Best movies like Billy Budd

While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire. In charge, Lietenant Commander Kerans was not however prepared for his crew and his ship to remain as a hostage for the Chinese to use as an international pawn.

Stan is a sailor whose girl gets kidnapped by a rough sea captain. Stan dresses in drag and seduces the captain but the captain's wife catches him. Stan and his girl beat a hasty retreat as the captain's wife fires off a parting shot.

Three castaways all from differing levels of society reach and board a deserted schooner in mid-ocean.

During WWII, Duke E. Gifford is second in command of the USS Thunderfish, a submarine which is firing off torpedoes that either explode too early or never explode at all. It's a dilemma that he'll eventually take up personally. Even more personal is his quest to win back his ex-wife, a nurse; but he'll have to win her back from a navy flier who also happens to be his commander's little brother.

U.S. agent Major Tom Blake is sent to Tripoli to uncover who it is in Washington that is tipping off the pirates as to what's being shipped where. A fast-moving story with lots of sabers and rapiers.

A seasick sea captain commands an amusement pier despite local opposition. Released in the U.S. as 'All at Sea'

Billy is an innocent, naive seaman in the British Navy in 1797. When the ship's sadistic master-at-arms is murdered, Billy is accused and tried.

The familiar story of Lieutenant Bligh, whose cruelty leads to a mutiny on his ship. This version follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian to get his men beyond the reach of British retribution, and the epic voyage of Lieutenant Bligh to get his loyalists safely to East Timor in a tiny lifeboat.

A steel samurai blade that was to be given to the American ambassador by the Emperor of Japan is stolen. American sailors and Japanese samurai are sent to find it.

After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.

On the eve of their return to the states, the crew of the U.S.S. Blake is unpleasantly surprised when their new captain, Lt. Commander Hale, announces that they've been reassigned to the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. With the news turning the crew against him, Hale must rise to the occasion to keep his men inline.

A woman reporter, a navy investigator, and a heavyset police detective come across a gang which scuttled a ship in order to loot her later, underwater, for a Navy money consignment.

Mr. Roberts is as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.

The Navy expects a veteran to pay for the ship he commanded, as they have no record of its return.

Sailor Spike dates girls whose names he finds in an address book. Each girl has the same tatoo, placed there by another sailor Bill. When Spike meets Bill they become friends. In Calais Spike meets Goldie. Bill warns him against her, but Spike ignores the warning until he finds Bill's tatoo on Goldie as well.

A cocky guy joins the Navy for the wrong reason but finds romance and twice is cited for heroism.

The crew of PT-73 get into trouble when they back the wrong horse in a race. Now they have to come up with a way to raise the money to pay off the winners.

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

After learning the finer points of carrier aviation in the 1920s, career officer Jonathan Scott and his pals spend the next two decades promoting the superiority of naval air power. But military and political "red tape" continually frustrate their efforts, prompting Scott to even consider leaving the Navy for a more lucrative civilian job. Then the world enters a second World War and Scott finally gets the opportunity to prove to Washington the valuable role aircraft carriers could play in winning the conflict. But what will it cost him and his comrades personally?

The Glyndebourne Opera's 1981 production of the Benjamin Britten opera, based on Shakespeare's play.

A sailor who is a champion boxer in the Navy is forced to leave the service because his family's business, a tuna fishing operation, is in financial trouble. He becomes a prizefighter and one day signs up for a winner-take-all boxing match, which could make him a lot of money but could also result in the end of his boxing career.

Made during the early days of sound cinema, this tense submarine adventure is an intriguing example of a hybrid silent-talkie. A disgraced English sub commander changes his name to Burke and joins the American Navy. When the U.S. submarine on which he is serving as a torpedo launcher begins to sink, Burke must make the ultimate sacrifice to save as many crew men as possible..

A Mother is devastated when her sailor son is murdered by two of his crewmates in a homophobic attack.

Benjamin Britten's opera as performed by the English National Opera, with Philip Langridge in the title role.

Butch Rogers and Sock McGillis are old submarine hands stationed in Panama. On land, Butch and Sock battle over pretty Ann Sawyer. At sea and underwater, however, our two heroes are inseparable.

Comical exploits of two Navy pals, at sea and on shore.

A British submarine on patrol is accidentally rammed by a merchant ship, that tears a big hole in in sub which sinks trapping the crew.

All of the navy men in a California port town have fallen in love with Jackie Holbrook, except for Captain Robert Crowne. As a result, roused by the challenge, Jackie decides that she must add Robert to her list of conquests. Disguising herself as a sailor, she leaves port on Robert's ship, which is headed for the island of Vergania to quell a native uprising. On the island, Robert is taken captive by the natives, and just as they prepare to sacrifice him, Jackie leads a successful rescue mission. Then, Jackie reveals herself to be a woman, and Robert, impressed with her beauty and bravery, instantly falls in love, and makes plans with her for an immediate marriage.

Forever England gives John Mills his first leading role as Brown. Born after a brief affair between his mother and a naval officer, he joins the Royal Navy during the First World War. There his bravery and marksmanship keeps a German ship in port so a British ship can sink it. He becomes a hero, but at what cost?

A sailor and his captain fight over a beautiful girl.

A feature film about Benjamin Britten, released as part of the 100 year celebrations of his birth. Britten is the most performed British composer worldwide. This film premiered at Gresham's School, which he attended, and focuses on how his life-long pacifism influenced his life and music. Written and directed by Tony Britten (In Love With Alama Cogan), narrated by John Hurt and with a superb cast of young people, including many supporting roles taken by students of Gresham's School, the film weaves dramatisation with a documentary narrative.

