Best Australian war movies

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

When a Delta Force special ops mission goes terribly wrong, Air Force drone pilot Reaper has 48 hours to remedy what has devolved into a wild rescue operation. With no weapons and no communication other than the drone above, the ground mission suddenly becomes a full-scale battle when the team is discovered by the enemy.

England, 15th century. Hal, a capricious prince who lives among the populace far from court, is forced by circumstances to reluctantly accept the throne and become Henry V.

In 1919, Australian farmer Joshua Connor travels to Turkey to discover the fate of his three sons, reported missing in action. Holding on to hope, Joshua must travel across the war-torn landscape to find the truth and his own peace.

Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.

As World War I rages, brave and youthful Australians Archy and Frank—both agile runners—become friends and enlist in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps together. They later find themselves part of the Dardanelles Campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula, a brutal eight-month conflict which pit the British and their allies against the Ottoman Empire and left over 500,000 men dead.

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

The true story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare—one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and mystifying conflicts of WW I. It was secret struggle BENEATH the Western Front that combined daring engineering, technology and science. Few on the surface knew of the brave, claustrophobic and sometimes barbaric work of these tunnellers.

During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom.

Near the end of World War II, the survivors of a torpedoed hospital ship cling to life aboard a crowded lifeboat. With no food, water, or shelter, all seems lost – until an eerily silent German minesweeper drifts ominously towards them, giving them one last chance at survival. As our motley crew explores the ship, it becomes all too clear that some diabolical fate has befallen its German crew. The mystery only deepens when they encounter a young Romanian girl, apparently the sole survivor, who leads them to a locked room in the bowels of the vessel.

After leaving his family's sheep farm in the Australian outback, a young man joins his countrymen on the western front of World War I with hopes of helping expedite an end to the bloody conflict. But as war rages on, he is forced to grapple with the brutal realities of trench warfare, including a near-constant battle to keep himself alive—without leaving another man behind. Inspired by the real-life diary entries of local ANZACs, the feature film details the untold story of some of Australia’s greatest military victories.

About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.

A group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women creates a vocal orchestra while being imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp on Sumatra during World War II.

In 1917 when the British forces are bogged down in front of the Turkish and German lines in Palestine they rely on the Australian light horse regiment to break the deadlock.

Three British soldiers find themselves stranded in No Man's Land after a failed charge on the German Trenches. Set in France 1916.

A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II.

Sent to rescue survivors from the site of a plane crash in the South Pacific during WWII, Captain Kelly and his elite squad of Australian commandos must keep tabs on a defecting Japanese official who could hold the secret to peace.

Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".

In an Arctic village in 1931, British mapmaker Walter Russell selects 12-year-old Eskimo Avik as his guide. When the boy contracts tuberculosis, Walter flies him to a Montreal hospital, where Avik meets Albertine and is infatuated. A decade later, a grown Avik encounters Albertine again in London, where he's serving as a British combat pilot. Despite her relationship with Walter, she and Avik begin an affair.

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

When WW1 breaks out, farm boys, Billy (Josh Davis) and Jack Kelly (Mathew John Davis), along with their cousin, Paddy (Lachie Hume), sign up, and are shipped out to serve in Europe. With Billy a dead-eye shot with a rifle, the boys are soon set up as a sniper team, mowing down Germans and Turks like nobody’s business. They become heroes, but back home, the family farm is being circled by a gang of cattle thieves, meaning that even when the war ends, the blood is set to keep flowing.

An army nurse and a Catholic nun find their friendship and beliefs tested when Japanese forces arrive in Papua New Guinea.

The life story of the brave soldiers of the Pakistan Army, mainly the Pakistan Air Force. Outlining their lives, relationships, duty and hardships.

After his men are killed in Burma, a lone soldier returns home in search of solace. Hiding a dark secret and confronted by an unrelenting journalist, he's forced to face the ghosts of his past one last time.

Determined to bring honor to her family, Mulan lies her way into the army to protect her father.

A Viet Cong soldier stationed in the claustrophobic tunnels of Cu Chi during the Vietnam War finds himself haunted by the ghost of a fallen comrade after the burial ceremony is compromised.

In the gathering dusk of 18 August 1966, 108 young, inexperienced Australian and NZ soldiers are separated and surrounded, fighting for their lives, holding off an overwhelming force of 2,500 battle-hardened Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers. And, in the pouring rain, amid the mud and shattered trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tan, with their ammunition running out and another Vietnamese battalion massing for the final assault, the digger's situation seemed hopeless. Long Tan is the true story of ordinary boys who became extraordinary men.

One of the great masterpieces of world literature comes to vivid life in an elaborate production from acclaimed theater and film innovator Peter Brook. This collection of ancient Sanskrit stories (composed into the longest book ever written) comprises a series of enlightened fables at the heart of countless beliefs, legends, and teachings; indeed, its very title means "the great story of mankind." Brook and writer Jean-Claude Carriere worked for eight years to develop this epic concerning two sides of a royal family, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, whose struggle leads to a fascinating voyage of emotions, passion and vision of glory. Briefly, the Mahabharata is a tale of two rival sets of brothers, cousins to eachother, each born into royalty and with divinely guided paths in life. The result, however, is a great war, death, destruction - a vast epic.

