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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During the 1950s, FBI agent and Slovenian-American Matt Cvetic (Frank Lovejoy) poses as a Communist to infiltrate the U.S. Communist Party. Unable to tell his friends and family about the undercover mission, Matt is deemed a traitor to his...
With rough parallels to incidents in the late 1950s, this Cold War thriller pits the United States and the Soviet Union in a hunt for sophisticated military technology in the Arctic. A US submarine is dispatched to the frozen wastes of the North...
On the call of the revolutionary National Liberation Front (FLN), thousands of Algerians marched in Paris, on October 17, 1961, to protest France's war effort in Algeria, despite the curfew imposed by the government. The police responded with...
This anti-war film tells the story of two young Argentinian men sent to fight against Britain in the Falkland Islands in 1982, who return home bearing traumas. The script is based on a book written by a veteran of this war.
This movie is an account of US Navy Commander James Stockdale's (1923-2005) seven-and-a-half year imprisonment in North Vietnam. During his confinement in such camps as the infamous "Hanoi Hilton," Stockdale, among other senior officers, led a...
Chloé, a young French-Canadian doctor with the Red Crescent, constantly moves between contemporary Israel and the Occupied territories. She lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah, passing through checkpoints daily to monitor the pregnancies of...
This documentary begins with memories of the colonial situation in Portuguese-ruled Angola, reveals the first steps in the struggle, and covers the main settings where it took place. From 1961 to 1974, the war in Angola spread from the bush areas...
Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Indochine, Régis Wargnier offers an interpretation of French colonialism in Indochina through the lens of a French plantation owner, Éliane Devries, played by Catherine Deneuve, and her...
Invasion, U.S.A. is set in the Cold War and portrays the fictional invasion of the United States by an unnamed communist enemy, likely referring to the Soviet Union. It is typical of the Red Scare film genre, common throughout the 1950s...
In the waning years of the Cold War, Gen. Chappy Sinclair (Louis Gossett Jr.), is charged with assembling a joint U.S.-Soviet operation to take out a weapons plant in the Middle East. He supervises his old buddy Matt Cooper (Mark Humphrey), and...
Dalila Ennadre and produced by Film Documentaire France and Aya Films, describes the life of a Moroccan woman named Fadma who worked as a prostitute in a French military brothel during the First Indochina War (1946–54). Fadma...
On the night of April 21st 1961, in an attempt to halt the policy implemented by General de Gaulle which led to Algeria's independence, the 1st Foreign Regiment of Parachutists took power in Algiers. At the same time, Malika, Jacquot and Thomas...
This well-researched documentary dramatizes Charles de Gaulle's changing positions regarding the Algerian War. Recently elected as president of the new Fifth Republic of France in 1958, de Gaulle issues his support to nationals and partisans in...
Young Park Seol-Hee is eagerly planning her wedding to a young anti-Communist activist when the North Koreans invade. Her fiancé is forced to flee, leaving her behind with her family in their tiny, rural South Korean village. Rather than resist...
Assembly explores honor, sacrifice, and identity through Gu Zidi, a captain of the 9th Company of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) near the end of the Chinese Civil War. During the decisive Huaihai Campaign, Gu and his men defend a...
Released a year after Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March – May 1954), this film pays homage to a group of soldiers who died in the climatic battle of the First Indochina War (1946–1954). Veterans and new enlistees encounter guerilla warfare,...
Captain Vostrikov, a Russian naval officer, has been given command of the Soviet Union's first nuclear submarine, K-19, at the height of the Cold War in 1961. The vessel's executive officer Captain Polenin asserts that the flagship is not yet...
The film takes place in the southern town of Kangamba, Angola, in August 1983, during the Angolan civil war. Troops of the Unión Nacional para la Independencia Total de Angola (UNITA – National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), trained...
A group of Holocaust refugees arrive in war-torn Palestine, days before the declaration of the state of Israel. Some join the Palmach, the Jewish underground army, while others try to find peace amidst chaos.