The following is a list of movies and documentaries that can be watched at home (or at Uncle Herbert's).  The films have been chosen because they involve the theme of war and memory.  One course responsibility is to watch two of these films by the end of the semester (you can substitute one or two audio programmes from the War On Audio link if you prefer).  We will discuss Film and War at the end of the semester.

For your journal, list the film title; the year of its production; and the nationality of its director.  Then, analyze the movie, with a particular focus upon the theme of memory.  Here are some questions to think about.  What importance does war play in the film?  How does the film understand the meaning of war?  What metaphors and symbols are used?  How do the characters fit together, and what, if anything, do they each represent?  How is the enemy portrayed?  How, ultimately, does this film suggest the war in question should be remembered and what evidence can you find about how influential this film was in shaping collective memory?  What will you remember about this movie?

You can, of course, offer a critical review of the movie but note that this is not the main point of the assignment.  Excellent films can help us to connect to the past.  Very poor films, however, sometimes can still be influential in shaping collective memory or can serve as revealing historical documents.

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• "Across the Pacific" (1942) (100 minutes) -- A Humphrey Bogart period -piece that becomes a revealing historical document about Hollywood's images of Asia, Asian-Americans, and "girls from Saskatoon" during World War II. 

• "All Quest On the Western Front" (1930) (NR) (103 minutes) -- Director Lewis Milestone's film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 antiwar novel. 

• "Apocalypse Now Redux" (2001) (202 minutes) -- The remix of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 movie about the Vietnam War. 

• "Ararat" (2002) (R) (115 minutes) -- Atom Egoyan's exploration of memory and the Armenian genocide of World War I. 

• "Atomic Cafe" (1982) (NR) (88 minutes) -- A documentary collage that weaves together contemporary footage from the post-World War II era to do with nuclear issues. 

• "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (1987) (PG) (103 minutes) -- Louis Malle's semi-autobiographical film about Jews hiding in German-occupied France during World War II. 

• "Bach In Auschwitz" (1999) (104 minutes) --  Eleven female members of the the SS "Auschwitz Orchestra" meet on the 50th anniversary of the camp's liberation. 

• "Barefoot Gen" (1983) (NR) (80 minutes) -- The anime adaptation of atomic bomb survivor Keiji Nakazawa's autobiographical comic book series. 

• "Battle of Algiers" (subtitled) (1966) (NR) (125 minutes) -- An influential film that chronicles the Algerian struggle for independence from the French (154-1962). 

• "Bent" (1997) (R) (104 minutes) -- The film adaptation of Martin Sherman play about two gay men sent to Dachau by the Nazis. 

• "Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) (168 minutes) -- Probably the best film about the return from World War II, it chronicles the adjustment issues of three small-town veterans. 

• "Birth Of A Nation" (1915) (NR) (127 minutes) -- D.W. Griffith's story of heroic Ku Kluxers saving a prostrate South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War was significant not only as the first major feature film but as a document that popularized the idea of the Confederate "Lost Cause." 

• "Black Rain" (subtitled) (1989) (NR) (123 minutes) -- The fallout, physical and metaphorical, from the August 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. 

• "Born On the Fourth of July" (1989) (145 minutes) -- Tom Cruise stars in a movie based upon the autobiography of the Vietnam veteran Ron Kovics. 

• "Boys From Brazil" (1978) (R) (127 minutes) -- Gregory Peck stars in this movie about Josef Mengele's attempt to clone a new generation of Hitlers. 

• "Braveheart"  (1995) (R) (177 minutes) -- The Hollywood blockbuster that tells the story of the thirteenth--century Scottish military hero William Wallace (a.k.a. Mel Gibson). 

• "Breaker Morant" (1979) (PG) (107 minutes) -- Bruce Beresford's Australian film about three soldiers facing court-martial and execution for killing a German minister and some Afrikaan prisoners during the Boer War (1899-1902). 

• "Bridge of the River Kwai" (1957) (PG) (162 minutes) -- The World War II classic, based on the story of British POWS forced to build a bridge to aid the Japanese war effort. 

• "A Bright Shining Lie" (1998) (118 minutes) -- Based on the Neil Sheehan biography, it uses the life of American soldier John Paul Vann as an entry point into an exploration of the Vietnam War. 

• "Butcher Boy" (1998) (R) (118 minutes) -- A troubled Irish boy growing up against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. 

• "Casualties of War" (1989) (R) (120 Minutes) -- Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn star in a film in which an Army private breaks with his buddies after witnessing a war atrocity. 

