The Best World War II Movies and TV Shows on HBO MAX

What it's about: 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.

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

What it's about: In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

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

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 stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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: An Amazon princess comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

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 $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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 (HBO MAX, HBO & Prime Video). 10 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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: 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.

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

What it's about: Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.

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

What it's about: Two protagonists love each other, but because of their current situation, cannot find a way to be together.

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

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: 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". Lead 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

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

What it's about: ROME, OPEN CITY is a landmark in film history. Filmed in secrecy during the Nazi occupation of Italy, the film shows 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, FilmBox & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: 12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.

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

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

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: 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 stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX, HBO & Hoopla), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed (1887-1920), who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant (1885-1936).

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

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) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

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, FilmBox, The Criterion Channel & 1 other) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

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: 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

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: 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: 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, FilmBox & The Criterion Channel).

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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Gellert Grindelwald has escaped imprisonment and has begun gathering followers to his cause—elevating wizards above all non-magical beings. The only one capable of putting a stop to him is the wizard he once called his closest friend, Albus Dumbledore. However, Dumbledore will need to seek help from the wizard who had thwarted Grindelwald once before, his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 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) & stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

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, Shout Factory TV & 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.

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 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 stream on a popular TV everywhere service (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: A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX & HBO), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (HBO) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: In the aftermath of World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German widower who lives with them.

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

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 & Kanopy).