Norman Puckle, a well-meaning but clumsy grocer's assistant, can't seem to do anything right. After being rejected by Marlene, the love of his life, he attempts suicide, but can't even do that. He is saved from jumping off a cliff at 'Lover's Leap' by a Royal Navy petty officer. He persuades Puckle to join the Royal Navy, where he'll meet 'lots of girls'. Life in the Navy proves not to be as rosy as it's been described, and Puckle fails at every task during basic training. But despite this, he's regarded by the Admiral in charge of a rocket project to be a 'typical average British sailor', and chosen to be the first man to fly into outer space in an experimental rocket.

U.S. sailor Jimmy Harrigan, on shore leave in San Pedro, meets and falls for Sally Brent She promises to wait for him when he ships out to San Francisco, but Jimmy becomes jealous and tells her off when he learns Sally has entered a marathon dance contest sponsored by a lecherous snake named Baron Portola. Along with several of his Navy pals, Jimmy goes to the ballroom the night of the dance marathon, to try to change Sally's mind and win her back.

Three sailors get drunk while on shore leave and end up on the wrong ship. When they realise their mistake they scramble off it and onto their warship, HMS Ferocious. However, they soon realise that the vessel they have boarded is not the Ferocious but a German battleship.

A famous opera singer lost her voice when her son was born, and has drowned her sorrows in drink. When a murder is committed near her house, she invents a story in order to get herself back in front of the public again. However, the story she comes up with results in her son being arrested for the murder.

The background to, events of and consequences of the Battle of Mers-El-Kebir on 3 July 1940. In that battle, Royal Navy ships fired on the French Fleet in order to prevent it from falling into German hands. A French battleship was sunk and several other ships damaged. Nearly 1,300 French sailors were killed.

To mark the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth, Britten’s Endgame explores the composer's creativity in the face of death. Those closest to him watched anxiously as he raced to complete his final opera, Death in Venice, in defiance of medical advice, tackling an edgy subject with many resonances in his own life. His eventual heart operation left him incapacitated and prematurely old and frail, yet somehow he rediscovered his creative urge to produce two late masterpieces. This is a rich and poignant film about Britten’s final years, and the impact of what Peter Pears called 'an evil opera'.

Children and childhood fascinated Benjamin Britten throughout his life and inspired some of his greatest music. John Bridcut's compelling film sheds light on the composer's own inner child throiugh interviews with several of Britten's former companions and muses.

The story of USS 'Belinda', a U.S. naval ship, and its crew during the battle of the Pacific 1943-1945, as it prepares for action and landing troops on enemy beachheads.

The crew of a U.S. Navy ship in World War II goes into battle against the Japanese fleet.

A Navy officer tries to set the record straight after the Navy blames a 1989 explosion aboard the USS Iowa on a homosexual affair between two sailors.

Captain Vere, an old man, is haunted by a moment in his life when he was tested and found wanting. Based on Herman Melville's novella of naval life in the late 18th Century, Benjamin Britten's 'Billy Budd' is a gripping reflection on good and evil, innocence and corruption.

Margaret Williams directs this 2001 production of adaptation of Benjamin Britten's television opera based on a short story by Henry James. Performers featured include Gerald Finley, Peter Savidge and Josephine Barstow. The conductor is Kent Nagano. As pertinent now as then, OWEN WINGRAVE was composed by Benjamin Britten at the height of the Vietnam War. The opera poses the question: Is pacifism an act of cowardice? Or rather a desire to escape from the spiral of war and create world peace? To what extent do we determine our own futures? Should we let past events inform the decisions we make? Britten’s characters grapple with timeless issues in this gripping psychodrama.

An open-air staging by Aldeburgh Music of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, on the beach that inspired the opera. A small seaside community struggles to accept a fisherman.

A family conflict ensues after Owen, the youngest of the proud military family Wingrave, expected to continue the family tradition and become a soldier, rejects violence and war and proclaims himself a pacifist.

Rolando Villazón Triumphantly Returns To The Stage As Don Carlo In The 2007/2008 Royal Opera House'S Producton Of Don Carlo. National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner's new staging of Verdi's grandest-- and arguably greatest -- opera, Don Carlo, was the highlight of the 2007/2008 Royal Opera House season. This new production marked Rolando Villazón's much anticipated and triumphant return. Set amidst the political, religious and sexual intrigue of the 16th century Spanish court, this epic work tells the tragic story of Don Carlo, a virtuous young prince who is pitted against the powers of a dominant, corrupt society. First staged at The Royal Opera House in 1886, this new production is the first new version of the 5-Act complete opera to be staged at Covent Garden in 50 years. With sets and costumes by Bob Crowley, direction by Nicholas Hytner, and an enviable cast, this production of Don Carlo is worthy of the greatness of Verdi's original, masterful work.

This film was made by the U.S. government during World War II to show its young servicemen the results of "fooling around" with "loose women" overseas. Actual victims of such sexually transmitted diseases as syphilis and gonorrhoea are shown, along with the physical deterioration that accompanies those diseases.

Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL's family, and to locate his teenage daughter, who has disappeared. Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra--a ship assumed lost to the darkest currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL's experience with the future has triggered this violence. Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence or insight that will crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it's not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time's horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.

"Docudrama" about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 and its results, the recovering of the ships, the improving of defense in Hawaii and the US efforts to beat back the Japanese reinforcements.

Oscar winner William Wyler directed this 1944 "newsdrama," narrated by Lieut. Robert Taylor, USNR (Bataan), and photographed in zones of combat by the U.S. Navy. The film follows one of the many new aircraft carriers built since Pearl Harbor, known as THE FIGHTING LADY in honor of all American carriers, as it goes into action against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean in 1943. See the ship and its pilots undergo their baptism of fire, attacking the Japanese base on Marcus Island. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.