Movies Similar to The Natural History of Destruction

The Children Who Cheated the Nazis(2000)

A documentary about the decisions parents made in evacuating their children out of harm's way (the Nazis), and being forced to stay behind, the parents realize that this may possibly be the last time they will see their loved ones.

5.0

Midway(1976)

This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.

6.6

Battle of Britain(1969)

In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing the Nazi invasion of Britain.

6.9

Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings(2013)

British intelligence undertook an audacious operation to listen in on the private conversations of 10,000 German prisoners of war without their ever knowing they were being overheard. The prisoners' unguarded reminiscences and unintentional confessions have only just come to light, and prove how closely the German army were involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. British intelligence requisitioned three stately homes for this epic task, and converted each into an elaborate trap. The 100,000 hours of conversation they captured provided crucial intelligence that changed the course of the war, and revealed some of its worst horrors, from rape to mass executions to one of the earliest bulletins from the concentration camps. But when the fighting ended, the recordings were destroyed and the transcripts locked away for half a century. Only now have they been declassified, researched and cross-referenced.

9.5

Seven Years in Tibet(1997)

Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer journeys to the Himalayas without his family to head an expedition in 1939. But when World War II breaks out, the arrogant Harrer falls into Allied forces' hands as a prisoner of war. He escapes with a fellow detainee and makes his way to Lhasa, Tibet, where he meets the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, whose friendship ultimately transforms his outlook on life.

7.2

Gandhi(1982)

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

7.6

Night and Fog(1959)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

8.2

Judgment at Nuremberg(1961)

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

8.0

The Bridge on the River Kwai(1957)

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

7.8

Enemy at the Gates(2001)

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

7.4

Saving Private Ryan(1998)

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.

8.2

My Name Is Sara(2020)

The true life-story of Sara Góralnik, a 13 year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend’s identity and finds refuge in a small village, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers’ marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.

6.9

Cross of Iron(1977)

It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the 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 is 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.

7.1

Breakthrough(1979)

Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.

5.8

No image

Pegasus Bridge

Funding ceased due to Brexit pullout by backers. In the early hours of the 6th of June 1944 Allied Airborne Forces launched one of most daring assaults in history. 181 men in 6 gliders landed at night to capture two bridges vital to the success of the D-Day landings, one of these would become known as Pegasus Bridge.

0.0

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence(1983)

Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.

7.3

Windtalkers(2002)

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.

6.3

Goering's Catalogue: A Collection of Art and Blood(2021)

For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.

7.3

Saints and Soldiers(2003)

Five American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War II struggle to return to Allied territory after being separated from U.S. forces during the historic Malmedy Massacre.

6.3

Operation Inchon(1981)

Recounts the so-called 'Battle of Inchon', an episode at the end of World War II during the amphibious invasion of Korea, resulting in a decisive victory and a strategic reversal in favor of the Allied forces.

1.0