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

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 $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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: 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: 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 & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 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), stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM) & rent or buy from $3.99 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.

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

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: 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 & TVision) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Microsoft & 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) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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: 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: 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: 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: Broadway producer, Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming little old ladies to invest in a production many times over what it will actually cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (TBS & TNT) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 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: This remake of four episodes of the popular television series 'The Twilight Zone. Each is very true to its original, where eerie and disturbing situations gradually spin out of control. The film consists of four chapters: 'Time Out' (directed by John Landis), 'Kick the Can' (Steven Spielberg), 'It's a Good Life' (Joe Dante), and 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' (George Miller).

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: 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: 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: 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: Detective Hoffman is seemingly the last person alive to carry on the Jigsaw legacy. But when his secret is threatened, he must go on the hunt to eliminate all the loose ends.

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: 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: 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).

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: Mr. Roberts is as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

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, 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: The Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield begins a romance with William Sherman who lives across the street. Marjorie has to learn how to dance and act like a proper young lady. Unfortunately William Sherman has unconventional ideas for the time. His ideas include not believing in marriage or money, which causes friction with Marjorie's father, who is the local bank vice president

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (HBO MAX) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Vudu).

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: 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).