USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
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.
As the Salo Republic crumbles around him, Mussolini, along with his mistress and several of his ministers flee with retreating Nazi soldiers, but are caught at the town of Dongo by red partisans. All are brutally executed without trial.
After being expelled from Beecher Prep for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.
When Continuation War started in Summer 1941, German soldiers arrived to Oulu. With their charm they conquered women and town boys. Finnish boys communicated with them on many levels: had trades, worked as interpreters, rotated business, spied on German love adventures and fought with each other about the favor of soldiers. In autumn 1944, the war was ending. Germans left Oulu by leaving behind fragile relationships, bastard kids and unfinished businesses. The most shocking of all was the faith of young Jake...
On the night of August 24, 1944, the fate of Paris rests with General von Choltitz, who plans to destroy the city on Hitler's orders. As the general prepares to detonate explosives throughout the capital, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling uses diplomacy in a desperate bid to convince him to defy the orders and save Paris.
In 1943 Japan is facing defeat. This makes Shinkichi, a straight, selfless student-patriot, ever more restless. He can no longer stand his soft "behind-the- gun" role of munition factory worker. School-mates one after another are going to the front, where he feels he should be. The last straw is an official report of his father's death in the Battle of Attu in the Aleutian Islands. He rushes to the naval air corps training camp at Tsuchiura along with his close school-mates Naito, Yamada, Saito and Tagawa as Volunteer pilot trainees leaving his mother and sweetheart weeping and helpless.
In December 1937, during the Second Japanese-Sino War, a Chinese doctor, his Japanese pregnant wife, their teenage daughter and their young son travel from Shanghai to Nanjing seeking shelter in the Capital during the Japanese invasion. The family faces the Rape of Nanking by the Imperial Japanese Army, with rapes, mass murder of prisoners of war and civilians including women, children and elders, and disrespect of international conventions.
In the spring of 1944, in the Woëvre forest of Lorraine, a group of young maquisards takes in four German deserters. led by Saint-Brice is based in the Woevre forest. Lise, a nineteen-year-old girl, is their liaison officer. One evening, four German soldiers turn up as deserters. After a period of doubt, the maquisards agree to integrate them into their group. Lise falls in love with one of the newcomers, Werner, and becomes his mistress. One day, she leaves on a mission with Lucien, and comes across an enemy patrol. The SS shoot Lucien and free Lise. In the camp, people begin to think that the maquis has been betrayed.
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.
As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...
"Iskra" is the codename for the plan of the operation of the Soviet troops to break the blockade of Leningrad. In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. A corridor 8-11 km wide was formed between Lake Ladoga and the front line.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
A tribute to the important work of female nurses during World War II.
In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent it, Hitler orders an all-out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp.
A gang of tough street kids decide to go straight and get jobs in order to free draft-age men for the war effort. However, because of their past tangles with the law, they can't find anybody who'll hire them. Finally one of them gets a job at the department store where his sister works, but runs afoul of a store executive who is in league with a ring of hijackers.
In the early days of daylight bombing raids over Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a 'hard luck' bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets.
Three modern day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town on the way to Canterbury.