World War II According To Hollywood’s Greatest Generation

• Casablanca: The all-time great romantic melodrama was made in 1942 but set just before the U.S.’s entry into the war. Bogart, of course, plays expat American bar keep Rick Blaine, whose encounter with old love Ingrid Bergman sets him back on the path of American righteousness once more. Its most rousing scene is the Germans and the French battling it out in Rick’s bar with impassioned renditions of “Watch on the Rhine” and “The Marseillaise.” (Where to stream)
• To Have And Have Not: An immortal Bogie-and-Bacall joint from 1944, with Bogie as another expat American, this one a tough sailor going up against fascists in Vichy-controlled France. (Where to stream)
• Sahara: Bogie rarely played a man in uniform—his persona was kind of anti-authoritarian that way—but in the 1943 movie he does, playing a tank commander in Libya, pinned down by Germans in a locale with no water. Ouch. (Where to stream)

• Mister Roberts: Fonda didn’t make many war pictures during the war itself: instead, he served in the U.S. Navy for three years. Which no doubt informed his performance in this moving 1955 film (which was first a play in which Fonda originated the title role), playing a humane officer going toe-to-toe with James Cagney’s martinet captain. (Where to stream)
• The Longest Day: Fonda plays Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., in this 1962 epic, an ambitious all-star depiction of D-Day. (Where to stream)
• Battle of the Bulge: The 1965 fictionalization of the nearly-disastrous-for-the-Allies German offensive of 1944 has Fonda and fellow WWII picture stalwart Robert Ryan enacting strategy and sacrifice in a sprawling widescreen epic. (Where to stream)

• Air Force: A genuine and vehement propaganda piece from 1943 (in which the American soldiers almost invariably refer to the Japanese enemy in racist language). Garfield plays a disaffected, cynical gunner who got bounced from flight school but who, of course, eventually finds his wings. (Where to stream)
• Destination Tokyo: Garfield under water this time, on a submarine mission to plot out the Doolittle raids, serving under Captain Cary Grant. Director Delmar Daves conveys the tension and claustrophobia of the environment well. (Where to stream)

• Battleground: Director William Wellman’s 1949 film about a squad of the 101st Airborne Division’s struggle to hold a piece of French ground during the Battle of the Bulge is one of the finest U.S. World War II. Johnson plays a private battling his own failing nerve as well. (Where to stream)
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: Spencer Tracy plays commander James Doolittle, while Johnson is a hero pilot whose mission requires him to bomb Tokyo then make it to safe haven in China. Needless to say, it’s no picnic. (Where to stream)

• Twelve O’Clock High: A stark 1949 portrayal of what’s now called PTSD, it features Peck as a Brigadier General who rides his pilots as hard as he rides himself, and who suffers dire consequences for it. (Where to stream)
• The Purple Plain: This unusual 1954 picture stars Peck as a Canadian pilot struggling to survive after he’s downed over Burma. The twist is that he hasn’t wanted to survive since losing his wife in a London blitzkrieg. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)
• The Guns of Navarone: An all-time classic WWII mission impossible, with Peck leading an undercover squad to take out the titular Nazi guns, inconveniently located on the sheer side of a cliff. (Where to stream)

• Flying Leathernecks: Tough Marine aviation commander Duke goes up against softie Robert Ryan and teaches him that sentimentality and leadership don’t mix in this lively 1951 picture. (Where to stream)
• Back To Bataan: Its setup ripped from then-current headlines—the 1945 movie begins alluding to the real-life January raid on a Japanese P.O.W. camp in the Philippines—the Edward Dmytryk-directed movie depicts a grueling leg of the war’s Pacific campaign. (Where to stream)
• Sands of Iwo Jima: This quintessential WWII picture gets a lot of smack from cinephiles and historians who think it’s clichéd and whitewashed. But within the necessary conventions of its time, this 1949 Allan Dwan movie with an iconic Duke role is tougher than you might expect. And it’s a helluva story, too. (Where to stream)
• They Were Expendable: Director John Ford served as a Commander in the Navy through World War II, and he was deeply affected by the experience. As was this movie’s co-star, Robert Montgomery, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. This movie, with Wayne as Montgomery’s junior lieutenant, is a tribute to the PT Boat commanders in the Pacific and widely acclaimed for being one of the most realistic pictures for its time. (Where to stream)
• In Harm’s Way: Director Otto Preminger’s 1965 new-style WWII film features Wayne’s stalwart ship commander contending not just with the enemy but with an EXTREMELY loose cannon executive officer played by Kirk Douglas at his most manic. (Where to stream)

Veteran (that is, old-ish) critic Glenn Kenny has written for oodles of publications and these days reviews‎ new releases at RogerEbert.com. He blogs at Some Came Running and tweets (mostly in jest) at @glenn__kenny.