WWII Movies for Wolfenstein Fans

Without a doubt the Wolfenstein series has been about action-adventure rather than historical drama or "horrors of war" documentary, and I've been a fan of WWII movies in the same vein since I was a kid. I wanted to post recommendations for people on Doomworld who are into Wolf3D but haven't seen a lot of older WWII flicks that were straight adventure films with no pretentious attempts at being arty or meaningful, which the game series sorta pays tribute to in a lot of ways.

My main recommendation is Where Eagles Dare, which makes me think of Wolf3D more than any of the others. The heroes are on the sort of mission BJ would have been sent on regularly, culminating in a lot of sneakin' and shootin' in the Schloss Adler, a big German castle perched atop a mountain that can only be accessed by helicopter or cable car. The espionage elements are intense, and the action is nonstop by the second half. Has a few cool German villains too.

Also check out The Guns of Navarone and The Eagle Has Landed.

Where Eagles Dare was amazing. Your thread inspired me to finally look up that war movie Pink watched in The Wall which is called The Dam Busters and which I had learned only a week ago was the inspiration for the first Death Star battle. These films have always held a special place in my heart though, having been raised by veterans and having a lot of respect for the soldiers and their sacrifices. The fact that the old war films were very much pro-American propaganda is something I really miss in cinema in general; I understand my country isn't perfect, but I love it and the freedoms it represents, and I'd like to see a return to that kind of admiration for it in the media.

Random thought: Saving Private Ryan and the napalm scene in Forrest Gump were the reasons I was too afraid/chickenshit to join the military (even after knowing my intelligence would have landed me a non-infantry posistion). It's a decision I regret to this day, and I'm far too old to join now. Still, SPR was absolutely amazing both to my 11 year old self and even today. Scary, scary shit; much respect to all the troops that fought in that horror and kudos to Spielberg for doing such an excellent job.

Some of my favorite WW2 movies are Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates (if you can stand Russian characters with British accents), and The Great Escape. All three of those have areas and scenes that pretty much directly and indirectly inspired areas of the first Call of Duty game and probably Call of Duty 2 as well. You know you're a nerd when you can identify them and also name the area of the game where they are based.

Inglorious Basterds 

>Jewish dudes hired to super murder Nazis for a living and get all giddy and jolly at the act

>Not very historically accurate for the sake of creative liberty

>Hitler is the final boss 

Not WW2 but There's also some nice compilation videos of people beating down Nazis IRL lately so that could count in a way

^{The Dirty Dozen} 

^{Cross of Iron}

^{The Big Red One} 

^{The Longest Day}

^{All Quiet on the Western Front}

^{I feel that Triumph of the Will has to be mentioned in here even though Leni Reifensthal was a disgusting person her influence on the perception of the Nazis and her use of propaganda is undeniable} 

Doom usually gets brought up as being a hodge podge of difference influences and hobbies the team had while making the game but i think, the same approach could be made with the Wolfenstein games but the well of what they took influences from is smaller and less cross refferential. Private Ryan and Inglorious Bastards are good touch points when talking about the last 2 games. But i feel more so from 3D up to about RTCW as much as they played fast and loose with what the SS Paranomal devision really looked into with films they were specifically working from that same kind of space as stuff from the (40s-70s) ,good tough all american men going out their to protect freedoms etc(even if the US"s place in that story is slightly more dubious than what fiction will tell you) shoot outs in tight corridors,tense pacing and the like.

(pardon me for getting rambly, it happens from time to time)

I've seen Saving Private Ryan a couple times, great movie that reflects the horrors of WWII, though my favorite WWII movie is Der Untergang aka Downfall which is known for having lots of parodies, with a honorable mention to Inglorious Basterds, for the humor as well that scene of Hitler slamming the desk and ranting.

Inglorious Basterds was going to be my suggestion, too. Although I found the ending slightly surreal, felt a bit like watching some kind of revenge porn snuff film.

Wolfenstein III: The New Frontier 

The Guns of Navarone, and its sequel

Force 10 From Navarone

Both of these are based on books by Alistair MacLean, the same author who wrote Where Eagles Dare. He specialized in thrillers, some of which were set in WWII, but most were set in the Cold War period.

No Captain America: The First Avenger?

Kelly's Heroes

Get all of the gold.

Have you see ''The white ribbon''? That is one hell of a movie, its german btw. 

52 minutes ago, pnptcn said:

Kelly's Heroes

 

 

 

 

Get all of the gold.

Great fuckin' action movie. Just watched it again last week.

The Keep

Just now, Piper Maru said:

The Keep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAVjEURN0JU

Ahhh, thanks for reminding me about this one. I've been meaning to see it.

Stalingrad -- but the german version from 1993 (directed by Joseph Vilsmaier), not the crappy russian one made in 2013.

1 hour ago, Impie said:

Ahhh, thanks for reminding me about this one. I've been meaning to see it.

Michael Mann's strangest venture, but not his most misunderstood