An adult's memoir of a childhood spent with his mother and two sisters in Australia in the closing year of WWII. While his father off fighting the Japanese, two Italian prisoners of war are assigned to help out on the family's estate. Later they are joined by two German refugee women. Problems of country life and personal tensions come to a head.

This iconic and Academy Award-winning newsreel shot by Damien Parer contains some of the most recognised images of Australian troops in the Second World War.

"Battlefield 1 meets Aliens" An outfit of Imperial soldiers fighting brutal trench warfare in a desolate WW1 Battlefield find themselves up against an enemy not from this world.

On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes

An unexpected love story set in WW1 France between a young Australian baker who has deserted the front line, and a grieving French woman, who puts her own life at risk by sheltering him from the authorities.

Australia Prepared highlights the country's contributions to the First World War, beginning with the recruiting of soldiers after war is declared. Segments include: footage of troops training at Liverpool Camp, NSW; the manufacture of rifles and ammunition; shipbuilding at Cockatoo Docks; and the production of khaki soldiers' uniforms.

This drama is set in World War II Australia, where an American Marine, Rebel is recuperating from wounds suffered in battle. He is weary of war and is intent on going AWOL and escaping from Australia. He becomes infatuated with a local singer, Kathy and pursues her. Kathy is married and initially is not interested in him, but later begins to love Rebel. Kathy receives a letter advising her that her husband was killed in battle. The local police and the U.S. Military are searching for Rebel as an AWOL soldier. Rebel arranges to escape Austalia by a cargo ship, but eventually allows himself to be arrested in order to keep the local police from arresting Kathy for harboring him

Two best friends, Vietnam War veterans-turned-stuntmen, are sent as spies to the Philippines on a top secret mission for the Australian government.

On April 24, 1951, following a rout of the South Korean army, the Chinese People Volunteer Army pursued their enemy to the lines of Australian and Canadian troops still digging fall-back defences, 39 kilometres to the rear. Here, sometimes at the length of a bayonet, often in total darkness, individual was pitted against individual in a struggle between a superpower and a cluster of other nations from across the world. They fought for a valley, the ancient and traditional invasion route to Seoul. If it fell the southern capital and the war, was lost. The United Nations troops had the military advantage of the high ground and artillery support: the Chinese relied entirely on vastly superior numbers. As a result, young men from both sides found a battle which was very close and very personal. The Battle of Kapyong became the turning point of China's Fifth Offensive in that Korea spring... Written by John Lewis

Charles Chauvel's 1940 cinematic tribute to the mounted troops of the Australian Light Horse regiments is a rousing call to arms, giving life to the heroic tales of mateship during the Great War.

A female Australian soldier cut off from her team, lies trapped in a collapsed building behind enemy lines. With a broken leg and minimal supplies, she is on her own until the unlikely arrival of a frightened 10 year old boy wielding a rifle, who helps her maintain survival through their developing friendship.

The trials and tribulations of the Goddard family after the entry of Australia into the Vietnam War.

The story of how Australia's 'ANZAC myth' was born and the role of General John Monash in this process as soldier and statesman both during and after WW1.

A young soldier returns from the War, greeted by his girlfriend who hopes that their lives will return to how they used to be. However, he is a changed man.

'Sacrifice' follows the love story between James Hunter and Blake Robinson as they begin a new phase in their life together. Forces out of their control tear them apart but to what extent and consequence? How much will they sacrifice? A traditional military love story from a perspective which has not yet been seen before.

Based on a true story, James Coburn portrays a military lawyer assigned to defend a confessed psychotic killer. Set in the context of WWII and the uneasy US-Australian military alliance. The accused killer claims to have killed 3 women in order to possess their voices. Despite the defense lawyer's concerns that the killer is not fit to stand trial, the US military presses forward with the case and its desire to have the killer executed in order to strengthen the shaky alliance.

Beatriz’s young husband disappears during the brutal Kraras massacre by occupying Indonesian forces, sixteen years later she is troubled by his return; is this mysterious stranger her husband, an impostor, or a spirit?

At the start of WWII the British Government decided to arrest all Germans in the UK no matter how long they had been there. Among those arrested were many Jewish refugees and many who were fully assimilated. This film records the story of a group who were sent to a POW camp in Australia aboard the Dunera.

A poignant drama set in 1970s Australia about a newly-single father’s efforts to weather the turbulence of change – in his life and in the world around him – while a new immigrant endeavours to find her place in a foreign land.

Three friends enlist in the Australian Army and serve in North Africa, holding the city of Tobruk against Rommel's forces.

The 'White Mouse' was at one point top of the Gestapo's Most wanted list in France. A saboteur who went on to lead 7,000 resistance members and rescued over 200 Allied airmen, the 'White Mouse' was also a woman. The New Zealand born Australian; Nancy Wake.

