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Movies that feel like Grand Illusion (1937)

If you loved Grand Illusion, the closest films we have are All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). All three share Grand Illusion's contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 11 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video and others, checked against today's data.

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

🍅 97% Rotten Tomatoes8.1 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Jean Renoircontemplativeepicbleak
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If Grand Illusion hit the spot, these will too

All Quiet on the Western Front poster
All Quiet on the Western Front
1930 · dir. Lewis Milestone
🍅 98%8.1drama · war

The same two preoccupations: germany, and world war i

The difference: Missing the scale of Grand Illusion

When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.

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Battleship Potemkin poster
Battleship Potemkin
1925 · dir. Sergei Eisenstein
🍅 100%7.9drama · history · war

Both land stillness and scale at once

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

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The Bridge on the River Kwai poster
The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 · dir. David Lean
🍅 96%8.1drama · history · war

One thread runs through both: prisoner of war

The difference: 20 years apart, and the 1950s show

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

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The Captain poster
The Captain
2018 · dir. Robert Schwentke
🍅 83%7.3war · drama · history

Both keep coming back to the same thing: prisoner

Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of a Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.

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The Great Escape poster
The Great Escape
1963 · dir. John Sturges
🍅 94%8.2adventure · drama · war

Common ground: escape

The difference: Sits closer to adventure than Grand Illusion does

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

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The Tin Drum poster
The Tin Drum
1979 · dir. Volker Schlöndorff
🍅 84%7.4drama · history · war

The same preoccupation in both: germany

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

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The Battle of Algiers poster
The Battle of Algiers
1966 · dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
🍅 99%8.1drama · war · history

Bleak drama, and it commits to that

Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.

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Paths of Glory poster
Paths of Glory
1957 · dir. Stanley Kubrick
🍅 96%8.4war · drama

Both are built on the same subject: france

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

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The Guns of Navarone poster
The Guns of Navarone
1961 · dir. J. Lee Thompson
🍅 92%7.5adventure · drama · war

War built on stillness, twice over

A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.

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Land of Mine poster
Land of Mine
2015 · dir. Martin Zandvliet
🍅 91%7.8war · drama · history

Both keep coming back to the same thing: prisoner of war

In the days following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, a group of young German prisoners of war is handed over to the Danish authorities and subsequently sent to the West Coast, where they are ordered to remove the more than two million mines that the Germans had placed in the sand along the coast. With their bare hands, crawling around in the sand, the boys are forced to perform the dangerous work under the leadership of a Danish sergeant.

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Lifeboat poster
Lifeboat
1944 · dir. Alfred Hitchcock
🍅 90%7.6war · drama

History with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

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Patton poster
Patton
1970 · dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
🍅 92%7.9war · drama · history

Both lean on scale more than on drama

"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.

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In the mood for more contemplative?

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The best-reviewed films that share Grand Illusion’s defining feeling.