• "Catch-22" (1970) (121 minutes) -- Joseph Heller's classic novel about the surrealism of war brought to the big screen. 

• "Coming Home" (1978) (R) (131 minutes) -- An important period-piece that stars Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in a United States crippled by the Vietnam War. 

• "Copenhagen" (2003) (NR) (117 minutes) -- A philosophical essay based upon the legendary 1941 meeting between the German scientist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish friend Neils Bohr. 

• "The Crying Game" (1992) (R) (112 minutes) -- A volunteer for the Irish Republican Army helps kidnap a British soldier and becomes involved with his lover. 

• "Dances With Wolves" (1999) (180 minutes) -- Kevin Costner stars in an Academy-Award-winning-but-stereotyped depiction of the "Noble Savage." 

• "The Danger Tree" (1996) (NR) (49 minutes) -- A documentary based on David MacFarlane's memoir of World War I's impact upon his Newfoundland family.

• "Danton" (English subtitles) (1982) (PG) -- Gerard Depardieu is featured in this movie about the French Revolution. 

• "Das Boot" (Dubbed in English or subtitled) (1982)  (209 minutes) -- The German feature film about submarine warfare in World War II. 

• "Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam" (1988) (84 minutes) -- An HBO documentary in which contemporary film footage is matched with historical letters read by Hollywood actors and actresses. 

• "The Deer Hunter" (1978) (183 minutes) -- Robert DeNiro stars as one amongst several Pennsylvania mining town buddies sent off to Vietnam. 

• "Devil's Arithmetic" (1999) (101 minutes) -- A contemporary Jewish adolescent is transported to the past where she becomes her own Polish ancestor during the Holocaust. 

• "Divided We Fall" (2001) (PG) (117 minutes) -- A story set in a small Czech town occupied by German forces during World War II. 

• "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) (93 minutes) -- Stanley Kubrick's dark comedy about a world gone M.A.D. 

• "Europa, Europa" (English subtitles) (1991) (115 minutes) (R) -- A German-Jewish adolescent successfully hides his identity, only to be drafted into Hitler's army. 

• "Fail-Safe" (1964) (NR) (113 minutes) -- Henry Fonda stars in another example of the genre of Cold War era films that rendered public American nuclear fears. 

• "Farewell My Concubine" (English subtitles) (1993) (157 minutes) (NR) -- Two Chinese actors are swept up in the conflicts of twentieth-century history. 

• "Farewell To Arms" (1932) (NR) (90 minutes) -- The film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel about World War I. 

• "Fat Man and Little Boy" (1989) (127 minutes) -- The Manhattan Project and the production of the first atomic bombs in World War II. 

• "From Here To Eternity" (1953) (NR) (118 minutes) -- The lives of American military men on the eve of World War I. 

• "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) (117 minutes) -- Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam War masterpiece combines the Parris Island Marine training experience with the urban warfare of 1968 Hue. 

• "Gallipoli" (1981) (PG) (111 minutes) -- Peter Weir's film about Australia's coming of age during World War I. 

• "Gandhi" (1982) (PG) (187 minutes) -- Richard Attenborough's epic biography of the hero of India's independence movement. 

• "Gathering Storm" (2002) (NR) (96 minutes) -- An HBO movie about Winston Churchill's struggles in the years leading up to World War II. 

• "Gladiator" (2000) (R) (155 minutes) -- Russell Crowe takes centre ring in this blockbuster set in the days of the Roman Empire. 

• "Glory" (1989) (122 minutes) -- The story of the African-American 54th Massachusetts regiment and their assault on Charleston, South Carolina during the U.S. Civil War. 

• "Gone With the Wind" (1939) (233 minutes) -- Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable star in this romantic portrait of the lost world of the Old South. 

• "Good Morning Vietnam" (1988) (121 minutes) -- Robin Williams stars as a d.j. in this dark comedy about the war. 

• "Grand Illusion" (English subtitles) (1937) (111 minutes) -- This French film is regarded by many as the greatest anti-war film ever made. 

• "Grave Of the Fireflies" (1988) (NR) (88 minutes) -- A 14-year-old Japanese boy and his very young sister attempt to survive World War II in the town of Kobe.  An animated feature. 

• "Green Berets" (1968) (G) (142 minutes) -- No American film more strikingly transfers Western frontier mythology to the jungles of Vietnam. 

• "Heimat I & II: The Chronicle of A German Family" (1984-1994) (NR) (39 hours) -- An ambitious German television mini-series that traces the history of the recent past. 

