List of documentary films about World War II
The following is a list of World War II documentary films.
1940s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | Nazi Germany | Deutsche Panzer (German Panzer) | Walter Ruttmann |
| 1940 | Nazi Germany | Deutsche Waffenschmieden (German Weapons-Forge) | Walter Ruttmann |
| 1940 | Nazi Germany | Feldzug in Polen (Campaign in Poland) | |
| 1941 | Canada | Churchill's Island | Stuart Legg |
| 1941 | Canada | Inside Fighting China | Stuart Legg |
| 1941 | USA | Kukan | Rey Scott |
| 1941 | Kingdom of Italy | Uomini sul fondo (Men on the bottom) | Francesco De Robertis |
| 1942 | Nazi Germany | Männer, Meer und Stürme (Men, Sea and Storms) | Heinrich Hauser, Hubert Schonger |
| 1942 | United Kingdom | The Soldier's Food | unknown |
| 1944 | Nazi Germany | Panorama | |
| 1944 | United States | The Battle for the Marianas | Gordon Hollingshead |
| 1944 | Japan | Calling Australia (Japanese: オーストラリアを呼び出します, romanized: Ōsutoraria o Yobidashimasu) | Dr. Huyung (formerly known as Hinatsu Eitaro, Hae Yeong, and Hŏ Yŏng) |
| 1944 | United States | Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress | William Wyler |
| 1945 | Denmark | Danmark i Lænker (Denmark in Chains) | Sven Methling |
| 1946 | United States | Let There Be Light | y Huston |
| 1947 | United States | Lest We Forget | n.a. |
1950s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | United States | Victory at Sea | M. Clay Adams |
| 1955 | France | Night and Fog | Alain Resnais |
1960s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | United States | Black Fox: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler | Louis Clyde Stoumen |
| 1962 | Canada | Canada at War | ? |
| 1964 | Canada | Fields of Sacrifice | Donald Brittain |
| 1965 | Canada | Memorandum | Donald Brittain, John Spotton |
| 1965 | United States | France: Conquest to Liberation | Aram Boyajian |
| 1965 | United States | Prelude to War: Beginning of World War II | Alan Landsburg |
| 1965 | Soviet Union | Ordinary Fascism (Обыкновенный фашизм) (Obyknovennyy fashizm) | Mikhail Romm |
| 1968 | United States | The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich | Jack Kaufman |
| 1969 | France | The Sorrow and the Pity (Le Chagrin et la Pitié) | Marcel Ophüls |
1970s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | United Kingdom | The World at War | Miscellaneous |
| 1974 | Israel | The 81st Blow (המכה ה-81) | Haim Gouri |
| 1976 | United Kingdom | The Memory of Justice | Marcel Ophüls |
| 1977 | United Kingdom | The Secret War (TV series) | Various |
| 1978 | Soviet Union | The Unknown War (Neizvestnaya voyna) (Неизвестная война) | Isaac Kleinerman, Roman Karmen |
1980s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | West Germany | The Yellow Star - The Persecution of the Jews in Europe 1933-45 | Dieter Hildebrandt |
| 1981 | United States | The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter | Connie Field |
| 1982 | United States | Genocide | Arnold Schwartzman |
| 1982 | Sweden | The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz | Peter Chohen, Bo Kuritzen |
| 1982 | United States | Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die | Laurence Jarvik |
| 1985 | France | Shoah | Claude Lanzmann |
| 1985 | United States | Unfinished Business | Steven Okazaki |
| 1987 | Japan | The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On | Kazuo Hara |
| 1988 | France | Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie | Marcel Ophüls |
| 1989 | France | De Nuremberg à Nuremberg | Frédéric Rossif |
| 1989 | United Kingdom | Fascist Legacy | Ken Kirby |
| 1989 | Sweden | The Architecture of Doom | Peter Cohen |
1990s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | United States | Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo | Steven Okazaki |
| 1990 | Germany | Mein Krieg | Harriet Eder, Thomas Kufus |
| 1992 | Canada | The Valour and the Horror | Brian McKenna |
| 1993 | France | L'Œil de Vichy | Claude Chabrol |
| 1994 | United States | Battlefield | Miscellaneous |
| 1994 | Germany | The Jewess and the Captain | Ulf von Mechow |
| 1994 | Spain | Memory of Water | Héctor Fáver |
| 1995 | United Kingdom | Anne Frank Remembered | Jon Blair |
| 1995 | United States | One Survivor Remembers | Kary Antholis |
| 1995 | South Korea | Najeun moksori | Young-Joo Byun |
| 1996 | United States | Fire on the Mountain | Beth Gage, George Gage |
| 1997 | United States | The Long Way Home | Mark Jonathan Harris |
| 1997 | United Kingdom | The Nazis: A Warning from History | Laurence Rees, Tilman Remme |
| 1997 | Estonia | We Lived for Estonia | Andres Sööt |
| 1998 | United States | Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy | Tracy Atkinson, Joan Baran |
| 1998 | United States | Pola's March | Jonathan Gruber |
| 1998 | United States | The Last Days | James Moll |
| 1998 | Netherlands | The Saved | Paul Cohen, Oeke Hoogendijk |
| 1998 | United States | Voices of the Children | Zuzana Justman |
| 1998 | Canada | Unwanted Soldiers | Jari Osborne |
| 1999 | United Kingdom | The Second World War in Colour | Polly Bide |
| 1999 | United Kingdom | War of the Century | Laurence Rees |
2000s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Czech Republic | A Story about a Bad Dream | Pavel Stingl |
| 2000 | United States | From Swastika to Jim Crow | Lori Cheatle, Martin D. Toub |
| 2000 | United States | Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport | Mark Jonathan Harris |
