Part of BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.
Social & External
WWII has ended and Hanna is still grieving over her husband's disappearance. When the Christmas Comet appears for the first time in 70 years, Hanna is caught in a terrible storm and knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she's in 2016.
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, Dan Snow tells the story of the 'little ships' which made the perilous cross-channel voyage, as 50 of them return to France.
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.
The story of an English pilot who crashed in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and whose life is saved by a woman and a boy - two partisans near the enemy lines, Long afterwards in England he remembers the Russians with affection, tells his friends about his experiences, and resolves to go back to find the two partisans his heart remembers.
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
World War II. Darkness has fallen over Europe, and the boots of the Third Reich echo through the streets. But on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, some choose to resist. Corrie Ten Boom and her family risk everything to hide Jewish refugees by the hundreds, and they ultimately face the consequences when they are discovered.
On September 6, 2017, the Catalan regional government called an independence referendum. This propagandistic documentary by the Catalan government collects the experiences of an illegal referendum that led to the virtual independence of Spanish territory and the biggest constitutional crisis in Spain since 1981
Film about the Holocaust. A Jewish family is allowed to keep the flat they have always lived in and to live a relatively normal life. One day their 10-year old son disappears. He has been sent to a deportation camp which seems like paradise except that the inmates are being used for medical experiments.
At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.
Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.
Made in 1940 and sponsored by the Ministry of Information this film shows the food contributions supplied to Britain by various colonies and dominions. 'Food from the Empire highlights the severity of the food issue, by discussing food production as a battle (...) and offers insights into British attitudes towards its colonies and dominions. The commentary notes that the ‘free people’ of these countries are ‘anxious to send every ounce they can to the United Kingdom for they know that upon the ability of Great Britain to hold out depends their own freedom’. Britain is depicted as a dominant power, fighting to protect those within the Empire, while the colonies are loyal and ‘anxious’ to help.' - Tom Rice, on the film from colonialfilm.org.
Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.
As World War II looms, Pope Pius XI calls on a humble American priest to help him challenge the evils of Nazism and anti-Semitism. But death intervenes, and Pope Pius XII now carries out a very different response to Hitler and the Holocaust.
This Danish movie "Out of The Darkness" ( in Danish 'De Forbandede år 2' ) is a continuation of the popular WW II drama "Into The Darkness" ( in Danish 'De forbandede år' ) and it portraits the Danish Resistance movements fight. This movie takes place after 1943 where the official politic of 'corporation' comes to an end, and the Danish Resistance movement is gaining traction. The movie follows the Skov family from 1943 to the end of WWII. The growing opposition to the occupation and the increased brutality of the Germans have fatal consequences for the family.
A couple sets up an African game preserve, only to have British and Italian armies fight over the waterholes.
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.
Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.
During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.
Follow the perilous journey to freedom when a young boy and his dog attempt to escape a concentration camp during World War II. Based on true events.
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.
A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Documentary about the making of American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003).
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
A woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.