Featuring Charles 'Bud' Tingwell in only his second film and first lead role, which helped prepare him for his part in the 1953 World War Two Hollywood action drama, 'The Desert Rats'. 'Always Another Dawn' celebrates the Australian Navy's contribution to the Allied victory in WW2. The ship (Dauntless) is based on the real-life HMAS Yarra, which was sunk by a Japanese cruiser squadron on 4 March 1942 with 138 lives lost. Assisted by the Royal Australian Navy, filming took place at Flinders Naval Depot Melbourne and aboard the destroyer HMAS Bataan.

When an amusement park is built on the grounds of an old cemetery, the dead rise to take revenge.

A Feature western gene film, 60 minutes in length and shot on green screen, and locations actors are placed into worlds created by 3D models. The year is 2048 and all green screen is dead. A man and a horse team up to fight cowboy. Cowboy is mad. Cowboy make revenge. The end.

In August 1944, 1104 Japanese prisoners of war at the Australian POW camp at Cowra stage a mass breakout. Four guards are killed in the escape, and 231 prisoners die by wounds sustained or suicide, while 334 prisoners are recaptured over the subsequent nine days.

A captivating step back in time, Pozieres explores the small village in Northern France which, during the Great War in 1916, was the setting of one of the bloodiest battles in history, a twentieth century tragedy. The village was stormed and captured by Australians and became key to the success of the Battle for the Somme. But in less than seven weeks they suffered 23,000 casualties.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Nuremberg trials unveil a chilling drama, "The Bizarre Trial of Doctor Victor Frankenstein." Four scientists, Edward Klause, Stephan Maxis, Igor Fritz, and Victor Von Frankenstein, face judgment for their role in Hitler's covert "Project Iron Sight." Through flashbacks, Victor reveals their macabre attempts to create superhuman soldiers. The trial becomes a stage for ethical debates, exploring the fine line between scientific inquiry and culpability. The narrative exposes the moral ambiguity of each scientist, offering a poignant reflection on the consequences when intellect collides with wartime horrors, making it a riveting exploration of human nature.

This feature length documentary is a personal account of the siege of Sarajevo from the point of view of a Bosnian Australian, Tahir Cambis, who spent the last six months of the war filming the conflict and its effects on the civilian population. The two main subjects in the film are a Sarajevo family whose young daughter is killed a day after she is filmed in a dance competition; and an 8 year old girl, Amira, whose eye witness account of murder and rape becomes a diary of catharsis.

20 Years into the future, the fallout after the war has left the majority of the world suffering. Ash has turned to a life of drugs and sex while trying to escape his guilt he hides away from most of the world.

Vietnam. 1968. A recon unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover they are not alone.

Documentary using archival footage, newsreels and contemporary interviews with women of the WW2 Australian Women's Land Army.

After a highly successful raid on Singapore Harbour, soldiers of Z Special Unit lead a new expedition in Singapore, with disastrous results.

In 1943, the Imperial Japanese Secret Service made a film called Calling Australia! to show the "exemplary conditions" under which prisoners of war were kept, and to "soften up" the Australian public for the anticipated occupation of their country by Japanese forces. Prisoners of Propaganda tells why the film was made, and how it came to be forgotten.

Explorer Marco Polo is assigned to accompany two priests on a mission to China, to try to convert the "pagan" Kublai Khan to Christianity. However, on a dangerous trek through the mountains, the priests decide they don't believe that China even exists, and when Marco tries to argue the point, they abandon him and turn back. He eventually makes it through the mountains and into the fabled land of China, where he is received at the court of Kublai Khan as an envoy. Accompanied by his faithful servant Pedro, Marco spends 20 years in that country, and when he eventually returns to Europe what he brings with him changes the course of history forever.

After the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 36,000 Australian men and women, part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), marched onto Japanese soil. They were assigned the toughest and most dangerous area of Japan: Hiroshima Prefecture, which included the atom-bombed city. The Forgotten Force tells for the first time the story of Australia's role in Japan. Rare archival and private footage, photographs and eyewitness accounts from both sides vividly recreate the atmosphere of post-war Japan - the horror of Hiroshima and its aftermath; the struggle to build a new "democratic" society while under the heel of military rule; the growth from suspicion and fear to friendship and trust between foes.

Based on a true story, The Heroes follows one of the most extraordinary and heroic exploits of World War II. After months of rigorous training in the north of Australia, a team of 14 men, most barely out of their teens, set sail from Cairns on board a leaky old fishing boat called 'The Krait'. Their mission, code-named Operation Jaywick, became a tense voyage through thousands of kilometres of Japanese held territory to launch a daring attack on Singapore Harbour. The raid is a success but within sight of safety they encounter a Japanese destroyer, and all prepare to die rather than be taken prisoner.

An Australian soldier of the Royal Australian Regiment presents his story of the Korean War. On his way to Korea, he visits Tokyo, where he notes the progress since the end or world War II. Then he travels to Seoul in Korea, were he notes the damage to the city. Finally soldiers are see relaxing in camp and training for the conflict to come.