Seeds of Destiny

The Cake Tree in the Ruins

August 2006 •Japanese

War drama based on a short story by Akiyuki Nosaka.

M*A*S*H

February 1970 •English

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2000.

The Tin Drum

May 1979 •German

Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.

Pearl Harbor

May 2001 •English

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Land Without Bread

December 1933 •Spanish

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

Primary

November 1960 •English

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

The Convoys of Shame

March 2010 •Spanish

Chosen

August 2016 •English

An unassuming young lawyer leads a fight against the Nazis near the end of the Second World War.

Les rafles d'août 1942 en zone libre, un crime de l'État Français

September 2009 •French

Les juifs d'Afrique du Nord pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

May 2014 •French

Le Miracle du silence

January 2010 •French

Drancy 1941–1944, the Internment Camp Next Door

October 2012 •French

The untold story of a world-renowned place of remembrance of the Holocaust in France, the internment camp of Drancy, which was the central transit for the near totality of the 76 000 deported Jews of France during World War II.

Ils ne savaient pas ? Les Français et la Shoah sous l'occupation

March 2012 •French

Le sauvetage des enfants juifs, 1938-1945

February 2012 •French

Ils étaient juifs et résistants

March 2015 •French

David – Stories of Honour and Shame

November 1997 •Finnish

Documentary about Finnish Jews during WWII and their unique position as German allies.

Heaven on Earth

May 1970 •Polish

Polish sappers try to prevent Wehrwolf soldiers from blowing up a chemical factory.

Operation Petticoat

December 1959 •English

A World War II submarine commander finds himself stuck with a damaged sub, a con-man executive officer, and a group of army nurses.

Long Live the Republic

November 1965 •Czech

Oldrich is the runt of his village, beaten by his father, bullied by the other boys. But he has imagination on his side, and a wiry toughness they can’t defeat. The village is in turmoil, because the Nazi occupiers have just retreated and the Red Army is advancing. Oldrich dodges amid the mayhem and panic, taking his share of blows but always managing to stay one step ahead. Beautifully shot and darkly ironic, Karel Kachyna’s forgotten masterpiece jumbles reality, memory and fantasy to capture the intensity and confusion of childhood in a war zone.