A month after celebrating mothers around the world, it’s time for fathers to get their due.
Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 21 and Watch with us wants to celebrate by recommending a film genre near and dear to all fathers’ hearts – war films.
Streamers like NetflixPrime Video and Tube has tons of action-packed movies to watch, which is why we’ve narrowed down our selection to cover one particular historical event – World War II.
From Tom Cruise tries to kill Adolf Hitler in the thriller Valkyrie to Clark Gable fighting Japanese submarines Run quietly, run deepthese WWII movies are guaranteed to make Pop happy on his special day of the year.
‘Enemy at the Gates’ (2001) – Paramount+
Jude Law in Enemy at the Gates.
Paramount/courtesy Everett CollectionIn the midst of World War II, everyone needs a hero, including the Soviets. They get one with Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a Red Army sniper known for his incredible marksmanship, which has wiped out many of the invading German army. He befriends his overseer, Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), but the two men soon face a bump in their bromance – they both love Tania (Rachel Weisz), a private with German translation skills. They will have to put aside their rivalry when the Germans send Erwin König (Ed Harris), a sniper even better than Vassili, at wiping out his rival and any Soviet soldier who crosses his path.
Every year there are fewer people who lived or fought through World War II. When they pass, film will be one of the only mediums to keep their stories alive for new generations to discover. Watch With Us recently rounded up the seven best World War II movies and ranked them according to their Rotten Tomatoes (…)
While the love triangle at the center of Enemy at the gates is a bit unbelievable, the film makes up for it with its outstanding fight scenes and the climactic sniper-versus-sniper duel between Vassili and Erwin. Hollywood doesn’t make many WWII movies with Russian and German protagonists, and the film’s depiction of the Battle of Stalingrad is truly impressive.
‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ (2024) – HBO Max
Alan Ritchson in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
Dan Smith /© Lions Gate Films /Courtesy Everett CollectionIf you want a war movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, watch it Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Based on the literature Churchill’s Secret Warriors by Damien Lewis, the movie stars Henry Cavill as real-life war hero Gus March-Philipps, who led a secret mission to destroy an Italian supply ship near a Spanish-controlled island. Gus can’t do it alone, so he gathers a dirty dozen of rogue cops like Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) to help him.
Director Guy Ritchie plays fast and loose with some of the facts, including adding numerous gunfights and explosions that never actually happened. Still, if you watch former Superman Cavill shoot down some Nazis and Reacher star Ritchson cracks some Axis Power heads, then hang out with Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
‘Run Silent, Run Deep’ (1958) – Prime Video
With World War II still raging, submarine commander PJ Richardson (Clark Gable) has only one thing on his mind – revenge. The Japanese destroyer Akikaze has sunk four American submarines, including PJ’s last ship, and he wants to prevent it from doing so again. He gets his chance when he is assigned to command the USS Nerkabut the fleet forbids him to go after Akikaze. Ignoring their orders, PJ trains his crew to hunt down and destroy his Japanese enemy, but he meets resistance from one man on board – Lt. Jim Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster), who believe that PJ’s obsession will doom them all to a watery grave.
War movies have been around almost as long as Hollywood has been making movies. And each generation of filmmakers has added their own sensibilities to the genre. There are now so many war movies that even some of the best in the genre have gotten lost in the shuffle. That’s why Watch With (…)
Two guys fighting it out on a submarine? If Run Silent, Run Deep sounds a bit like the 1995 Cold War thriller Crimson Tide with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washingtonyou are right. Both films feature two stars locked in a battle of wills as torpedoes are fired at them thousands of feet underwater. But Run quietly, run deep is even more intense, with crisp spines and white cinematography that lends a patina of realism to its purely fictional story. At the end of his career, Gable gives one of his best performances ever as an officer who is not a gentleman. His obsession with getting even puts his colleagues in danger, and Gable is surprisingly convincing in showing PJ’s growing desperation.
‘Nuremberg’ (2025) – Netflix
Russell Crowe in Nuremberg.
Sony Pictures Classics / Courtesy Everett CollectionWhat happens after the war ends and the enemy must be punished? That is the question Nuremberg struggles with as it depicts the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials in 1945. Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), is charged with mass murder, and prosecutors must determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial. According to US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) examines him, he doesn’t quite believe that a man so polite to him – and caring to his family – could commit such atrocities. But as the trial progresses and the evidence is shown to the public, Kelley struggles with Goering’s true nature.
Unlike classic WWII movies like Saving Private Ryan and That boot, Nuremberg focuses on the aftermath of the war and the battles fought in the courtroom and in public opinion. The Nuremberg trials were for many the first real look at what the Germans had done to their Jewish prisoners, and the film convincingly conveys this dawning horror through Kelley’s perspective. Crow gives his best performance in years as a monster cosplaying as a family man who believes that by denying what he did, he can make it go away. Nuremberg shows how wrong he was and the need for public accountability for private misdeeds.
‘Valkyrie’ (2008) – Tubi
Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.
United Artists/courtesy Everett CollectionTom Cruise like a nazi? Yes, it happened – a little – in the 2008s Valkyriewho see Top Gun star plays a German soldier, Claus von Stauffenberg, who is fed up with Hitler (David Bamber) and his cronies. He decides to do something about it by leading a resistance effort to assassinate the German leader so he can take over the military and end the war. It sounds simple, but in order to get close enough to Hitler, Claus must make sure that everything goes right – and no one finds out what his real intentions are.
HBO Max flies its freak flag high for the month of June. The Warner Bros.-owned streamer just added an eclectic lineup of new movies that cross all types of genres and boundaries. Thanks! You have registered. Subscribe to newsletters Enter your email Please enter a valid email. Sign up by signing up (…)
Directed by Bryan Singer, Valkyrie is an excellent thriller that retells a moment in history that few people know about. There really was a Claus von Stauffenberg, and he almost accomplished an act that would have saved millions of lives. (It shouldn’t be a spoiler to reveal that Claus was not success in assassinating Hitler.) Cruise is miscast as an eyepatch-wearing German officer, but he’s also strangely at home spying on others and staging daring undercover acts. He is surrounded by a first class cast of British character actors, e.g Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Terence Stampand they are all terrific as Claus’ fellow soldiers who want to get rid of their big boss.
