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Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.
Nisei Soldier focuses on the heroism of American men of Japanese ancestry who fought bravely during World War II, despite the intense moral dilemmas they faced. Leaving their families imprisoned in "relocation centers", many young Nisei (second generation American-born Japanese) proved their loyalty in WWII by enlisting in the all-Japanese American 442nd Infantry Regiment which fought in Europe. Because of the Regiment's incredible bravery in battle, liberation of French towns, and high casualty rate, it became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. The film asks: What sustained these young men forced to battle on two fronts at once -- against fascism abroad and intense prejudice at home? More than a war story, Nisei Soldier is a tale about personal honor, family loyalty and love of country -- and what it means to be an American.
The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
American soldiers, led by The Sarge, are stuck behind Nazi enemy lines. As they make their way across the Italian countryside, they come across an alien spaceship that has crash-landed in the woods. The alien pilot is dead, but one of the ship's passengers is on the loose. As the GIs hunt down the alien by splitting into smaller groups, they're not only tracked by the Nazis, but also a whole host of other aliens come to save their stranded party.
In the early years of the World War II, the Royal Navy is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open to supply the British Isles, facing the great danger posed by the many German warships, such as the Admiral Graf Spee, which are scouring the ocean for cargo ships to sink.
A documentary on the life and career of one of the most influential film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg.
World War II, 1943. Mallory and Miller, the heroes who destroyed the guns of Navarone, are sent to Yugoslavia in search of a ghost from the past.
Can a girl from Little Rock find happiness with a mature French planter she got to know one enchanted evening away from the military hospital where she is a nurse? Or should she just wash that man out of her hair? Bloody Mary is the philosopher of the island and it's hard to believe she could be the mother of Liat who has captured the heart of Lt. Joseph Cable USMC. While waiting for action in the war in the South Pacific, sailors and nurses put on a musical comedy show. The war gets closer and the saga of Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque becomes serious drama.
A group of POWs in a German prison camp during World War II play the German National Soccer Team in this powerful film depicting the role of prisoners during wartime.
Gustave Folcher, a French farmer, wrote in his 1939 diary that the summer had been long and hot. He was not alone. Many other anonymous French men and women wrote of the beauty and warmth of those summer months and how threats of war were far from their minds. Through home movies, diaries and letters, One Last Summer describes the final weeks of peace in France and the mix of blindness, denial and prophetic clear-sightedness of those facing the war that was about to unfold.
A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.
Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story is a documentary about the life and work of Michael "Mick" Ronson, the guitarist, songwriter, producer and arranger who, in the early part of his career, performed with David Bowie as one of the 'Spiders from Mars'.
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz used submarines, a vessel used to great effect by Germany in WWI and WWII to turn the tide of the War in the Pacific.
The story of Czech pilots in RAF service during the Battle of Britain, and the ongoing aerial battle in Northern Europe. It tells the story of the crews of the RAF’s No. 311 Squadron, which was mainly crewed by escaped Czech airmen, and their bombing raids during the Second World War.
In 1944 on Peleliu, Tamaru writes fake heroic tales of Japanese soldiers' deaths to families. In the hell of bombs, hunger, thirst and disease, he bonds with Yoshiki. Together they cling to life in this atrocious war of attrition. Only 34 survive. What do these two young men witness in the madness?
During the Second World War, the allies' key objective was to crack the German army's encrypted communications code. Without a doubt, the key player in this game was Alan Turing, an interdisciplinary scientist and a long-forgotten hero.
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Captured by the Red Army during World War II, Hungarian soldier András Toma was admitted to a Soviet psychiatric hospital. After disappearing from prisoner-of-war records, he was presumed dead in Hungary. Because his name was incorrectly recorded in medical documents and he spoke only Hungarian—mistaken by staff for incoherent speech—Toma spent decades misunderstood and isolated in the institution. Fifty-three years later, a visiting Slovak doctor recognised his language, triggering an investigation by Hungarian authorities. Toma was repatriated in 2000, believed to be the last prisoner of war from World War II to return home.
A U.S. Army colonel leads local fighters in a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.
Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.
Over a period of two years, Mark Cowen and his crew travelled to thirty U.S. states and ten European cities, to interview the veterans of Easy Company. The stories told by the veterans themselves, create a history of the Second World War from the point of view of this heroic company of men, made famous in the mini-series Band of Brothers.
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.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
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.
As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground, American soldiers and diplomats confront a moral quandary: whether to obey White House orders to evacuate only U.S. citizens.
With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.
"Trinity and Beyond" is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945-1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, this award-winning documentary reveals previously unreleased and classified government footage from several countries.
A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.
The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, in 2006.
American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), one of the greatest in history, but also one of the most reserved, gave few interviews throughout his long career, and none of them were filmed. A first-person journey through his life and work, based on a recorded conversation with French film critic Michel Climent.
Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.
He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.
