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Movies that feel like The Great Escape (1963)

If you loved The Great Escape, the closest films we have are The Guns of Navarone (1961), Grand Illusion (1937) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). All three share The Great Escape's epic and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 9 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.

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.

πŸ… 94% Rotten Tomatoesβ˜… 8.2 IMDb β†—TMDB β†—dir. John Sturgesepiccontemplativebleak
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If The Great Escape hit the spot, these will too

The Guns of Navarone poster
The Guns of Navarone
1961 Β· dir. J. Lee Thompson
πŸ… 92%β˜… 7.5adventure Β· drama Β· war

Epic where it counts, contemplative underneath

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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Grand Illusion poster
Grand Illusion
1937 Β· dir. Jean Renoir
πŸ… 97%β˜… 8.1drama Β· history Β· war

Common ground in both: prisoner and escape

The difference: Sits closer to history than The Great Escape does

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant MarΓ©chal, 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.

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The Bridge on the River Kwai poster
The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 Β· dir. David Lean
πŸ… 96%β˜… 8.1drama Β· history Β· war

Bleak drama in both cases

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 Tin Drum poster
The Tin Drum
1979 Β· dir. Volker SchlΓΆndorff
πŸ… 84%β˜… 7.4drama Β· history Β· war

One thread runs through both: nazi

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 Β· dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
πŸ… 99%β˜… 8.1drama Β· war Β· history

War built on scale, twice over

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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Where Eagles Dare poster
Where Eagles Dare
1968 Β· dir. Brian G. Hutton
πŸ… 84%β˜… 7.6adventure Β· war

The same preoccupation in both: nazi

The difference: None of the stillness The Great Escape is built on

World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that's nearly impossible to breach. It's up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it's too late.

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Patton poster
Patton
1970 Β· dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
πŸ… 92%β˜… 7.9war Β· drama Β· history

Contemplative adventure, and it commits to that

"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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Army of Shadows poster
Army of Shadows
1969 Β· dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
πŸ… 97%β˜… 8.1war Β· drama Β· thriller

Drama with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.

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Das Boot poster
Das Boot
1981 Β· dir. Wolfgang Petersen
πŸ… 98%β˜… 8.4drama Β· history Β· war

Both lean on scale more than on war

A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.

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Lawrence of Arabia poster
Lawrence of Arabia
1962 Β· dir. David Lean
πŸ… 93%β˜… 8.3adventure Β· history Β· war

Bleak adventure, and it commits to that

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

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The Dirty Dozen poster
The Dirty Dozen
1967 Β· dir. Robert Aldrich
πŸ… 82%β˜… 7.7action Β· adventure Β· war

Cut from the same adventure cloth

12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy chΓ’teau and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.

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The Captain poster
The Captain
2018 Β· dir. Robert Schwentke
πŸ… 83%β˜… 7.3war Β· drama Β· history

Both are built on the same subject: prisoner

The difference: 55 years apart, and the 2010s show

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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In the mood for more epic?

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The best-reviewed films that share The Great Escape’s defining feeling.