Best movies like Hell in the Pacific

Joe Enders is a gung-ho Marine assigned to protect a "windtalker" - one of several Navajo Indians who were used to relay messages during World War II because their spoken language was indecipherable to Japanese code breakers.

American and Japanese soldiers, stranded on a tiny Pacific island during World War II, must make a temporary truce and cooperate to survive various tribulations. Told through the eyes of the American and Japanese unit commanders, who must deal with an atmosphere of growing distrust and tension between their men.

A searing portrait of war and prejudice, 'Only the Brave' takes you on a haunting journey into the hearts and minds of the forgotten heroes of WWII - the Japanese-American 100th/442nd.

The film takes place aboard an American submarine in the Pacific during World War II. The sub's commander is ordered to stop and pick up an underwater demolition team led by Lt. Hayes, whose mission is to locate and destroy a US submarine sunken in a lagoon off Bikini Atoll before the Japanese are able to raise it and capture the advanced radar system on board.

Captain Foster plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand- picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector.

A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

In this sequel to the 1980 classic, two children are stranded on a beautiful island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together and eventually become tanned teenagers in love.

During a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, a veteran mariner awakes to find his vessel taking on water after a collision with a stray shipping container. With his radio and navigation equipment disabled, he sails unknowingly into a violent storm and barely escapes with his life. With any luck, the ocean currents may carry him into a shipping lane -- but, with supplies dwindling and the sharks circling, the sailor is forced to face his own mortality.

During WWII, a three-man commando team places its trust in the hands of a band of Filipino resistors, as they try to knock out a Japenese communication center.

The dramatic story of US marines in training, in combat and in love during World War II. The story centres on a major who guides the raw recruits from their training to combat. Based on the novel by Leon Uris.

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson , the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

The only chance to escape a desert island is to convert the plane carrying many different animals into a boat.

During routine manoeuvres near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft-carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.

A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.

At the onset of World War II, American Lt. Col. Robert Frederick is put in charge of a unit called the 1st Special Service Force, composed of elite Canadian commandos and undisciplined American soldiers. With Maj. Alan Crown leading the Canadians and Maj. Cliff Bricker the acting head of the American contingent, there is initial tension -- but the team comes together when given a daunting mission that few would dare to attempt.

During the World War II, the prisoners of a German camp in a Greek island are trying to escape. They not only want their freedom, but also seek an ineffable treasure hidden in a monastery at the summit of the island's mountain.

Political and personal intrigues surround a group of characters in Malaya, after the close of the Second World War.

An American soldier who escapes the execution of his comrades by Japanese soldiers in Borneo during WWII becomes the leader of a personal empire among the headhunters in this war story told in the style of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The American is reluctant to rejoin the fight against the Japanese on the urging of a British commando team but conducts a war of vengeance when the Japanese attack his adopted people.

American troops storm ashore on a Japanese-held island and push inland while their enemies plan a counterattack in this look at warfare. Soldiers on both sides are haunted by memories of home and the horrifying, sickening images they find in combat.

Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill leads the 3,000 American volunteers of his 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), aka "Merrill's Marauders", behind Japanese lines across Burma to Myitkyina, pushing beyond their limits and fighting pitched battles at every strong-point.

A true-life epic that revolves around an exclusive bataillon of the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, "Carlson's Raiders," whose assignment is to take control of a South Pacific island once possessed by the United States but now under Japanese command.

Major Daniel Kirby takes command of a squadron of Marine fliers just before they are about to go into combat. While the men are well meaning, he finds them undisciplined and prone to always finding excuses to do what is easy rather than what is necessary. The root of the problem is the second in command, Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin. Griff is the best flier in the group but Kirby finds him a poor commander who is not prepared to make the difficult decision that all commanders have to make - to put men in harm's way knowing that they may be killed.

Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers.

A Roman Catholic nun and a hard-bitten US Marine are stranded together on a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific during World War II. Under constant threat of discovery by a ruthless enemy, they hide in a cave and forage for food together. Their forced companionship and the struggle for survival forge a powerful emotional bond between them.

Vietnam, 1969. War is Hell. For Marine Sergeant Jack Stryker, however, Hell is just the beginning. Trapped outside a Viet Cong village, Stryker takes two bullets to the leg. Sent home from the war, he discovers his ex-girlfriend has been kidnapped by a religious cult with a vicious Manson-like leader. Stryker teams up with some marine friends to form an assassination squad and annihilate the gang of crazed killers.

