Best movies — guerre on Apple TV+ : our Top 20

1998 · Steven Spielberg

As Allied forces sweep onto the beaches of Normandy, three brothers are killed in combat and a fourth is left stranded behind enemy lines. Captain John Miller, a U.S. Army Ranger, leads a seven-man squad on a dangerous incursion into German-held territory to find the young soldier and bring him home.

With Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg and Vin Diesel

1986 · Oliver Stone

An inexperienced soldier sent to Vietnam, Chris Taylor watches his idealism crumble as the savagery of combat forces him to face a wrenching moral dilemma and the disturbing coexistence of compassion and cruelty within himself and those around him.

With Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, John C. McGinley and Richard Edson

2008 · Mark Herman

After his family moves from Berlin to an isolated house in wartime Poland, young Bruno, restless and curious, explores the surrounding grounds and discovers Shmuel, a thin boy confined behind a barbed-wire fence where everyone beyond it wears striped uniforms. Oblivious to Shmuel’s status as a Jewish prisoner and to the fact that Bruno’s father holds a senior position connected to the camp, Bruno’s friendship blinds him to the danger until his determination drives him to attempt a risky crossing into the enclosure to be with his friend.

With Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, David Hayman and Sheila Hancock

2019 · Sam Mendes

During the fiercest days of the First World War, two young British soldiers are forced to cross enemy territory to deliver a vital message that could avert a deadly assault on hundreds of their comrades.

With George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq and Colin Firth

1998 · Terrence Malick

A band of soldiers from an Army rifle company known as "C‑for‑Charlie" is tested to its limits on Guadalcanal, undergoing physical and emotional transformations as the campaign grinds on. Their voyage begins with an eerily easy landing, but soon gives way to relentless, brutal engagements that strip away illusions and force each man to confront fear, loss, and what it means to endure. Through confusion, comradeship, and sacrifice, they are remade by war — and the story closes with the quiet, hard-won departure of the handful who survive.

With Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Adrien Brody, Ben Chaplin, Elias Koteas, John Cusack and Woody Harrelson

1970 · Franklin J. Schaffner

A cinematic portrait of General George S. Patton, this film traces the rise of a brilliant and contentious U.S. armor commander during World War II. It follows his campaigns from the deserts of North Africa to the advance into Germany and the eventual collapse of the Third Reich, while also examining the darker side of his character—his explosive temper, frequent clashes with superiors, and tendency toward insubordination—and how those flaws affected his career and legacy.

With George C. Scott, Stephen Young, Frank Latimore, Karl Michael Vogler, Karl Malden, Michael Strong and Carey Loftin

2013 · Brian Percival

In wartime Germany, young Liesel copes with fear by quietly lifting books and circulating their stories to anyone who will listen. Hidden in a cramped space beneath the family’s staircase, a Jewish refugee is kept safe by her adoptive parents, forging a fragile household bond amid the dangers and deprivations of the Nazi era.

With Geoffrey Rush, Sophie Nélisse, Emily Watson, Nico Liersch, Ben Schnetzer, Heike Makatsch and Barbara Auer

1995 · Richard Loncraine

When multiple pipe bombs detonate at a packed concert, quick-thinking security guard Richard Jewell springs into action, helping evacuate attendees and averting far greater loss of life — only to find himself the target of a bungled FBI investigation and a frenzied media onslaught that wrongly casts him as the perpetrator.

With Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr., Kristin Scott Thomas, Adrian Dunbar and Maggie Smith

2001 · Jean-Jacques Annaud

In the shattered streets of Stalingrad during World War II, a Soviet sniper and his German counterpart become embroiled in a tense, lethal duel of wits and patience, stalking one another through ruined buildings and burning ruins as the city itself collapses around them.

With Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman and Eva Mattes

2006 · Ken Loach

In 1920s Ireland, young physician Damien O'Donovan is poised to leave for a hospital appointment in London when a visit to a friend's farm is shattered by an incursion of British Black and Tans that leaves a local man dead. Shocked and outraged, Damien enlists alongside his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but the escalating political turmoil and moral compromises of the struggle drive an increasing wedge between them.

With Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Orla Fitzgerald, Gerard Kearney, William Ruane and Roger Allam

1980 · François Truffaut

By decree of King Charles VI, Sir Jean de Carrouges is forced to resolve his bitter feud with his estranged squire, Jacques Le Gris, by facing him in a formally sanctioned duel.

With Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Poiret, Andréa Ferréol, Paulette Dubost, Jean-Louis Richard and Maurice Risch

1996 ·

A Hungarian cartographer hired by the Royal Geographical Society spends the 1930s leading expeditions across the Sahara alongside renowned explorers, mapping its endless sands. When World War II erupts, his work and relationships are drawn into a tangled web of passion, betrayal and political maneuvering that will redefine his fate.

With Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth and Julian Wadham

2010 · Roselyne Bosch

A rigorously researched, historically grounded dramatization that reconstructs the 1942 Vel' d'Hiv roundup and the circumstances leading up to it as well as its immediate aftermath.

With Jean Reno, Mélanie Laurent, Gad Elmaleh, Raphaëlle Agogué, Sylvie Testud, Hugo Leverdez and Oliver Cywie

2002 · Atom Egoyan

A childless couple—one a recently released convict, the other a former police officer—take in one of a wealthy family's quintuplets and raise the child as their own; what begins as a second chance at family soon becomes far more complicated than they ever expected.

With Simon Abkarian, Charles Aznavour, Christopher Plummer, Arsinée Khanjian, David Alpay, Marie-Josée Croze and Elias Koteas

1977 · Richard Attenborough

Late in World War II, Allied forces mounted Operation Market Garden, a bold bid to hasten victory by seizing three strategic bridges across the Netherlands and opening a passage over the Rhine into Germany. Misjudged intelligence and the unforeseen presence of two experienced German panzer divisions doomed the campaign’s culminating goal—the bridge at Arnhem—turning the daring plan into a costly failure.

With Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould and Anthony Hopkins

2005 ·

After losing everything in the Great Recession, a woman in her sixties converts a van into a makeshift home and sets out across the American West, reinventing herself as a modern-day nomad while navigating vast landscapes, fragile connections, and the unexpected freedoms and hardships of life on the road.

With Kuno Becker, Jay Hernandez, Jason Scott Lee, Doskhan Zholzhaksynov, Ayanat Ksenbai, Mark Dacascos and Aziz Beyshenaliev

1989 · Oliver Stone

Wounded and paralyzed by his service in Vietnam, Ron Kovic, feeling abandoned by the nation he fought for, rises as a passionate opponent of the war and a relentless advocate for human rights.

With Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Holly Marie Combs, Kyra Sedgwick, Tom Berenger and Rob Camilletti

2006 · Werner Herzog

In 2018, an international coalition of divers, rescuers and volunteers mounted a desperate, against-the-odds operation to free twelve young soccer players and their coach who were trapped deep inside a flooded cave system in northern Thailand.

With Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Toby Huss, François Chau, Marshall Bell, Jeremy Davies and Pat Healy

2022 · Edward Berger

A band of idealistic young men enlist in the German army at the outbreak of World War I and, once posted to the Western Front, see their patriotic fervor torn apart by the relentless brutality and futility of trench warfare.

With Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Moritz Klaus, Adrian Grünewald, Edin Hasanović and Daniel Brühl

2015 · Alejandro Monteverde

An eight-year-old boy sets out on a courageous, single-minded quest to bring the fighting of World War II to an end and welcome his father back home. Through his hopeful, sometimes reckless actions, the film tenderly uncovers the profound, mutual devotion between parent and child — a father's selfless protectiveness and a son's unwavering love and longing.

With Jakob Salvati, Emily Watson, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Michael Rapaport, David Henrie, Ben Chaplin and Eduardo Verástegui