The Best World War II Movies and TV Shows on Free Services

What it's about: In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Hulu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A rule bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle & IMDb TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A man working for the War Crimes Commission suspects that an important Nazi official has folded himself into a quaint Connecticut town.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, Prime Video, Starz & 3 others), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: The Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (Google Play, Microsoft & 2 others).

What it's about: A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: True story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to thrilling, dramatic life. Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch in a luminous performance as the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Armed with long-buried historical records of her incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Secret agent OSS 117 foils Nazis, beds local beauties, and brings peace to the Middle East.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a subscription service (Fandor & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Gilligan's Island is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to September 4, 1967. Originally sponsored by Philip Morris & Company and Procter & Gamble, the show followed the comic adventures of seven castaways as they attempted to survive the island on which they had been shipwrecked. Most episodes revolve around the dissimilar castaways' conflicts and their failed attempts to escape their plight.Gilligan's Island ran for a total of 98 episodes. The first season, consisting of 36 episodes, was filmed in black-and-white. These episodes were later colorized for syndication. The show's second and third seasons and the three television movie sequels were filmed in color.The show enjoyed solid ratings during its original run, then grew in popularity during decades of syndication, especially in the 1970s and 1980s when many markets ran the show in the late afternoon after school. Today, the title character of Gilligan is widely recognized as an American cultural icon.

Where to Watch: 98 episodes (100%) are available to watch free online (IMDb TV). 98 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In December 1941, Czech soldier Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš parachute into their occupied homeland to assassinate Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (IMDb TV), stream on a subscription service (Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins' merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women - one a Jewish member of the underground, the other an exemplar of Nazi motherhood.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Sundance Now).

What it's about: Widowed shopkeeper Cesira and her 13-year-old daughter Rosetta flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second World War; they travel to the remote village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village and onward, the mother does everything she can to protect Rosetta. Meanwhile, a sensitive young intellectual, Michele, falls in love with Cesira.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (SnagFilms), stream on a subscription service (FilmBox) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. A military lawyer, also a black man, is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Captain Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill Sergeant Waters.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & FandangoNOW).

What it's about: On 9 April 1940, German soldiers arrive in the city of Oslo. The King of Norway faces a choice that will change his country forever. The King's Choice is a story about the three most dramatic days in Norway's history, the royal family's escape and King Haakon's difficult choice after Nazi Germany's invasion of Norway.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: 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.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & ConTV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country during which, Axel challenges Eyal's values.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & PlayStation Store).

What it's about: In 1948, a group of World War II pilots volunteered to fight for Israel in the War of Independence.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: World War II was not just the most destructive conflict in humanity, it was also the greatest theft in history: lives, families, communities, property, culture and heritage were all stolen. The story of Nazi Germany's plundering of Europe's great works of art during World War II and Allied efforts to minimize the damage.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Fandor) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: On a rainy London night in 1946, novelist Maurice Bendrix has a chance meeting with Henry Miles, husband of his ex-mistress Sarah, who abruptly ended their affair two years before. Bendrix's obsession with Sarah is rekindled; he succumbs to his own jealousy and arranges to have her followed.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle & IMDb TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix), stream on a subscription service (Fandor & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In 1980, the US Navy's most powerful warship, the USS Nimitz, is caught in a storm during routine maneuvers in the Pacific. Enveloped by a strange green light, the ship passes through a vortex and when they emerge, their communications have been cut off. The ship's Captain sends out a patrol and the F-14 pilots are shocked to encounter vintage Japanese warplanes.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (Google Play, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: Neighborhood boy Todd Bowden discovers that an old man living on his block named Arthur Denker is nazi war criminal. Bowden confronts Denker and offers him a deal: Bowden will not go to the authorities if Denker tells him stories of the concentration camps in WWII...

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: A feature documentary about the people and the planes that helped win World War War II. Through people personally connected to the events, the film investigates the story of how the Spitfire, its stable-mate, the Hawker Hurricane and its great adversary, the Messerschmitt 109 came into being during the huge advances in aviation in the interwar period—and then how the pilots fared in combat, three miles up in the skies over Europe, Africa and Asia.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (Google Play, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: Zeitgeist: the Movie is a 2007 documentary film by Peter Joseph examining possible historical and modern conspiracies surrounding Christianity, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Federal Reserve bank. It was officially released online on June 18, 2007 on www.ZeitgeistMovie.com

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Daring Docs) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Winner of a Best Documentary Academy Award, Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape--with U.S. help--to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (SnagFilms).