| 2000 | Germany | Paragraph 175 | Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman |
| 2000 | Germany | Shadows of Memory | Claudia von Alemann |
| 2000 | United States | Sisters in Resistance | Maia Wechsler |
| 2000 | United Kingdom | The Children Who Cheated the Nazis | Sue Read |
| 2000 | United Kingdom | World War II׃ The Complete History | Matthew Hall |
| 2001 | United Kingdom | Horror in the East | Laurence Rees, Martina Balazova |
| 2001 | Japan | Japanese Devils | Minoru Matsui |
| 2001 | France | Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m. | Claude Lanzmann |
| 2001 | United States | The Color of War | Peter Coyote |
| 2002 | United States | A Yiddish World Remembered | Andrew Goldberg |
| 2002 | Austria | Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary | André Heller, Othmar Schmiderer |
| 2002 | United States | Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII | Aviva Slesin |
| 2002 | Canada | The Boys of Buchenwald | Audrey Mehler |
| 2003 | United States | Marion's Triumph | John Chua |
| 2003 | Denmark | Med ret til at dræbe (With a Right to Kill) | Morten Henriksen, Peter Øvig Knudsen |
| 2003 | Canada | Prisoner of Paradise | Malcolm Clarke, Stuart Sender |
| 2003 | United States | The Holocaust Experience | Oeke Hoogendijk |
| 2004 | United Kingdom | Dunkirk | Alex Holmes |
| 2004 | Netherlands | Goodbye Holland | Willy Lindwer |
| 2004 | United States | Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality | Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato |
| 2004 | United States | Hiding and Seeking | Menachem Daum, Oren Rudavsky |
| 2005 | Germany | 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him | Malte Ludin |
| 2005 | United States | A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin | Eric Simonson |
| 2005 | United Kingdom | Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' | Laurence Rees, Catherine Tatge |
| 2005 | United Kingdom | Hiroshima | Paul Wilmshurst |
| 2005 | United States | The 11th Day: Crete 1941 | Christos Epperson |
| 2005 | United States | The Mushroom Club | Steven Okazaki |
| 2005 | Poland | The Portraitist | Ireneusz Dobrowolski |
| 2005 | Austria | Unwanted Cinema | Petrus van der Let |
| 2006 | Russia | Blokada | Sergei Loznitsa |
| 2006 | United States | Forgiving Dr. Mengele | Bob Hercules, Cheri Pugh |
| 2006 | United States | The Rape of Europa | Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, Nicole Newnham |
| 2006 | Estonia | The Blue Hills | Raimo Jõerand |
| 2007 | United States | A Distant Shore: African Americans of D-Day | Douglas Cohen |
| 2007 | Canada | My Opposition: The Diaries of Friedrich Kellner | Fern Levitt |
| 2007 | United States | Nanking | Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman |
| 2007 | United States | Order Castles of the Third Reich | R.J. Adams |
| 2007 | United States | Ruins of the Reich | R.J. Adams |
| 2007 | Israel | Stalags | Ari Libsker |
| 2007 | United States | The War | Ken Burns, Lynn Novick |
| 2007 | United States | White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Steven Okazaki |
| 2007 | United States | Wings of Defeat | Risa Morimoto |
| 2007 | Japan | Yasukuni | Li Ying |
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
| 2008 | United States | Battle 360° | Tony Long |
| 2008 | Germany | Harlan – In the Shadow of Jew Süss | Felix Moeller |
| 2008 | Netherlands | Tulip Time: The Rise and Fall of the Trio Lescano | Tonino Boniotti, Marco De Stefanis |
| 2008 | Latvia | The Soviet Story | Edvīns Šnore |
| 2008 | United Kingdom | World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West | Laurence Rees, Andrew Williams |
| 2009 | France | Apocalypse: The Second World War | Isabelle Clarke, Daniel Costelle |
| 2009 | United States | The Inheritance of War | Ashley Karras |
| 2009 | Netherlands | Patton 360° | Tony Long |
| 2009 | Finland | Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland | Imbi Paju |
| 2009 | United Kingdom | The Week We Went to War | Malcolm McKissock, Louise Pirie |
| 2009 | United Kingdom | World War II in HD Colour | Robert Powell, Matthew Barrett |
| 2009 | United States | WWII in HD | Frederic Lumiere, Matthew Ginsburg |
| 2009 | United States | Valor With Honor | Torasan Films |
2010s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | War Music | David Porteous | |
| 2011 | United States | We Were There | Jarod O'Flaherty |
| 2011 | Netherlands | 900 Days | Jessica Gorter |
| 2011 | Russia | Soviet Storm: World War II in the East | Anna Grazhdan |
| 2012 | United States | Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States | Oliver Stone |
| 2013 | United States | The Ghost Army | Rick Beyer |
| 2014 | United States | Second War Diary: The War Day by Day | José Delgado |
| 2015 | Germany | Hostages of the SS | Christian Frey |
| 2016 | Australia | A Long Way Back | Samm Blake |
| 2018 | Italy | Visconti's Eagles | Claudio Costa |
| 2019 | United Kingdom | Greatest Events of WWII in Colour | Sam Taplin, Nicky Bolster, Kasia Uscinska, Josh Whitehead & Ailsa Fereday |
2020s
| Year | Country | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | United Kingdom | WWII in Color: Road to Victory | Sam Taplin, Lou Westlake, Kim Lask, Stan Griffin & Katie Boxer |
See also
- List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
- List of World War II films
- List of World War II TV series
- List of World War II short films
- List of Holocaust films