In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish waiter named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.

In late 1944, even as they faced imminent defeat, the Nazis expended enormous resources to kill or deport over 425,000 Jews during the "cleansing" of Hungary. This Oscar-winning documentary, executive produced by

True World War II story about Jan Baalsrud, one of the 12 saboteurs sent in 1943 from England to the Nazi occupied Northern Norway. After their boat is sunk by the Germans, Jan goes on the run towards the neutral Sweden. However, the brutal weather conditions turn out to possibly be an even greater foe than the Nazi patrols.

Set in 1944 France, in the Ardennes forest region, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and share a Christmas celebration. The surrender plan includes a mock battle that turns bad when one of the soldiers is unaware of the surrender plan.

Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwaffe veteran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.

Five present-day directors discuss five wartime directors who voluntarily joined WW2 in order to film it: William Wyler (presented by Steven Spielberg), Frank Capra (Guillermo del Toro), George Stevens (Laurence Kasdan), John Ford (Paul Greengrass) and John Huston (Francis Ford Coppola). Narrated by Meryl Streep and written by Mark Harris (adapted from his 2015 book Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War).

In 1939, three men attempt to flee communist Russia, escaping a Siberian gulag. This movie tells their story and that of four others who escaped with them and a teenage girl, Irena Zielinska, who joins them in flight. The group's natural leader is Janusz Weiszczek, a Pole condemned by accusations secured by torturing his wife, spent much of his youth outdoors, and knows how to live in the wild. They escape under cover of a snowstorm: cynical American Mr. Smith, Russian thug Valka, comedic accountant Zoran, pastry chef Tomasz Horodinsky, who draws, Priest Andrejs Voss, and Polish Kazik, who suffers from night blindness. They face freezing nights, lack of food and water, mosquitoes, an endless desert, the Himalayas, as well as many moral and ethical dilemmas throughout the journey towards freedom.

During WW II, allied POWs in a Japanese internment camp are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge, but under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson they're persuaded the bridge should be built to help morale, spirit. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of Japanese Commandant Colonel Saito, but soon they realise it's a monument to Nicholson, himself, as well as a form of collaboration with the enemy.

Two days in the life of Saul Auslander, Hungarian prisoner working as a member of the Sonderkommando at one of the Auschwitz Crematoriums who, to bury the corpse of a boy he takes for his son, tries to carry out his impossible deed: salvage the body and find a rabbi to bury it. While the Sonderkommando is to be liquidated at any moment, Saul turns away of the living and their plans of rebellion to save the remains of a son he never took care of when he was still alive.

2015 Hungarian drama film directed by László Nemes

Director Chris Weitz's historical thriller is based on the story of how a group of Israeli secret agents arrested notorious SS officer Adolf Eichmann - the man who masterminded the "Final Solution" - in Argentina. Oscar Isaac plays the legendary Mossad agent Peter Malkin, while Ben Kingsley plays his emotionally manipulative arch-nemesis. After tracking Eichmann down to Buenos Aires, Malkin and his men captured him and brought him to Israel for a historic 8-month trial.

Inspired by a true story. Jun Shik works for Tatsuo's grandfather's farm while Korea is colonized by Japan, but he has a dream to participate in Tokyo Olympics as a marathon runner. Tatsuo also aims to become a marathon runner, so the two are in rivalry. But war breaks out and they both are forced to enlist in the army. Tatsuo becomes the head of defense in Jun Shik's unit and he devises a scheme but fails. Jun Shik and Tatsuo are captured by the Soviets. They run away but soon are captured by Germans and forced to separate. In 1944, they meet again at the shores of Normandy.

2011 South Korean war film by Kang Je-gyu

Italy, 1944. As the war takes its toll on Allied forces in Europe, a squadron of black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen are finally given the chance to prove themselves in the sky - even as they battle discrimination on the ground. It's a tribute to the unsung heroes who rose above extraordinary challenges and ultimately soared into history.

The Pacific follows the lives of a U.S Marine Corps squad during the campaign within the Pacific against the Japanese Empire during WW2. Made by the creators of Band of Brothers, it follows a similar line of thought to outline the hardships of the common man during war. The Pacific is in parts a fast paced war series that can be enjoyed by action lovers whilst containing a more sensitive side when projecting the relationships (brotherhood) of Marines on the battlefield. Where The Pacific takes a new direction from its "older brother" is in its depiction of the lives of soldiers who were picked to return home to increase the sales of war bonds. In doing this it also depicts the life cycle of returned soldiers from initial joy to the eventual feeling of regret and to a certain extent shame felt by soldiers wanting to return to the war in service of either their comrades or nation.

This is the story of "E" Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division from their initial training starting in 1942 to the end of World War II. They parachuted behind enemy lines in the early hours of D-Day in support of the landings at Utah beach, participated in the liberation of Carentan and again parachuted into action during Operation Market Garden. They also liberated a concentration camp and were the first to enter Hitler's mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. A fascinating tale of comradeship that is, in the end, a tale of ordinary men who did extraordinary things.

My World War 2 picks

More lists by Kieran O'Dowd

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