Sibling tragedy leads 3 best World War II movies to watch on Netflix this weekend, Oct 24-25
A heartbreaking animated story
Studio Ghibli’s 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies follows Seita and his younger sister, Setsuko, Japanese orphans struggling to survive in the final days of the Pacific Theater. The story opens with its tragic ending before tracing the siblings’ attempts to endure.
Based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s 1967 semi-autobiographical short story, the film portrays the damage war inflicts on vulnerable people. The children’s bond helps sustain them, making their suffering a forceful anti-war statement.
A resistance operation on screen
In Anthropoid, Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy play Czechoslovak soldiers Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík. The thriller depicts Operation Anthropoid, a resistance effort to kill Reinhard Heydrich, a leading Nazi figure and architect of the Holocaust.
The film presents the operation as a tense, compelling episode of the war. Its story highlights a courageous mission that succeeded in eliminating a high-ranking Nazi leader.
A comic sabotage mission
Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare stars Henry Cavill as Gus March-Phillips, who gathers agents to sabotage German U-boats on Fernando Po. Agent Marjorie Stewart, played by Eiza González, works to enter the circle of SS Commander Heinrich Luhr.
The film mixes action with broad humor and features an ensemble that includes Alan Ritchson. It offers an entertaining, lighter-toned take on World War II without aiming to reinvent the genre.
Key points
- Grave of the Fireflies follows two Japanese orphans during the war’s final Pacific Theater days.
- Anthropoid dramatizes the Czechoslovak Resistance’s Operation Anthropoid against Reinhard Heydrich.
- The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare follows agents seeking to sabotage German U-boats.
- The three films range from animated tragedy to thriller and comedic action.