What it's about: A hardcore American racist skinhead who, because of his intelligence, leads a gang dedicated to fighting the enemy: the supposed American-Jewish conspiracy for domination. However, he's hiding a secret: he's Jewish-born, a brilliant scholar whose questioning of the tenets of his faith has left him angry and confused, turning against those who he thinks have a tragic history of their own making.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

What it's about: A Nazi doctor who had a fetish for young boys feels guilt after torturing and murdering his latest victim, and throws himself off a roof. Some years later, the doctor, confined to an iron lung, accepts as his nurse a boy who secretly witnessed that killing.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & stream on a subscription service (Shudder).

What it's about: In the last moments of World War II, a secret Nazi space program evaded destruction by fleeing to the Dark Side of the Moon. During 70 years of utter secrecy, the Nazis construct a gigantic space fortress with a massive armada of flying saucers.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

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 (PopcornFlix, SnagFilms & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Dove Channel, Secrets of Cinema & 2 others), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: The Marx Brothers are employed at a hotel in postwar Casablanca, where a ring of Nazis is trying to recover a cache of stolen treasure.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Shout Factory TV & Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A child escapes from Poland during World War II and first heads to Greece before coming of age in Canada.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Based on a true story. On 27 April 1940, Luftwaffe pilot Horst Schopis' Heinkel 111 bomber is shot down near Grotli by an RAF Blackburn Skua L2940 fighter, which then crash-lands. The surviving German and English crew members begin to at shoot each other, but later find themselves huddled up in the same cabin. In order to survive the harsh winter in the Norwegian wilderness, they have to stand together. An unlikely, lifelong friendship blossoms.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a subscription service (Warriors Gangsters) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: It's been six days since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Panic grips California, supposedly the next target of the Japanese forces. Everywhere in California, people are suffering from war nerves. Chaos erupts all over the state. An Army Air Corps Captain, a civilian with a deranged sense of Nationalism, civilian defenders, and a Motor Pool crew all end up chasing a Japanese sub planning to attack LA.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: This is a drama set in Nazi-occupied France at the height of World War II. Charlotte Gray tells the compelling story of a young Scottish woman working with the French Resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot. Based on the best-selling novel by Sebastian Faulks.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a subscription service (Shudder) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Drama set in 1942, during one of the most important battles of World War II, which stopped the progress of Nazi forces and turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Soviet army mounts a counter-attack on the Nazi forces that occupy half of Stalingrad on the other side of the Volga, but the operation to cross the river is unsuccessful. A few soldiers who managed to get to the other side take refuge in a house on the bank of Volga. Here they find a girl who didn’t escape when the Germans came. While the whole might of the German army descends onto them, the heroes of Stalingrad experience love, loss, joy and the sense of ultimate freedom that can only be felt by those about to die. They defend the house at all costs while the Red Army prepares for another attack.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: An FBI cold case that has laid dormant for 70 years, leads a group of world-renown investigators on the ultimate manhunt to finally answer the question: Did Adolf Hitler survive World War II?

Where to Watch: 5 episodes (20%) are available to watch free online (History). 22 episodes (88%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu). 21 episodes (84%) are available to stream on a TV everywhere service (History). 23 episodes (92%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In the 1940s, school teacher Fang Lan becomes embroiled with the resistance efforts of local guerilla group Dongjiang during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Fang is recruited by one of the resistance group's captain Blackie Lau after assisting the group with a rescue mission of novelist Mao Dun. Fang's mother volunteers to take her place as a courier for a mission and is arrested. To save her mother, Fang finds herself turning to a childhood sweetheart, who now works at the Japanese occupation headquarters.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & FandangoNOW).

What it's about: Anna Friel stars in classy wartime drama The War Bride. She plays Lily, an orphan who suddenly finds herself married, with child and living with hostile in-laws in the wilds of Canada.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (IMDb TV) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).