director(s): Cedar, Joseph
Year of Publication: 2008
Abstract:

Oscar-nominated for Best Foriegn Language Film, Beaufort recounts the final months of Israeli occupation of Lebanon during 2000. Israeli soldiers guard the mountain fortress, which symbolized their 18-year presence in South Lebanon....

Director(s): Sholder, Jack
Year of Publication: 1990
Abstract:

By Dawn's Early Light is an HBO original movie, which aired in 1990. It is based on the 1983 novel Trinity's Child, written by William Prochnau. The film depicts the events of a fictional World War III at the end of the Cold War...

Director(s): Haneke, Michael
Year of Publication: 2005
Abstract:

In Caché, an internationally acclaimed psychological thriller and widely hailed as a masterpiece, director Michael Haneke explores postcolonial tensions and memory in modern day France. Georges Laurent, a celebrity journalist, receives...

Director(s): Nguyen, Hong Sen
Year of Publication: 1979
Abstract:

Shot entirely within the geography of a small rice field in the Mekong Delta, the film explores the experiences of a young family during the Vietnam War. Isolated from the conflict, the young family nevertheless is pulled into the war through the...

Director(s): Charef, Mehdi
Year of Publication: 2007
Abstract:

A young Algerian paperboy with friends and associates of all ages on both sides of the conflict experiences history leading up to the March 1962 independence of Algeria, witnesses ruthless violence perpetrated by French and Arabs, sees his French...

Director(s): De Palma, Brian
Year of Publication: 1989
Abstract:

Based primarily on an article of the same title written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker in 1969, which was later published as a book, Casualties of War reveals the immorality and trauma of the Vietnam War (1955-1975). A...

Director(s): Alexandre Arcady
Year of Publication: 2012
Abstract:

Algeria under French colonization, in the 1930s. Younes is 9 years old when he is put in the care of his uncle, a pharmacist in the city of Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the kids of Rio Salado and becomes their friend. In the gang,...

Director(s): Cech, Vladimir
Year of Publication: 1958
Abstract:

This film is the story of young Czech Václav Malý (Jaroslav Mares) who, having survived a concentration camp during the Holocaust and the deaths of his father and sister, joins the French Foreign Legion to fight in the war in French Indochina. He...

Director(s): Claude Bernard-Aubert
Year of Publication: 1980
Abstract:

Story of the final days of the first Indochina War (1946-1954) based on the director's experience as a photojournalist covering the French Army in Vietnam. A 13-man commando unit parachutes into North Vietnam to rescue a Red Cross nurse being...

Director(s): Nichols, Mike
Year of Publication: 2007
Abstract:

Director Mike Nichols' last film explores the Cold War origins of the U.S. War in Afghanistan. In the early 1980s Congressman Charlie Wilson of Texas pushes funding for a covert CIA operation to support the Afghan mujahideen. His passion for...

Director(s): Minh, Dang Nhat
Year of Publication: 1970
Abstract:

Miss Nhung (Vietnamese: Chị Nhung) is a 1970 Vietnamese war film co-directed by directors Nguyễn Đức Hinh and Đặng Nhật Minh, based on a short story penned by writer Nguyễn Sáng. The film follows a young girl, who becomes entangled in the Vietnam...

Director(s): Le, Hoang
Year of Publication: 2001
Abstract:

Rather than a love story set amidst war, this is war depicted through love. A rumination of wartime Vietnam in 1972, where bombing is a seemingly accepted part of daily life, yet daily life is abruptly rendered inconsequential once hit.

Director(s): Fuller, Samuel
Year of Publication: 1957
Abstract:

The film China Gate, directed by Samuel Fuller, is set in 1954 during the French Indochina War. A Eurasian female smuggler and a group of French Foreign Legion mercenaries infiltrate enemy territory in order to destroy an arms depot. The...

Director(s): Noãn, Vĩnh
Year of Publication: 1956
Abstract:

Set during the bloody land reform campaign in North Vietnam under Communist-dominated Viet Minh, the film follows Vinh, a Captain in the Viet Minh army fervently fighting for the independence of Vietnam in the Resistance War against the French...

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