A History of WW2 in Movies 1937 - 1939

In 1937, Japan occupied Nanjing, the Chinese capital. There was a battle and subsequent atrocities against the inhabitants, especially those who took refuge in the International Security Zone.

The fates of Henry - a cynical American correspondent who has lost his soul - and Teresa, one of the Republic's censors and in charge of overseeing the news that journalists can send abroad, cross in Gernika.

As the Japanese troops sweep southwards from Manchuria to China proper, the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang ally to hold them back at Taihang Mountains. But their alliance proves fragile at best.

In 1937, 800 Chinese soldiers fight under siege from a warehouse in the middle of the Shanghai battlefield, completely surrounded by the Japanese army.

In the nineteenth century, a young Austrian woman marries into a wealthy family and witnesses the country change through the course of four decades.

Eddie Izzard stars in this funny, moving and inspiring factual drama about the pioneering work on radar by a little known team of scientists in the run up to the Second World War.

A British diplomat travels to Munich in the run-up to World War II, where a former classmate of his from Oxford is also en route, but is working for the German government.

While subjected to the horrors of World War II Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. In the basement of her home, a Jewish refugee is being protected by her adoptive parents.

A television adaptation of Michael Frayn's celebrated and award-winning stage play about the meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941 Copenhagen. At this time the young Heisenberg was leading a faltering German research program into nuclear energy, while the middle-aged and apparently isolated Bohr was in contact with allied agents, and still held a position of great influence in the nuclear physics research community. After the meeting the two men put different interpretations or impressions of why Heisenberg requested the meeting, and what he hoped to gain from it, a theme which mirrors the ambiguity of the "Copenhagen" interpretation widely used in quantum physics. Did Heisenberg go to the avuncular Bohr to seek his blessing for his role in nuclear research? Why did Heisenberg concentrate on the development of a nuclear reactor, and not perform the calculations which would show that a bomb could be made to work via a fast-neutron reaction in Uranium 235? These and other questions feature in the plot, although unsurprisingly there are few certain answers.

The tragic 1939 voyage of SS St. Louis carrying hundreds of German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany that seemingly no nation is willing to save from certain doom.

In World War II-era Korea, rival runners, one Korean (Jang Dong-gun) and one Japanese (Joe Odagiri), go to war together against the Soviets.

Three young women from very different walks of life join the women's land army during World War II, and are sent to work together on a farm in Dorset, where the experience changes their lives forever.

A spy thriller about an Estonian intelligence officer, who has to track down a mysterious Soviet double agent on the eve of WWII.

Re-enacted true story of successful assault by Nazis, posing as Poles, on a German border radio station so that Hitler could "justify" thereby his invasion of Poland.

Winston Churchill's wilderness years prior to World War II, when only he could see the threat that Adolf Hitler and a rearmed Germany posed to Europe.

During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.

September 1st, 1939. German battleship Schleswig-Holstein marks the start of World War II by firing on the garrison stationed at the Westerplatte peninsula in Poland.

The story of King George VI, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.

The World War II adventures of a British convoy escort ship and its officers.

In November 1939, Georg Elser's attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler fails, and he is arrested. During his confinement, he recalls the events leading up to his plot and his reasons for deciding to take such drastic action.

In 1939, two Finnish brothers are conscripted in the army to fight in the war between Finland and the Soviet Union.

In the first major naval battle of World War II, the British Navy must find and destroy a powerful German warship.