• "Hiroshima Mon Amour" (English subtitles) (1959) (R) (91 minutes) -- Alain Resnais's film about a French woman and a Japanese man who become lovers in post-World War II Hiroshima. 

• "Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie" (1988) (NR) (270 minutes) -- A documentary in which Marcel Ophuls not only traces the biography of the SS officer who would come to be known as the "Butcher of Lyons" but also uses the lead-up to his trial as a way to explore others' relationships with the past. 

• "The Human Condition" (subtitled) (1958-1961) (NR) (570 minutes) -- Masaki Kobayashi's trilogy that uses Japan's war in China as a backdrop for a meditation upon what it means to be human. 

• "I'll Remember April" (1999) (90 minutes) -- A small group of California pre-adolescents take a Japanese sailor prisoner in the early days of World War II, only to have second thoughts about turning him in when they witness their town's persecution of its Japanese-American residents. 

• "Jaccuse" (subtitled) (1937) (NR) (100 minutes) -- Abel Gance's antiwar drama. 

• "Jakob the Liar" (1999) (PG) (120 minutes) -- Robin Williams stars as a Polish Jew who provides hope for his fellow ghetto dwellers during World War II. 

• "Joan of Arc" (1999) (NR) (140 minutes) -- A dramatization of the tumultuous life of the fifteenth--century French heroine who became a martyr in war with the English. 

• "Judgment At Nuremberg" (1961) (NR) (191 minutes) -- Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster star in the epic that portrays the post--1945 trials of accused Nazi war criminals. 

• "The Killing Fields" (1984) (R) (142) -- The relationship of a New York Times reporter and his Cambodian assistant during the rise of the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia. 

• "Knocks At My Door" (subtitled) (1995) (NR) (105 minutes) -- Nuns in Latin America face the choice of possible execution or lying abut the circumstances that led to them hiding a fugitive of war. 

• "The Last Butterfly" (1994) (PG) (106 minutes) -- Nazis force a mime to organize a performance in the show ghetto of Terezin, Czechoslovakia that will fool the Red Cross into believing that Jews are treated well in the town. 

• "The Last Emperor" (1987) (PG) (164 minutes) -- Bernardo Bertolucci's epic traces the history of twentieth--century China through the life of Pu Yi, the last of its emperors. 

• "Life Is Beautiful" (1998) (PG) (116 minutes) -- An Oscar--winning Holocaust comedy/tragedy. 

• "Lifeboat" (1944) (NR) (96 minutes) -- Eight individuals are stranded together after a German submarine sinks a passenger liner. 

• "Little Big Man" (1970) (147 minutes) -- Based on the novel by Thomas Berger, it stars Dustin Hoffman as the 121-year-old Jack Crabb, the sole remaining survivor of Custer's Last Stand. 

• "M.A.S.H." (1970) (116 minutes) -- This Vietnam-era movie about the Korean War became the inspiration for the television show of the same name. 

• "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." (1999) (NR) (91 minutes) -- A documentary about the designer of execution equipment who is brought in as a defense witness during the trial of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel. 

• "The Nasty Girl" (subtitled) (1990) (PG) (94 minutes) -- A French movie about a young German who researches the history of her hometown's involvement in the Holocaust. 

• "Night and Fog" (1955) (NR) (32 minutes) -- Alain Resnais's short documentary is still regarded by many as the most powerful film representation of the Holocaust. 

• "No Man's Land" (subtitled) (2001) (R) (98 minutes) -- Dani Tanovic's debut film about the absurdity of the Bosnian War. 

• "On the Beach" (1959) (NR) (139 minutes) -- A culturally-significant film representation of a post-apocalyptic world. 

• "Open City" (subtitled) (1945) (NR) (103 minutes) -- An early neorealist film that follows resistance fighters battling fascism in Nazi-occupied Italy. 

• "Paths of Glory" (1957) (NR) (89 minutes) -- Stanley Kubrick's film about French soldiers on the verge of mutiny in World War I. 

• "The Patriot" (2000) (165 minutes) -- A Hollywood blockbuster, it features an Australian actor playing a Rebel hero of the Revolution in a story loosely based upon World War II Nazi atrocities. 

• "Patton" (1970) (PG) (172 minutes) -- The Oscar-winning film at least implicitly represents one of the earliest in a continuing genre that explores the relationship between World War II and the Vietnam War. 

