World War I films have a commonality – senseless mass charges into machine-gun fire, tangles of barbed wire, clouds of poison gas, and denuded landscapes.

Director Steven Soderbergh uses black and white film, along with old cameras in an attempt to re-create the style and feel of classic noir cinema.

Professor Paul Cartledge, author of Thermopylae. The Battle That Changed The World, takes a timely look at the real battle of Thermopylae, the battle dramatised in the recent cinematic release 300.

Fellow actor Jimmy Stewart said that John Wayne stamped AMERICA across the face of the motion picture industry. Quite a tribute.

Some will see it as propaganda to be sure, but it is nowhere as inflammatory as M. Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, and draws on a wide variety of sources to attempt to show all sides of this complex issue.

This film presents the gritty and ugly truth of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. To Marines on Iwo Jima and to citizens on the home front, the flag became a beacon of hope.

Zulus! Thousands of them! We cast a kindly retrospective eye over this classic war movie. Fix bayonets and read on…

Wild Bill Wilder lists the movies and documentaries focusing on the Pacific War that rank among his personal best. See if your favorite is on the list!

September the 11th marked the beginning of the Global War on Terror, but despite the shocking events of that day, the occupants of Flight 93 were determined not to be victims.

BBC Video’s upcoming release, Hiroshima, is an in-depth, comprehensive presentation of one of history’s most controversial events, and it’s a refreshingly even-handed production.

The date was 2 October 1918, and it seemed as if fate was determined that this group of mostly American immigrants should never live to see another day.

Set during the Spanish-American War, Rough Riders is an action movie, with a pretty brisk pace.

The Italians were unprepared, ill-equipped, and only half-heartedly interested in being in the fighting of World War II. This movie tells their story.

“The film’s cinematography is wonderful, the dialogue moves the drama along effortlessly, and the depiction of Civil War-era maneuver is admirably accurate. In particular, this is the first film of this genre to correctly show artillery combat.”

Enemy at the Gates has a bit of something for everyone – a battle, a hero, and a love triangle. What it lacks, though, is historical accuracy. In the main, the film does not do justice to the Battle of Stalingrad, the “turning point” of World War II in Europe. Involving millions of men and thousands of tanks, aircraft and artillery, Stalingrad proved to the world that Hitler’s army could be stopped.

Set during the final explosive days of the Third Reich, Downfall is an epic depiction of the fall of Nazi Germany and the end of Hitler’s reign of terror in Europe. Written and Produced in Germany itself by Bernd Eichinger, the film is a graphic depiction of the collapse of law and order within Berlin, and the final headlong journey to insanity and suicide undertaken by the Nazi Fuhrer.