Best movies like Don't Cry, Nanking
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
In December 1937, during the Second Japanese-Sino War, a Chinese doctor, his Japanese pregnant wife, their teenage daughter and their young son travel from Shanghai to Nanjing seeking shelter in the Capital during the Japanese invasion. The family faces the Rape of Nanking by the Imperial Japanese Army, with rapes, mass murder of prisoners of war and civilians including women, children and elders, and disrespect of international conventions.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Taiwan, Hong Kong
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Don't Cry, Nanking (1995):
Similar in 85%
Warkill (1968)
Plot Summary:
A journalist (Tom Drake) watches a U.S. colonel (George Montgomery) and Filipino guerrillas smoke out Japanese soldiers.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 80
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Philippines, USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: cult film
Similar in 89%
The Fox (2022)
Plot Summary:
The true story of Franz Streitberger, the director’s great-grandfather, a motorcycle courier for the Austrian Army. At the beginning of the Second World War, this introverted young soldier comes across a wounded fox cub that he looks after and takes to occupied France with him – and through this unique friendship, his own past as an outcast farmers son slowly catches up with him.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 401
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Germany, Austria
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
In Four Rows (1999)
Plot Summary:
The story about the Bleiburg massacre, seen from a Croatian Home Defenders point of view.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 783
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Croatia
Duration: 123 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
In Silence (2014)
Plot Summary:
Slovak musicologist Agata Schindlerová, now settled in Dresden, has spent years mapping out the forgotten destinies of Jewish musicians whose lives were irrevocably marked by the advance of nazism. Scenes from the lives of several of them are portrayed in the film In Silence (ballet dancer Alice Flachová, pianist and conductor Karol Ebert, composer, conductor and director of the Dresden Theatre Arthur Chitz, pianist Edith Kraus, and the vocal ensemble Comedian Harmonists), which draws a sharp contrast between the protagonists’ carefree existence working and making music during the pre-war era and the subsequent severe upheaval in their lives brought on by the proliferation of nazism.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 43
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Czech Republic, Slovakia
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Railway Heroes (2021)
Plot Summary:
The historical story of an enemy fighting the wits and courage of an extraordinary brave group of ordinary heroes known as the "Lunan Railway Brigade" who desperately fight to defend their homeland.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 327
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: China
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Germany Pale Mother (1980)
Plot Summary:
Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 825
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: West Germany
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags: art house, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing, gloomy, semi autobiographical, fairy tale, masterpiece
Similar in 82%
Tank T-34 (1965)
Plot Summary:
Russian prisoners of war commandeer a tank and lead the Nazis on a cross-country chase in this World War II adventure drama. The Russians use their own tanks so the Nazis can use them as target practice to test a new anti-tank weapon. Knowing that death is near, the brave Russians run amok and tear down German monuments before heading out to a field where female slave laborers are working.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Eight Hundred (2020)
Plot Summary:
In 1937, eight hundred Chinese soldiers fight under siege from a warehouse in the middle of the Shanghai battlefield, completely surrounded by the Japanese army.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Action, Drama, History, War
Country: China
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags: bleak, suspense, suspenseful, exciting
Similar in 88%
Air Strike (2018)
Plot Summary:
An American pilot is sent to a Chinese province to teach a crew of would-be pilots how to fly war planes against the Japanese during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 3.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama, War
Country: China
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: breathtaking, epic, serious, rough, realistic
Similar in 86%
Everlasting Glory (1976)
Plot Summary:
A Chinese national policy film.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 41
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Taiwan
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Eight Hundred Heroes (1976)
Plot Summary:
The film is based on the true story of a regiment of nationalist troop fighting Japanese forces several times of their strength. Due to the political reasons, such historical topic is avoided in China, and even after the reform, the cautious approach needs outside help from Hong Kong, but such attempts still deserves a great salute.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 169
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Taiwan
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: cult film
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Pride: The Fateful Moment (1998)
Plot Summary:
Based on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of 1946–48, depicts Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo (played by Masahiko Tsugawa) as a family man who fought to defend Japan and Asia from western colonialism but was ultimately hanged by a vengeful United States.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 101
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 161 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Imperial Japanese Empire (1982)
Plot Summary:
Story of three people, a barber, a Christian and a graduate of the Tokyo Military Academy during the 2nd World War.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 53
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags:
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Hotel Meina (2007)
Plot Summary:
How will the Germans react to the armistice of the 8th of September 1943, due to which Italy betrays them and sides with the allied forces? This is the distressing questions that a group of 16 Italian - Greek Jews evacuated at The Meina Hotel ask themselves.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Italy, France, Serbia
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Purple Butterfly (2003)
Plot Summary:
Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: China, France
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, bleak, captivating, suspenseful, tense, atmospheric, non-linear
Similar in 84%
Red Sorghum (1988)
Plot Summary:
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: China
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: tense, depressing, manga, independent film, costume drama, mind blowing, psychological, sincere, epic, serious
Similar in 78%
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
Plot Summary:
His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.