• "Pawnbroker" (1965) (116 minutes) -- Rod Steiger stars as Holocaust survivor who owns a Harlem pawnshop. 

• "Pharaoh's Army" (1995) (90 minutes) -- A film that uses one small incident involving Union foragers and a pro-Confederate Kentucky family to illustrate the "inner" Civil War. 

• "The Pianist" (2002) -- Roman Polanski's brilliant study of a piano player struggling to survive in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. 

• "Platoon" (1986) (120 minutes) -- Oliver Stone's character study is often cited as the most realistic Vietnam War movie in terms of combat footage. 

• "The Quarrel" (1991) (108 minutes) -- Two former friends meet and pick up on an intense debate about the meanings of the Holocaust and Judaism. 

• "Quiet American" (2002) (R) (102 minutes) -- A relatively faithful adaptation of Graham Greene's prescient 1950s-era novel, it explores the relationship between a world-weary British journalist, a Vietnamese woman, and an idealistic young American. 

• "Rambo: First Blood" (1982) (R) (96 minutes) -- An important movie not only for its near-destruction of Hope, B.C. (the site of its filming), but also for its reinterpretation of the memories of the Vietnam War. 

• "Red Cherry" (subtitled) (1995) (R) (120 minutes) -- A Chinese film that follows the struggles of two Chinese boarding school students to survive during the Germans invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. 

• "Regret To Inform" (1998) (78 minutes) -- A documentary about a widow who returns to Vietnam many years after the war. 

• "Rhapsody In August" (subtitled) (1991) (PG) (98 minutes) -- Akira Kurosawa's reflection upon memory and the bombing of Hiroshima. 

• "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949) (NR) (129 minutes) -- The classic John Wayne World War II combat action flick, more significant for its cultural impact than for its cinematic subtleties. 

• "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) (168 minutes) -- Perhaps Spielberg's best, it presents World War II from the perspective of American soldiers on the beaches and in the countryside of France. 

• "Schindler's List" (1993) (R) (197 minutes) -- Steven Spielberg's film about the Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler and his attempt to save more than one thousand Jews from the concentration camps. 

• "Seventh Seal" (subtitled) (NR) (96 minutes) -- Ingmar Bergman's allegory of man's search for meaning in life features a chess match between a knight and Death. 

• "Shoah" (1985) (NR) (566 minutes) -- Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary about the Holocaust. 

• "Slaughterhouse Five" (1972) (R) (104 minutes) -- The film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's famous antiwar novel. 

• "Specialist" (Subtitled) (1999) (NR) (128 minutes) -- An experimental documentary that uses the 1961 Jerusalem trial of SS colonel Adolf Eichmann as its focal point. 

• "Such A Long Journey" (1998) (NR) (113 minutes) -- Looming war between India and Pakistan over the issue of East Pakistan refugees in 1971 serves as the backdrop for this character study. 

• "Tenth Man" (1998) (NR) (100 minutes) -- Anthony Hopkins stars in this World War II tale about a French lawyer who gives all his possessions to a fellow captive who agrees to be executed by the Germans in his stead. 

• "Thin Red Line" (1998) (170 minutes) -- Another in the recent series of American films negotiating the cultural relationship between World War II and Vietnam War memory, it highlights the former's conflict in the Pacific. 

• "Thirteen Days" (2000) (145 minutes) -- A docudrama set at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. 

• "The Tin Drum" (subtitled) (1979) (R) (142 minutes) -- A disturbing masterpiece based on the novel of Gunter Grass in which the protagonist Oskar decides at three not to grow any older.  Some viewers may be offended. 

• "Train of Life" (subtitled) (1998) (R) (103 minutes) -- Set in 1941, a tiny Jewish community in France decides to escape towards freedom. 

• "Triumph of the Will" (subtitled) (1934) (NR) (115 minutes) -- Leni Riefenstahl's documentary celebration of the rule of Hitler and the Nazis. 

• "Tuskegee Airmen" (1995) (106 minutes) -- A movie chronicling the African-American fliers of World War II. 

• "Ulysses' Gaze" (1995) (NR) (173 minutes) -- Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, it follows a Greek-American filmmaker obsessed by the video of two brothers who chronicle ethnic conflict in the Balkans. 

• "Valour and the Horror" -- A three-part  documentary about Canadian participation in World War II that was the target of considerable outraged criticism upon its early 1990s-era release.

• "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1983) (PG) (115 minutes) -- Set in mid-1960s Indonesia, it stars a young Mel Gibson in a nation on the brink of revolution.