The Best World War II Movies and TV Shows on The Criterion Channel

What it's about: Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.80 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: A realistic portrayal of the underground resistance in Italy in 1945. The film has strong impacting imagery with its mix of fiction and reality that strengthened Italian Neo-realism and the film industry.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & FilmBox) & rent or buy from $2.85 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: The European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Johnny Jones, an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, has a nose for a good story—which promptly leads him to the crime of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring and—not entirely coincidentally—falls in love.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy & 1 other), stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: The crew of the merchant ship Glencairn hope to survive a transatlantic crossing during World War II. Adapted from four Eugene O'Neill one-act plays.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy & 1 other) & stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM).

What it's about: In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: An eccentric Scotland Yard inspector thinks something beamed from a spy ship is dropping planes.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A gentle widower, enraged at Nazi atrocities against his peaceful Norwegian fishing village, escapes to Britain and returns leading a commando force against the oppressors.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: This early, influential propaganda film blends documentary and studio footage to show the valiant efforts of the Royal Air Force to defend the British people against the Nazis.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.00 on 1 service (Vudu).

What it's about: During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy).

What it's about: In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.80 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Postwar Germany, 1945. Leopold Kessler, an American of German descent, works as a sleeping car conductor for the Zentropa railway line. When he meets Katharina Hartmann, the railroad owner's daughter, and they fall in love, his life intersects with the dark and violent path of a mysterious organization opposed to the United States army military occupation.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy).

What it's about: Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.60 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are cornerstones of the film, it is based upon a true story.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy).

What it's about: General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: One-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy steps off a train at the sleepy little town of Black Rock. Once there, he begins to unravel a web of lies, secrecy, and murder.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: It's May 1945, and Nazi Germany has just surrendered. The war is over, but not in Poland. As the German soldiers vacate, the remaining Russian forces and Polish resistance fighters must work out the hierarchies of power in "liberated" Communist Poland. A Polish assassin is given orders to kill a Russian soldier whom he, days before, was fighting alongside, and this moral conflict makes him question the goals for which he has been fighting.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: The final film in Rossellini's war film trilogy (the first two being Rome, Open City and Paisà). Germany Year Zero takes place in post-war Germany, unlike the others, which take place in German-occupied Rome and post-war Italy, respectively. The story follows a twelve-year-old boy, Edmund Kohler, who is mainly left to his own devices in order to survive and to help his family do the same.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, The Criterion Channel & FilmBox).

What it's about: In the early days of World War II, a German U-boat is sunk in Canada's Hudson Bay. Hoping to evade capture, a small band of German soldiers led by commanding officer Lieutenant Hirth attempts to cross the border into the United States, which has not yet entered the war and is officially neutral. Along the way, the German soldiers encounter brave men such as a French-Canadian fur trapper, Johnnie, a leader of a Hutterite farming community, Peter, an author, Philip and a soldier, Andy Brock.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Hoopla) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (Philo, The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides to visit his mother. Due to his kindhearted nature, however, Alyosha is repeatedly sidetracked by his efforts to help those he encounters, including a lovely girl named Shura. In his tour of a country devastated by war, he struggles to keep hope alive.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: The story of the HMS Torrin, from it's construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship's first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: 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.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: Noriko lives in postwar Tokyo with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her friends, her more traditionally minded family worries about the fact that she's still single at the advanced age of 28. When 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes marriage, Noriko's family press her into accepting. But when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: An American doughboy, stationed in France during the Great War, goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines and becomes a hero.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A tale of the World War I love affair, begun in Italy, between American ambulance driver Lt. Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley. Eventually separated by Frederic's transfer, tremendous challenges and difficult decisions face each as the war rages on.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Plex), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Paramount+, Epix & 5 others), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A Japanese pacifist and socialist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting a young lover ...

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: Three modern day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town on the way to Canterbury.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: In the closing days of WWII remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain starvation.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Kanopy).

What it's about: During the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising following World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Kanopy).

What it's about: In a small town in occupied France in 1941, the German officer, Werner Von Ebrennac is billeted in the house of the uncle and his niece. The uncle and niece refuse to speak to him, but each evening the officer warms himself by the fire and talks of his country, his music, and his idealistic views of the relationship between France and Germany. That is, until he visits Paris and discovers what is really going on...

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: In the midst of Nazi air raids, a postman dies on the operating table at a rural hospital. But was the death accidental?

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: During World War II, a young man is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-day, June 6th, 1944.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.80 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: This 1942 fictionalized biopic chronicles the true story of how two of the most remarkable men in aviation history - visionary Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell and his test pilot Geoffrey Crisp - designed a streamlined monoplane that led to the development of the Spitfire.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: At the height of World War II, the Germans begin dropping a new type of booby-trapped bomb on England. Sammy Rice, a highly-skilled but haunted bomb-disposal officer, must overcome his personal demons to defeat this new threat.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel).

What it's about: The stories of several young women who work in a 'precision optical instruments' factory during the second World War. Despite illness, injury, and tremendous personal hardship, the women persevere in their tasks, devoted to their work and their country's cause.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a subscription service (The Criterion Channel & FilmBox).