The following is a list of documentary films about World War II.
1940s Year Country Title DirectorNotes 1940 Nazi Germany Deutsche Panzer (German Panzer) Walter RuttmannNazi propaganda film showcasing German tank manufacturing. 1940 Nazi Germany Deutsche Waffenschmieden (German Weapons-Forge) Walter RuttmannNazi propaganda film about the might of German arms manufacturing. 1940 Nazi Germany Feldzug in Polen (Campaign in Poland)Nazi propaganda film about the 1939 invasion of Poland, portraying the Poles as aggressors and the ethnic Germans living in Poland as oppressed minorities. 1941 Canada Churchill's Island Stuart LeggBritish propaganda film showcasing the defense of the British Isles during the Battle of Britain. 1941 Canada Inside Fighting China Stuart LeggCanadian propaganda film showcasing China's resistance to Japan's invasion. 1941 USA Kukan Rey ScottAmerican propaganda film showcasing China's resistance to Japan's invasion. 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 unknownBritish military training film about the importance of food, including topics like demonstrations of cooking equipment, prevention of waste, and the management of surplus food. 1944 Nazi Germany Panorama 1944 United States The Battle for the Marianas Gordon HollingsheadAmerican propaganda film about the US invasion of the Japanese occupies islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. 1944 Japan Calling Australia () Dr. Huyung (formerly known as Hinatsu Eitaro, Hae Yeong, and Hŏ Yŏng)Japanese propaganda film showing Australian prisoners of war drinking beer, playing sports, eating balanced meals. It was intended to train the Australian public to accept occupation of their country by the Japanese military. 1944 United States Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress William WylerUS propaganda film providing an account of the final mission of the crew of the Memphis Belle, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. It was intended to build morale at home by showing the everyday courage of the soldiers who flew these bombers.1945NetherlandsNippon PresentsDutch counter propagranda film showing the true treatment inside Japanese POW camps. 1945 Denmark Danmark i Lænker (Denmark in Chains) Sven MethlingDanish film chronicling the 5 years of Nazi occupation of Denmark. 1946 United States Let There Be Light y HustonAmerican short documentary film intended to educate the public about post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment among returning veterans, but its unscripted presentation of mental disability caused the U.S. government to suppress the film, and it was not released until the 1980s.1947United StatesLest We Forgetn.a.
1950s Year Country Title DirectorNotes 1952 United States Victory at Sea M. Clay Adams 1955 France Night and Fog Alain ResnaisFrench documentary showcasing the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek established in occupied Poland while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. The film also talks about the rise of Nazi ideology.
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 Kingdom Japan's War in Colour David Batty 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 +YearCountryTitleDirector2010War MusicDavid Porteous2011United StatesWe Were ThereJarod O'Flaherty2011Netherlands900 DaysJessica Gorter 2011 United Kingdom The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire Stewart Binns2011RussiaSoviet Storm: World War II in the EastAnna Grazhdan 2012 United Kingdom Britain at War in Colour Stewart Binns2012United StatesOliver Stone's Untold History of the United StatesOliver Stone2013United StatesThe Ghost ArmyRick Beyer2014United StatesSecond War Diary: The War Day by DayJosé Delgado2015GermanyChristian Frey2016AustraliaA Long Way BackSamm Blake2018ItalyVisconti's EaglesClaudio Costa2019United KingdomGreatest Events of WWII in ColourSam Taplin, Nicky Bolster, Kasia Uscinska, Josh Whitehead & Ailsa Fereday
2020s Year Country Title Director2021 United Kingdom WWII in Color: Road to Victory Sam Taplin, Lou Westlake, Kim Lask, Stan Griffin & Katie Boxer2026United StatesWorld War II with Tom HanksDavid Belton, Annabel Hobley, Mark Radice, Shaun Trevisick & Duncan Singh
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
References