Best movies like Heliopolis

Algeria's entry for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, "Zabana" chronicles the life of Ahmed Zabana, a man who fought for Algerian freedom in the Battle of Algiers. This film chronicles Zabana's fight to free his country to independence, and his death at the hands of French authorities.

The seventh and final film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight World War II propaganda film series. This entry attempts to describe the factors leading up to America's entry into the Second World War.

This black-and-white film – the first road movie of Algerian cinema – presents one of the most readily apparent, though subtle, transformations of the daily life of the people of Algeria brought about by the ordeal of French occupation and the war of liberation. With military repression in full force, a peasant woman finds herself alone in her house in the mountains when her only son is taken away by French soldiers soon after her husband is killed in a raid. One day, on seeing a dead chicken, which she considers a bad omen, she decides to leave home, and sets off on a tiring journey through the mountains. With a pair of chickens in tow, she moves from one detention camp to the next in a desperate search for her missing son. The film was inspired by events experienced by the family of its director.

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.

A teenage orphan fights against the Red Army at the end of WWII and in the aftermath is 'adopted' by a Commissar. Years later he is sent to London during the Cold war to work for the KGB, where he questions his life.

Frank Capra-directed propaganda film produced during World War II depicting the United States' new enemy: Japan.

Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans.

In March of 1945, as the War in Europe is coming to a close, fighting erupts between German and American troops at the last remaining bridgehead across the Rhine.

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

The true WWII story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in U.S. history. Based on the autobiography of Audie Murphy who stars as himself in the film.

1943. They have never stepped foot on French soil but because France was at war, Said, Abdelkader, Messaoud and Yassir enlist in the French Army, along with 130,000 other “indigenous” soldiers, to liberate the “fatherland” from the Nazi enemy. Heroes that history has forgotten…

It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.

Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.

The true story of the events leading up to the infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells in February of 1692.

In 1945 a group of victorious American officers discover a stash of German jewels and try to fence them in New York.

The story concerns a condemned murderer named Clement (Jean Gabin), who is "liberated" when the Nazis bomb the French jail that holds him. During his escape, Clement comes across the body of a French soldier; he steals the dead man's uniform and identification papers, then hides from the law by joining the Resistance movement. Clement's new identity and purpose in life reforms him, and in due time he has sacrificed himself in service of his country.

The Second World War is over, and the Miniver family is trying to keep themselves together in post-War Britain, among continuing shortages and growing tensions within the family.

This documentary was secretly and 'illegally' shot inside the prison camps, established during World War II by American authorities to detain US citizens of Japanese descent who were considered a potential threat to national security.

Rachida, a young and self-assured teacher at an elementary school, becomes the target of terrorists when she refuses to place a bomb in her classroom. This acclaimed debut feature offers a unique glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens in Algeria, where terrorism was commonplace during the civil conflict of the 1990s.

Comedy about an Irish father, who enjoys betting on horses, who keeps interfering with his daughter's romance with a serviceman.

The Celtic queen who shook the Roman Empire. Boudica is one of history’s first and fiercest women warriors. Sickened by ceaseless war, the king of the Iceni accepts a treaty with the Romans in exchange for his tribe’s continued independence. But oppressively high taxes impoverish the tribe and soon the Romans want something more — slaves. Refusing to submit, the Romans, led by the greedy and psychotic Emperor Nero, move to crush the Iceni and control their lands. Drawing on the strength of her warriors, mystical druidic powers, and her own pain, Boudica unites the historically fractious tribes of Briton to unleash a stunning onslaught on the Roman colonial camps. The ferocity of Boudica’s attacks will shake the foundations of the Roman empire and make her a legend.

Beginning with a promotional reel encouraging farming investments in Algeria and ending with the secret 1950s nuclear tests that France conducted using Algerian prisoners, How Much I Love You appropriates archival footage produced by the French colonial powers in Algeria. Meddour’s approach is disarmingly simple and yet awe-inspiring—his caustic undoing of colonial discourse is underscored by a liberating release of humor.

Memorial Day, 1993. When 13-year-old Kyle Vogel discovers the World War II footlocker belonging to his grandfather, Bud, everyone tells Kyle to put it back. Luckily, he ignores them. Although Bud has never talked about the war, he finds himself striking a deal with his grandson: Kyle can pick any three souvenirs, and Bud will tell him the stories behind each one. Memorial Day not only takes us on a journey into Bud's complicated wartime past, but also into Kyle's wartime future. As the two men share parallel experiences in combat, they come to realize how that magical day on the porch shaped both of their lives. 

An Algerian doctor decides to leave the troubles in Algiers and goes back to his hometown, a small village lost in the mountains. There, however, the situation is explosive as well, as the guerilla is active and the French military has to keep a close watch on the locals...

The film tells the story of a patrol of the National Liberation Army, (A.L.N), whose mission is to convey to the Tunisian border, a French soldier prisoner. Through the march of this group of djounoud we witness the spirit of sacrifice and fighting spirit of these men from the people. The patrol will be decimated, but a young peasant will take over and complete the mission.

The story of the film revolves around the epic of Sheikh Bouamama, a leader of the national resistance in Algeria during the French colonial era. The events are taking place in southwestern Algeria. The film also tells about different stages of the resistance, especially about one of the uprisings of the Algerian people, namely "the battle of the sons of Sidi Sheikh Bouamama", in which French General Leuti was appointed to try to suppress and end this resistance.

How, in 1945, after the end of World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the defeated were atrociously mistreated, especially those ethnic Germans who had lived peacefully for centuries in Germany's neighboring countries, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. A heartbreaking story of revenge against innocent civilians, the story of acts as cruel as the Nazi occupation during the war years.

It is 1944 and the D-Day invasion has failed, Germany's army have successfully invaded England and the Nazi war-machine is now heading west towards Wales. A group of women in an isolated Welsh village near the English border wake up to discover all of the their husbands have mysteriously vanished. They have headed into the mountains to join the Resistance.

The beginings of the Algerian Revolution as seen through the eyes of a peasant.

This film, is about the courage and the determination of a young woman in djurdjur"as mountain in Algeria, fighting for her ancestor land during the earlier years of french occupation.

During the brutal invasion of China in 1937 by Imperial Japanese forces, tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war are murdered and women raped in what is known simply as "The Rape of Nanking." This docudrama is a stirring account of a small band of courageous American missionaries who choose to stay in Nanking to try and protect a quarter million vulnerable Chinese civilians who are trapped in a city ruled by a savage, out of control army. Their stories are brought vividly to life through actual real-time letters and diaries as they bear witness to one of the worst wartime atrocities in history.

A door-to-door excavation of the Nazi occupation that still haunts Amsterdam, and a journey through the last years of pandemic and protest.

The film revolves around the life of the martyr Mustapha Ben Bouleid (1917-1956), who was a member of the Algerian National Movement, who worked with his comrades to explain the idea of the armed revolution in which he led in Aures region in 1954. The film depicts how Ben Bouleid traveled to a number of Arab countries Disguised to bring arms to Algeria for the revolution and how the French colonial forces arrested him in the Tunisian-Libyan border, and from there to Algeria to be sentenced to death.