Best movies like Letters from Iwo Jima

Similar in 87%

To End All Wars (2001)

Plot Summary:

Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon (Ciaran McMenamin), Lt. Jim Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland) and Maj. Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.

Similar in 75%

Cross of Iron (1977)

Plot Summary:

It is 1943, and the German army, ravaged and demoralised, are hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of all this madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich are still vastly superior to the Russian army; however within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors. Steiner's lack of respect results in a growing animosity between the two.

Similar in 90%

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

Plot Summary:

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.

Similar in 80%

55 Days at Peking (1963)

Plot Summary:

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.

Similar in 78%

Empire of the Sun (1987)

Plot Summary:

Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor named Basie, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirits, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.

Similar in 88%

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.

Similar in 87%

Fortress of War (2010)

Plot Summary:

A war drama set during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, in which Russian troops held on to a border stronghold for nine days. The film shows the heroic defense of Brest Fortress, which has taken upon the first stroke of German fascist invaders on June 22 1941.

Similar in 76%

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

Plot Summary:

Mallory and Miller are back. The survivors of Navarone are sent on a mission along with a unit called Force 10, which is led by Colonel Barnsby. But Force 10 has a mission of their own which the boys know nothing about.

Similar in 88%

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Plot Summary:

There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen – John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes, who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.

Similar in 80%

The Bridge at Remagen (1969)

Plot Summary:

In March of 1945, as the War in Europe is coming to a close, fighting erupts between German and American troops at the last remaining bridgehead across the Rhine.

Similar in 77%

Gettysburg (1993)

Plot Summary:

Summer 1863. The Confederacy pushes north into Pennsylvania. Union divisions converge to face them. The two great armies clash at Gettysburg, site of a theology school. For three days, through such legendary actions as Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge, the fate of "one nation, indivisible" hangs in the balance.

Similar in 81%

Battle of the Bulge (1965)

Plot Summary:

In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent this occurrence, Hitler orders an all out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp. "The Battle of the Bulge" shows this conflict from the perspective of an American intelligence officer as well as from a German Panzer Commander.

Similar in 78%

The Great Raid (2005)

Plot Summary:

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

Similar in 76%

Unbroken (2014)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.

Similar in 80%

Defiance (2008)

Plot Summary:

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.

Similar in 79%

Windtalkers (2002)

Plot Summary:

Joe Enders is a gung-ho Marine assigned to protect a "windtalker" - one of several Navajo Indians who were used to relay messages during World War II because their spoken language was indecipherable to Japanese code breakers.

Similar in 83%

War Horse (2011)

Plot Summary:

Follows a young man named Albert and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches of World War One. Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend.

Similar in 85%

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Plot Summary:

A Bridge Too Far tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the failed attempt by the allies to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland and allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German Panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine, the titular 'bridge too far') was doomed to failure.

Similar in 85%

Platoon (1986)

Plot Summary:

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Similar in 88%

The Pacific (2010)

Plot Summary:

A 10-part mini-series from the creators of "Band of Brothers" telling the intertwined stories of three Marines during America's battle with the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II.

Similar in 81%

Band of Brothers (2001)

Plot Summary:

Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as their journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men from paratrooper training in Georgia through the end of the war. As an elite rifle company parachuting into Normandy early on D-Day morning, participants in the Battle of the Bulge, and witness to the horrors of war, the men of Easy knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear - and became the stuff of legend. Based on Stephen E. Ambrose's acclaimed book of the same name.

Similar in 88%

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Plot Summary:

Based on the graphic novel by James Jones, The Thin Red Line tells the story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived. A powerful frontline cast - including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson and George Clooney - explodes into action in this hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II.

Similar in 78%

Enemy at the Gates (2001)

Plot Summary:

Enemy at the Gates is a war film from Jean-Jacques Annaud from 2001 that takes place during the battle of Stalingard in World War II between the Russians and the Germans.

Similar in 76%

1917 (2019)

Plot Summary:

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield and Blake are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake's own brother among them.

Similar in 78%

Dunkirk (2017)

Plot Summary:

The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.

Similar in 75%

We Were Soldiers (2002)

Plot Summary:

The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.

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The Last Samurai (2003)

Plot Summary:

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

Similar in 81%

The Patriot (2000)

Plot Summary:

After proving himself on the field of battle in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin wants nothing more to do with such things, preferring the simple life of a farmer. But when his son Gabriel enlists in the army to defend their new nation, America, against the British, Benjamin reluctantly returns to his old life to protect his son.

Similar in 78%

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Plot Summary:

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Similar in 86%

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Plot Summary:

As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.