War films

Battle Over Britain review – Spitfires duke it out in derring-do war drama
A squadron of fighter pilots is depicted over 24 hours in 1940 in Callum Burn’s stripped-down-to-the-rivets tale
Leslie Felperin
27, Nov, 2023 @1:00 PM

Gurkha Warrior review – true story of a daring rescue in the Malay jungle
Real-life retired Gurkha Ritesh Chams adds authenticity in the lead role, but the script brims with cliches and sentimentality
Leslie Felperin
07, Nov, 2023 @9:00 AM

King and Country review – Joseph Losey’s brutal reflection on the futility of war
Tom Courtenay is unforgettable as a first world war private on trial for desertion. But it is Dirk Bogarde, dripping with distaste for his defendant who delivers a horrific coup de grâce
Peter Bradshaw
03, Nov, 2023 @7:00 AM

Klondike review – Ukrainian-Russian couple face war on their doorstep
An expectant husband-and-wife’s lives are shattered when their home in Donbas is hit by a bomb in Maryna Er Gorbach’s powerful drama
Leslie Felperin
03, Oct, 2023 @8:00 AM

Father and Soldier review – Omar Sy anchors first world war drama on France’s colonial legacy
The normally irrepressible Sy is stranded in cinematic no man’s land in this familial story of the French army’s Senegalese corps
Phil Hoad
02, Oct, 2023 @10:00 AM

‘Then the black rain fell’: survivor’s recollections of Hiroshima inspire new film
The 230-page unpublished memoir will reflect the horrors suffered by ordinary Japanese citizens in a feature-length drama
Dalya Alberge
03, Sep, 2023 @6:00 AM

Comandante review – fun, if you ignore the voice in your head telling you it’s wrong
Edoardo de Angelis’s new film was made in collaboration with the Italian navy, which clarifies the pervasive sense that it’s attempting to launder Italy’s wartime reputation
Catherine Bray
30, Aug, 2023 @6:15 PM

Oppenheimer review – Christopher Nolan’s volatile biopic is a towering achievement
As the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, Cillian Murphy is a 20th-century Frankenstein whose catastrophic creation unravels across a tangle of timelines in Nolan’s expansive drama
Wendy Ide
22, Jul, 2023 @2:00 PM

Streaming: the best films about the atomic bomb
Ahead of Christopher Nolan’s biopic of ‘father of the atomic bomb’ J Robert Oppenheimer, in cinemas next week, we explore the bomb’s legacy on film, from Hiroshima Mon Amour to Dr Strangelove
Guy Lodge
16, Jul, 2023 @7:00 AM

‘War criminals: whatever you do, we’ll record it’: the ‘merciless’ Ukrainian film about Mariupol
20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov traces the Russian siege of the port in harrowing detail. Here, he discusses his documentary with a fellow war reporter
Ed Vulliamy in Kyiv
11, Jun, 2023 @4:00 AM

Sisu review – one deadly Finn meets a lot of exploding Nazis
This gleefully gory B-movie romp follows a grizzled prospector as he exacts revenge in inventive ways on the troops who stole his gold
Wendy Ide
28, May, 2023 @11:00 AM

Sisu review – grisly feast of extravagant violence as Finnish hero slaughters Nazis
Cheerfully entertaining action film follows a granite-faced Finnish gold miner with a hunting knife as he kills the enemy in wildly silly ways
Cath Clarke
24, May, 2023 @10:00 AM
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