Looking to show my classes a WWII movie next week. All the good ones I have on DVD are too violent - Private Ryan, Stalingrad, etc, etc...

Is there a highly captivating WWII movie that I cvan show to my kids? Rated PG13 and under...


thanks

Docs are def out...half of them will fall alseep! I already showed them Pearl Harbor back in December....I'm thinking something like Boy in Striped Pajamas.

Not a WWII film per se, but you should definitely screen Night and Fog for them. It's a film every human being should see.

I would recommend older movies, IE Longest Day, A Bridge to Far, Sink the Bismark. They tend to not be too graphic in the battle scenes.

I would say the remastered A Bridge too Far it's excellent.
Battle of the Bulge is good too. Even Patton.
But all of these are very long in running time.
That's their only drawbacks as far as i'm concerned.

THE GREAT ESCAPE with Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson.

The Dirty Dozen

I agree that older films would work best but I'd pass on Battle of the Bulge, it's long and my kids thought it was boring. Patton was the first one that popped into my mind. The others mentioned here would all be good too.

I'd also consider Das Boot, a fantastic look at life on a German sub.

CASABLANCA (1943) - it's much shorter than other worthy WWII films (e.g. THE LONGEST DAY, PATTON, THE GREAT ESCAPE, AIR FORCE, THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, etc.) and it perfectly captures the emotions of the time in a way that will bring it to life for the kids. Plus, it gets parodied a lot and a lot of its catchphrases have become part of the culture, e.g. "I'm shocked, SHOCKED that gambling is going on," "Round up the usual suspects," "Here's looking at you, kid," "Play it again, Sam," etc., etc., etc.

Plus, it'll give the ignorant little brats their first look at Bogart, a real man of a movie star compared to the (BLEEP)'s they see onscreen nowadays.

Perhaps the message is a bit muddled, but - for 12 year-olds - I might go with something humanistic like Sinatra's NONE BUT THE BRAVE (1965). The majority seem rather dismissive of the movie, but I very much enjoy it. Given that you spend a lot of time with the Japanese soldiers too in that film, it might have an "exotic" appeal not found in most other American-made war movies. I think it was a pretty bold attempt by Sinatra to make a film like this back in 1965.

Au Revoir Mes Enfants.

It's school, you can make them watch something in French.

Enemy at the Gates is good - at least for showing them what it was like on the Russian front. And I remember in middle school I had watched All Quiet On The Western Front, the 1930 one (but that is World War I). I guess point being is that we were shown older war films.

Escape from Sobibor.

Our English teacher showed us this film in 8th grade, and it really sticks with you for a long time.

How about Band of Brothers? The episodes are short enough, plus it has the short interviews with the actual vets.

I second the original All Quiet On the Western Front. This is really tame in terms of violence when compared to today's war films, but it has a great story line....

Ha! I forgot AQOTWF was a WW1 film! Still a good one to show though =)

Die Brucke. Its in German with sub titles but it is based on an actual incident of a class of German school kids who get roped into defending the bridge, hence the title, that leads into their town. While the teacher is all about how great it is to fight for honor and glory, a vet from the eastern front gives a different perspective on war.

I'd recommend the mini-series WAR AND REMEMBRANCE, but you'd need multiple-classes to show that one, since I believe it's something like 25 hours long!

DON'T show them Michael Bay's PEARL HARBOR...our education system is in enough of a mess.

As far as showcasing the Holocaust, I agree with Shannon: War and Remembrance is really underrated (the scenes with John Gielgud and Jane Seymour are devastating -- Dan Curtis didn't pull any punches).

It's too bad you already showed them Pearl Harbor -- Tora! Tora! Tora! is far better (reasonably historically accurate, with great action scenes that aren't "graphic")

Don't rule out docs altogether, though; there are so many good ones out there on the subject (if you're worried about your students being bored, I remember an eraser being whizzed at my head used to work wonders). I still think Thames Television's The World at War (which aired here on PBS in '73 or '74) is the single best doc on WWII, but like War and Remembrance, it's over 25 hours long (you could still pick out some great individual episodes).