The Best World War II Movies and TV Shows on HBO

What it's about: Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as their journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men from paratrooper training in Georgia through the end of the war. As an elite rifle company parachuting into Normandy early on D-Day morning, participants in the Battle of the Bulge, and witness to the horrors of war, the men of Easy knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear - and became the stuff of legend. Based on Stephen E. Ambrose's acclaimed book of the same name.

Where to Watch: 10 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO). 10 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

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

What it's about: A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $19.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were arch-enemies, they were closest of friends, working together with other mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Track the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines – Robert Leckie, John Basilone, and Eugene Sledge – across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War II. A companion piece to the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers.

Where to Watch: 10 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, HBO MAX & HBO). 10 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $4.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (Google Play, Microsoft & 2 others).

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 stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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 & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: The historical recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi and SS leaders gathered in a Berlin suburb to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, this group of high ranking German officials came to the historic and far reaching decision that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated in what would come to be known as the Holocaust.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $7.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

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 stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, HBO & Cinemax) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $19.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter (Gemma Arterton) works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters (Lily Knight and Francesca Knight) who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In the midst of World War II, the battle under the sea rages and the Nazis have the upper hand as the Allies are unable to crack their war codes. However, after a wrecked U-boat sends out an SOS signal, the Allies realise this is their chance to seize the 'enigma coding machine'.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: England, early 20th century. The future writer and philologist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) and three of his schoolmates create a strong bond between them as they share the same passion for literature and art, a true fellowship that strengthens as they grow up, but the outbreak of World War I threatens to shatter it.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Microsoft & 2 others).

What it's about: Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of thermonuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A meditation on youth, war and stunning bravery, featuring footage, taken from the National Archives, from the documentary filmed in 1943 by legendary Hollywood director William Wyler about the famous Memphis Belle flying fortress and the gripping narration from some of the last surviving B-17 pilots.

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

What it's about: A love story offering an intimate look inside the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill during a particularly troubled, though little-known, moment in their lives.

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

What it's about: During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the "Tuskegee Airman" for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The true story of the most decorated dog in American military history -- Sgt. Stubby -- and the enduring bonds he forged with his brothers-in-arms in the trenches of World War I.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: In the nine months prior to World War II, 10.000 innocent children left behind their families, their homes, their childhood, and took the journey... to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: During the Second World War, Eugene enlists in the US Army during the last year of the War and is sent to basic training in Biloxi Mississippi. There he must live with a variety of fellow soldiers while enduring the whims of a mentally unstable drill sergeant.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, Disney+ & HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The story of a love triangle between a conservative English aristocrat, his mean socialite wife and a young suffragette in the midst of World War I and a Europe on the brink of profound change.

Where to Watch: 5 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO). 5 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.

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

What it's about: This powerful follow-up to “The Gathering Storm” follows Churchill from 1940 to 1945 as he guided his beleaguered nation through the crucible of the war years--even as his marriage was encountering its own struggles.

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

What it's about: Compiled over two years, an 'on-camera oral history' of Easy Company, told by the veterans themselves. Accompanies the mini-series Band of Brothers.

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

What it's about: An in-depth investigation into the private world of the American writer J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), who lived most of his life behind the impenetrable wall of a self-imposed seclusion: how his dramatic experiences during World War II influenced his life and work, his relationships with very young women, his obsessive writing methods, his many literary secrets.

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

What it's about: Coproduced by the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute,this Academy Award-winning documentary relates the harrowing story of Gerda Weissmann Klein and her journey of survival and remembering both before and after the war.

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