The Spirit of '43

Two Mothers

June 1957 •German

The story of two women, one French and the other German, who fight for a child who has been mistakenly taken by the Germans after a bomb raid.

Camilla

January 2008 •Russian

Full Metal Jacket

June 1987 •English

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Downfall

September 2004 •German

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

Soldier of Orange

September 1977 •Dutch

The lives of Erik Lanshof and five of his closest friends take different paths when the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940: fight and resistance, fear and resignation, collaboration and high treason.

Das Boot

September 1981 •German

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.

The Dog and the Cat

February 1938 •Armenian

This is a story about the origin of hostility between a cat and a dog. Based on the ballad of Hovhannes Tumanyan.

Marine Life Interviews

November 2016 •English

Interviews with the animals at the Marine Life Institute about their experiences with Dory.

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.

The Lancaster at War

July 2009 •English

The incredible story of the Avro Lancaster, one of the finest bombers of the Second World War, which played a crucial role in the long and savage campaign to defeat Hitler's Third Reich. This documentary features interviews with surviving veterans of Bomber Command, who share frank personal accounts of their part in an aerial battle of attrition which claimed the lives of 55'000 aircrew.

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey

January 2017 •English

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Piccolo

November 1959 •

Two men in adjoining duplexes, good friends, are enchanted by the song of a bird. One buys a small harmonica and learns to play it; he keeps his neighbor awake. The neighbor buys a larger harmonica, and an arms race ensues; the instruments get larger, until it's a piano vs. a pipe organ, and then they start bringing in larger groups of friends until an entire orchestra is playing the 1812 Overture. The houses collapse from all this, atop the dueling orchestras, and on their way up to heaven, the man puts his small harmonica up for sale.

This Is Your Life Donald Duck

March 1960 •English

Jiminy Cricket is all set to give a testimonial to Donald Duck. But alas, Donald is relaxing at home, with no plans to leave any time soon. Literally dragged to the Disney Studio by his nephews, an outraged Donald relaxes a bit when he realizes that he's the guest of honor. Donald's life is recounted by such colleagues as Daisy Duck (who explains why she and Donald never married), Chip 'n' Dale, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and even a few guest stars who never made a picture with the duck, including the Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Lady and the Tramp.

Europa Europa

November 1990 •German

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.

Spanish Onions

March 1930 •English

A mouse invites his girlfriend to a bullfight and ends up in the ring when the matador is defeated.

Long Bridge of Desired Direction

February 2012 •Russian

A lonely man lives with his pet on a small island and longed to get to 'other people.'

Hedgehog's Home

January 2017 •Croatian

In a lush and lively forest lives a hedgehog. He is at once admired, respected and envied by the other animals. However, Hedgehog’s unwavering devotion to his home annoys and mystifies a quartet of insatiable beasts: a cunning fox, an angry wolf, a gluttonous bear and a muddy boar. Together, the haughty brutes march off towards Hedgehog’s home to see just what is so precious about this “castle, shiny and huge.” What they find amazes them and sparks a tense and prickly standoff.

If I Don't Come Home: Letters from D-Day

June 2014 •English

A partly dramatised account of the lives of four Allied servicemen ahead of D-Day, the programme told their story through their final letters home before the assault.

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.