Films to stream

From All Quiet on the

Western Front to Apocalypse Now and beyond, some war films form part of a wellestablished canon. Here are a few slightly less well-known examples that are currently available to stream:

The Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 account of the Algerian struggle for independence is perhaps the best film ever made about guerilla warfare. Banned in France for some years, it presents such a lucid analysis of the tactics on both sides that it is said to have been studied at the Pentagon during the Iraq War.

The Grave of the Fireflies

A 1988 Studio Ghibli animation that tells the story of a teenager and his little sister struggling to survive in Japan during the Second World War. It is visually arresting, slow-paced, and punctuated by moments of heartbreaking warmth and tenderness.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece takes David Low’s cartoon character, a reactionary old buffer, and humanises him deeply as it traces his career over four decades to 1943. Its subtle affirmation of civilised values was lost on Churchill, who seemingly took it for a straightforward satire, and wanted it banned.

The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow’s 2008 Iraq War movie eschews explicit political commentary in favour of a tight focus of the fraught relationships within a US bomb disposal team during their last month of service in Baghdad.

They Shall Not Grow Old

Peter Jackson’s 2018 First World War documentary used digital technology to restore black-and-white footage of the trenches, colourising it and using lipreaders to help dub in the soldiers’ words. It adds little to the sum of knowledge, but the sense of connection with the past it generates is electric.