IMDB Rating: 8.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Japan
Duration: 190 min
Plot tags: existential, art house, poetic, atmospheric, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, cynical, gloomy
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The Message (2009)
Plot Summary:
1942, Nanjing (Nanking). Following a series of assassination attempts on officials of the Japanese-controlled puppet government, the Japanese spy chief gathers a group of suspects in a mansion house for questioning. A tense game of "cat and mouse" ensues as the Chinese code-breaker attempts to send out a crucial message while protecting his/her own identity.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: China
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: suspense, captivating, realistic, tense, psychological, controversial, serious, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 82%
Men Behind the Sun (1988)
Plot Summary:
The film is a graphic depiction of the war atrocities committed by the Japanese at Unit 731, the secret biological weapons experimentation unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film details the various cruel medical experiments Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese and Soviet prisoners at the tail-end of the war.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, Horror, War
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, extreme horror, bleak, rough, serious, realistic, brutal, splatter, bloody
Similar in 79%
The Shadow in My Eye (2021)
Plot Summary:
On March 21st, 1945, the British Royal Air Force set out on a mission to bomb Gestapo's headquarters in Copenhagen. The raid had fatal consequences as some of the bombers accidentally targeted a school and more than 120 people were killed, 86 of whom were children.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark, Belgium
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: suspense, disturbing
Similar in 85%
Men Behind the Sun 4 (1995)
Plot Summary:
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, also called Men Behind the Sun 4, is a 1994 Hong Kong film directed by Mou Tun Fei and is in many ways considered to be a follow up to the 1987 shockumentary film, Men Behind the Sun. The movie depicts the events behind the Nanking Massacre committed by the Imperial Japanese army against Chinese citizens and refugees during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Like Men Behind the Sun, the film was both criticized and praised for its brutal portrayal of the Japanese atrocities, such as the notorious contest to kill 100 people using a sword, during the early and late stages of World War II, but at the same time was questioned over historical accuracy and violence which gave the film a more exploitation feel to it.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 895
Genere: Drama, History, Horror, Thriller, War
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, perverse, classic horror, terrifying, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 83%
Inside the Third Reich (1982)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of the life of Albert Speer, Hitler's young architect and onetime confidant, and his meteoric rise into the Nazi hierarchy. Based upon Speer's own monograph of the same title.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 678
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: USA
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
Churchill and the Generals (1979)
Plot Summary:
The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and the leaders of the British army during World War II.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 91
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: historical drama
Similar in 83%
On Wings of Eagles (2016)
Plot Summary:
Eric Liddell - China's first gold medalist and one of Scotland's greatest athletes - returns to war-torn China.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, Sport, War
Country: China, Hong Kong, USA
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, captivating, suspense, christian film
Similar in 78%
April 9th (2015)
Plot Summary:
In the early morning of April 9th 1940 the Danish army is alerted. The Germans have crossed the border; Denmark is at war against Europe's strongest army. In Southern Jutland Danish bicycle- and motorcycle companies are ordered out, to against all odds, hold back the forces until the Danish reinforcements can be mobilized. In the fatal hours, we follow second lieutenant Sand and his bicycle company - they will as the first Danish soldiers meet the enemy in combat on April 9th 1940.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: Denmark
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, tense, suspense, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Back to 1942 (2012)
Plot Summary:
In 1942, Henan Province was devastated by the most tragic famine in modern Chinese history, resulting in the deaths of at least three million men, women and children. Although the primary cause of the famine was a severe drought, it was exacerbated by locusts, windstorms, earthquakes, epidemic disease and the corruption of the ruling Kuomintang government.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: China
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, captivating, bleak, realistic, intense
Similar in 75%
City of Life and Death (2009)
Plot Summary:
City of Life and Death takes place in 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the then-capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: China, Hong Kong
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, black and white, tense, captivating, depressing, breathtaking, political, dark
Similar in 83%
The Children of Huang Shi (2008)
Plot Summary:
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Australia, China, Germany, USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, captivating, inspirational, social, novela, realistic
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The Flowers of War (2011)
Plot Summary:
A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 55000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, War
Country: China
Duration: 146 min
Plot tags: touching, emotional, realistic, harsh, visually stunning, brutal, sentimental, rough, bleak, serious
Similar in 75%
John Rabe (2009)
Plot Summary:
A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History, War
Country: France, China, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain
Duration: 134 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, disturbing, bleak, serious, uplifting, epic, edutainment, emotional, contemplative