Canada Vignettes: Wop May

Grand Illusion

June 1937 •French

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.

The Red Baron

March 2008 •German

Richthofen goes off to war like thousands of other men. As fighter pilots, they become cult heroes for the soldiers on the battlefields. Marked by sportsmanlike conduct, technical exactitude and knightly propriety, they have their own code of honour. Before long he begins to understand that his hero status is deceptive. His love for Kate, a nurse, opens his eyes to the brutality of war.

The Raider Emden

December 1926 •German

The Green Room

April 1978 •French

A WWI veteran decides to build a memorial to all of the people who have mattered to him but are now dead.

The Somme

November 2005 •English

Drama-documentary recounting the events of the 1st July 1916 and the Battle of the Somme on the Western Front during the First World War. Told through the letters and journals of soldiers who were there.

Flyboys

September 2006 •English

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

Az I. Világháború: Az európai frontok nagy csatái

November 2006 •English

Lawrence of Arabia

December 1962 •English

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.

Paths of Glory

October 1957 •English

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

Bluebeard

January 1963 •French

Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri Landru, a seemingly respectable furniture dealer, married and father of four children, relentlessly feeds his own sinister factory of death.

Fort Saganne

May 1984 •French

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.

Battle Front in Britain

June 1918 •English

From growing potatoes in Green Park, London, to transforming rabbit crates into seed boxes – just a couple of the many ingenious ways of supporting the war effort which are covered in this film from the Ministry of Information.

Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero

April 2018 •English

The true story of the most decorated dog in American military history -- Sgt. Stubby -- and the enduring bonds he forged with his brothers-in-arms in the trenches of World War I.

Gallipoli

August 1981 •English

As World War I rages, brave and youthful Australians Archy and Frank—both agile runners—become friends and enlist in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps together. They later find themselves part of the Dardanelles Campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula, a brutal eight-month conflict which pit the British and their allies against the Ottoman Empire and left over 500,000 men dead.

Joyeux Noel

November 2005 •French

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…

Battle of Jutland: The Navy's Bloodiest Day

May 2016 •English

Documentary about the Battle of Jutland, a naval battle during World War I between the British and German fleets, which took place on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea, off the west coast of Denmark. It re-creates the events of the battle and examines why the number of British warships that sank was so much higher than the number of German ships that were lost. Shown to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the battle.

Aurora's Sunrise

April 2023 •Armenian

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

Reds

December 1981 •English

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

Gallipoli: The Untold Stories

April 2005 •English

This program provides, through 1st hand accounts & contemporary films & photographs, a rare insight into what really happened. Together with meticulously researched stories, it provides a unique analysis of the Gallipoli campaign, including never-seen before interviews with the last 10 Gallipoli Anzacs, rare film footage showing the beach & trenches at Gallipoli.

Gallipoli

March 2005 •English

The Gallipoli campaign of World War I was so controversial & devastating, it changed the face of battle forever. Using diaries, letters, photographs and memoirs, acclaimed director, Tolga Ornek, traces the personal journeys of Australian, New Zealand, British and Turkish soldiers, from innocence and patriotism to hardship and heartbreak.