Amidst a nuclear war, a plane carrying a group of schoolboys crash lands on a deserted island. With no adult survivors, the boys are forced to fend for themselves. At first they cooperate, but when they split into two separate camps -- one led by the pragmatic Ralph and the other by militaristic Jack -- their society falls into disarray, leading to a disturbing examination of human nature and a chilling conclusion.

A group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women creates a vocal orchestra while being imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp on Sumatra during World War II.

Dramatization of President John F. Kennedy's war time experiences during which he captained a PT boat, took it to battle and had it sunk by a Japanese destroyer. He and the survivors had to make their way to an island, find food and shelter and signal the Navy for rescue.

Seven women from different backgrounds, nationality, age, class, and marital status find themselves in New Guinea, February 1942 - when the Japanese army takes over unexpectedly, and sends them into a war camp in the jungle.

The harrowing true story of the crew of the USS Indianapolis, who were stranded in the Philippine Sea for five days after delivering the atomic weapons that would eventually end WWII. As they awaited rescue, they endured extreme thirst, hunger, and relentless shark attacks.

A rock hard commander trains Navy Carrier Pilots during the Second World War

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

A WWII film set on a Pacific island. Japanese and allied forces occupy different parts of the island. When a group of British soldiers are sent on a mission behind enemy lines, things don't go exactly to plan. This film differs in that some of the 'heroes' are very reluctant, but they come good when they are pursued by the Japanese who are determined to prevent them returning to base.

Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.

After the fall of the Philippines in World War II, the Japanese discover that Gen. MacArthur ordered millions of dollars in silver dumped in Manila Bay in order that it not fall into enemy hands. Among the prisoners the Japanese have taken are two American U.S. Navy deep-sea divers, whom they then force to dive in search of the sunken treasure.

When their hospital ship sinks in the South Pacific during World War II, military nurse Elizabeth Smythe (Linda Darnell) and Marine Michael Dugan (Tab Hunter) find themselves stranded — and soon enough, falling in love — on an idyllic tropical island. But when British pilot William Peck (Donald Gray) crash-lands on their cozy little atoll, Dugan suddenly discovers he has a rival in love.

A nurse is taking an amnesia victim, who was imprisoned by the Japanese during WW II, to the United States in a plane piloted by Richard Denning. The passengers include a Japanese colonel on his way to Manila to face war-crime charges, and a couple who were married on the day they were liberated from a Japanese prison camp. During the flight, the colonel breaks away from his guards, causes the plane to go out of control, and it crashes into the sea. The survivors get into a rubber boat and go through a minor-league version of "Lifeboat, with no Alfred Hitchcock sightings, until Air-Sea Rescue pilot Jim Willis rides to the rescue.

The captain of a submarine sunk by the Japanese during WWII is finally given a chance to skipper another sub after a year of working a desk job. His singleminded determination for revenge against the destroyer that sunk his previous vessel puts his new crew in unneccessary danger.

A US submarine and its crew are captured by the Japanese on the eve of a major WWII battle.

Direct to DVD movie: The German U-Boat, U-234, from the Port of Kiel is trading cargo with the Japanese. USS Seaviper must locate and stop this dangerous exchange. The Captain of USS Seaviper must go ashore to conduct reconnaissance on an island near Sumatra, but the ship is left in the hands of Mister Cutter, after the Executive Officer is injured in battle. A conflict between Cutter and the Chief of the Boat puts the submarine in jeopardy. Seaviper is trapped below the surface, with decreasing oxygen, and a Japanese destroyer hunting them from above. Damage to the boat also leave her survival in question. They must fight the Japanese destroyer and get the information about U-235 back to Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Pellew interrupts Hornblower's wedding reception and tasks him to locate a British ship which has disappeared off the French coast, where Napoleon's troops are engaged in covert activities.

A WWII pilot, bombardier, and radioman find themselves adrift on a lifeboat without food or water after being forced to ditch their plane during a scouting mission.

A Marine major (Pat O'Brien) looks out for his captain (Robert Ryan) on Guadalcanal and in Australia.

Marshall Thompson stars in this MGM drama about a young soldier's devotion to a horse he rescues during WWII. (Not to be confused with "Adventures of Gallant Bess", another film released two years later.)

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.

A documentary propaganda film produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps about the Aleutian Islands Campaign during World War II. The film opens with a map showing the strategic importance of the island, and the thrust of the 1942 Japanese offensive into Midway and Dutch Harbor. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.