Bataan (1943)
Director: Tay Garnett. A realistic motion picture written in a documentary style about a small band of American soldiers who attempt to destroy a strategic bridge during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1942. 115 min

Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Director: William Wyler. Three returning Second World War veterans face problems as they attempt to pick up the threads of their previous lives. 170 min.

Das Boot (1981)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen. This gripping tale follows the daring patrol of U-96, one of the famed German U-boats known as the "gray wolves". Prowling the North Atlantic, they challenged the British Navy at every turn. Delivers an amazingly accurate account of Germany's elite U-boat crewmen, as it hammers away at the tragic waste of war. 154 min.

Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Director: David Lean. Captured by the Japanese, British soldiers and their ranking officer, Colonel Nicholson are forced to construct a strategic railroad bridge. Despite cruel treatment by the brutal Colonel Saito, Nicholson displays unyielding courage and the bridge becomes a matter of obsessive British pride to him. Meanwhile, the British High Command has instructed a commando team to destroy the vital span. 161 min.

Catch 22 (1970)
Director: Mike Nichols. In this anti-war satirical film about a group of fliers in the Mediterranean during Second World War, all are separately and together nervous, frightened, often profane, sometimes pathetic and almost all a little crazy. 121 min.

Destination Tokyo (1943)
Director: Delmer Daves. Twenty-four hours out of San Francisco, submarine captain Cassidy unseals his top-secret orders and reads two fateful words: Destination Tokyo. This is a powerful and sometimes humorous portrait of American submarine service men during the Second World War. Its also a suspense drama as Japanese Zeros rain death and Cassidy must somehow slip his sub through the mines of Tokyo Bay and then blast his way out to the safety of the open seas. 136 min

Dirty Dozen (1967)
Director: Robert Aldrich. A Second World War drama in which an army major selects 12 men convicted for crimes of violence and offers them their freedom if they will complete a dangerous mission behind Nazi lines. 150 min

Flying Tigers (1942)
Director: David Miller. Based upon the true story of the American pilots known as "The Flying Tigers" who fought the Japanese over China in early Second World War. 101 min.

From Here to Eternity (1953)
Director: Fred Zinnemann. A drama about life in the Army in the days just prior to Second World War. Shows the effect of Army discipline on an individualistic former boxing champion who defies attempts by officers and men to coerce him into joining the company's boxing team. Includes actual documentary film footage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 118 min.

Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges. Film based on the true story of Allied servicemen during Second World War who tunneled their way out of a German prison camp to freedom with nothing but guts, perseverance and ingenuity. 173 min.

Guadalcanal Diary
Director: Lewis Seiler. One of the greatest war movies of all time, the story follows one squad of Marines through the bloody assaults on the Solomon Islands during the opening stages of the war in the South Pacific. From the book by Richard Tregaskis. 93 min.

Gung Ho! (1943)
Director: Ray Enright. A dramatization of the true adventures of Colonel Evans Carlson and the two hundred men of the Marine Raider Battalion who embarked on a death-defying mission to take Makin Island in the Pacific, on August 17th, 1942. This raid was one of the early major American victories of Second World War. 88 min.

Mister Roberts (1955)
Director: John Ford & Mervyn LeRoy. A comedy-drama about life aboard a Navy cargo ship in Pacific waters during Second World War. The monotonous non-combat duty of a fun-loving crew is enlivened by a feud between the petty, intolerant captain and an impetuous, highly-respected cargo officer whose continuous efforts to get a transfer to combat duty are blocked by the captain. 120 min.

Patton (1970)
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner The Second World War adventures of the controversial American general, George S. Patton. 171 min.

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
Director: Robert Wise. The film depicts the realities of submarine warfare during Second World War in the Pacific. Plot centers around two submarine officers who are destined to clash with each other from the first moment they meet. 94 min

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Director: Allan Dwan. John Wayne, a tough Marine sergeant, takes men and makes them Marines. Film follows a group of Marines from boot camp to the Battle of Iwo Jima. Film contains recreation of the scene on top of Mount Suribachi, the peak immortalized by the famous photograph of the American flag being raised, victorious, by a small group of soldiers. 109 min.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg. Featuring Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore. Captain John Miller must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds, the men question their orders. Why are eight men risking thir lives to save just one? Surrounded by the brutal realities of war each man searches for his own answer and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honor, decency and courage. 169 min.

Since You Went Away (1944)
Director: John Cromwell. Story of a family during Second World War. While her husband is off at war, Anne struggles to be strong for her two daughters. Because money is tight, they take in a boarder and his grandson, and must deal with all sorts of problems trying to keep their spirits up. 179 min.

Stalag 17 (1952)
Director: Billy Wilder. During Second World War, a group of G.I.s are thrown together in the notorious German prison camp, Stalag 17. For the most part, they spend their time scheming ways to help each other escape. But when two prisoners are killed in an escape attempt, it becomes obvious that there is a spy among them. 120 min.

The Dam Busters (1954)
Director: Michael Anderson. A Dramatization of an actual operation in Second World War in which low level Bombers from England drop skimming bombs into reservoirs in the Ruhr water system to cause floods destroying much of Germany's industrial base.

The Thin Red Line (1998)
Director: Terrence Malick. A powerful presentation of the Second World War battle between the Japanese and the American military forces for control of the strategic island of Guadalcanal. Based on the novel by James Jones

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy. A classic Second World War thriller - the true life story of the first American air raids on Japan. Spencer Tracy plays Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, the tough and inspiring mastermind of the historic crew of the "Ruptured Duck," commanded by Captain Ted Lawson. Lawson's daydreams of the bride he left behind are intertwined with the nightmarish terrors of a tense Pacific crossing, thunderous bombings, and the fate of his men on their painful odyssey through mainland China. 139 min.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
Director: R. Fleischer, et al. A meticulous dramatic recreation of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to it from both the Japanese and American points of view. 144 min.

Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Director: Henry King. During Second World War, the commander of an Eighth Air Force bomber group in England drives his men to the point of breaking until he himself cracks under the strain. 132 min.

Sources: UC Berkeley Moffitt Library list of War and War-era movies, and the Internet Movie Database