Best movies like Return from the River Kwai

Merchant seaman Archie Gibbs manages to survive when his ship is torpedoed by a German submarine. Disguising himself in the uniform of a dead Nazi spy, Gibbs is picked up by the Nazi U-boat. He manages to convince the German sailors that he's the spy, and in this guise he tries to rescue a group of captured Allied scientists.

Von Ryan's Express stars Frank Sinatra as a POW colonel who leads a daring escape from WWII Italy by taking over a freight train, but he has to win over the British soldiers he finds himself commanding.

A group of American Army nurses are captured by the Japanese in April 1942 and spend three years in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bataan. Lt Margaret Ann Jessup, the head army nurse, survives the camp and testifies against the Japanese in front of the United States Congressional subcommittee years later as a colonel.

True story of three British POWs and their attempt to escape from Nazi Germany

During World War II, a young man is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-day, June 6th, 1944.

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 Jewish woman is recruited to help track down a German commander who was her former husband.

The first World War is in its third year and aerial combat above the Western Front is consuming the nation's favored children at an appalling rate. By early 1917, the average life-span of a British pilot is less than a fortnight. Such losses place a fearsome strain on Gresham, commanding officer of the squadron. Aces High recreates the early days of the Royal Flying Corps with some magnificently staged aerial battles, and sensitive direction presents a moving portrayal of the futilities of war.

The British inmates of a POW camp think they have an informer among them after several escape attempts fail. One of the prisoners constructs a dummy which they christen "Albert" and use at roll call in order to foil the German guards.

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.

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.

Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film focuses on the brutality and horror that the allied prisoners were exposed to as the Japanese metered out subjugation and punishment to a disgraced and defeated enemy. This harrowing drama concentrates on the deviations of legal and moral definitions when two opposing cultures clash. Although fictional, this was one of the earliest films to deal realistically with life and death in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second War.

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.

Panic arises among Allied POWs aboard a Japanese freighter when they learn that the ship is actually a decoy target for American submarines on night patrol. The prisoners unite and attack their Japanese captors just as an American sub surfaces and, not knowing the prisoners are aboard, prepares to torpedo the ship.

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.

In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.

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 German U-Boat commander and 600 prisoners plan a daring escape from a PoW camp in Scotland.

Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.

Nazi POWs suspected of heinous acts are locked up in a Soviet women's prison run by vengeful female guards. To weed out the guilty, the innocent must pay. Can supposed enemies turn into great loves? Based on a true post-World War II story, this drama stars Thomas Kretschmann, John Malkovich and Vera Farmiga in a bitter game of cat and mouse and a battle between hate and humanity, mercy and revenge.

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.

Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, a brave British soldier is captured by German forces during World War II. When he's thrown into a prisoner of war camp, he immediately plans his escape. Masquerading as a wounded German soldier, he makes it as far as the medical tent, where the deceived enemy forces award him the Iron Cross. Though he is ultimately discovered, he goes on to courageously pursue his freedom with a whimsical and undying audacity.

After the fall of Tobruk in June 1942, U.S. Army sergeant Joe Gunn leads his tank into the Sahara desert, in order to evade advancing Rommel's forces and reach Allied lines. Along the way he picks up few Allied soldiers, but soon they are running out of water. They find water at the ancient well, but the well is a goal of an entire German battalion. Despite the impossible odds, Sergeant Gunn decides to defend the well.

Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon (Ciaran McMenamin), Lt. Jim Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland) and Maj. Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.

TV movie based upon the true story of Calvin Graham, who, as a 12 year old boy, enlisted in the US Navy during WWII.

A group of US Navy weathermen taking measurements in the Gobi desert in World War II are forced to seek the help of Mongol nomads to regain their ship while under attack from the Japanese.

In preparation for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied territory, the 'overlords' were the few Allied agents who knew the details of the operation. When one them is captured by the Germans, a double agent must infiltrate occupied Paris, with the help of a high level German officer and the French resistance.

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

Wartime secret agents are on a mission to destroy a deadly new type of torpedo, hidden in a Nazi stronghold in France.

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.

Lionel Chetwynd's film documents the horrific struggles that faced American POWs held in the North Vietnamese prison Hoa Lo -- more infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton -- between 1964 and 1975. Williamson (Michael Moriarty) leads a group of American servicemen who are prisoners at the detention camp. He assumes command after Cathcart (Lawrence Pressman) is dragged off to be tortured.

A group of Slave workers, drafted by the Nazis to help construct their coastal defences in 1944, are trapped in an underground bunker when the Allies land at Normandy on D-Day. They find huge stores of food, but not enough candles. The slow dying of the light parallels their increasing boredom, illness, and jealousy during their entrapment. Based on the Novel 'Le Blockhaus' by Jean Paul Clebert

Lotus Long plays the title role, an American-educated Japanese woman broadcasting enemy propaganda to American troops. Captured GI Pete Sherman is one of a group of POWS slated to be interviewed on Tokyo Rose's radio program. Instead of advising his comrades to surrender (as ordered), Sherman uses his innate Yankee knowhow to hoist the treacherous deejay on her own petard. Managing to make his escape, Sherman hooks up with the Japanese Underground, convincing anti-militarist Charlie Otani to aid in a kidnapping plot aimed at Tokyo Rose.

An American pilot escapes from a POW camp and links up with Yugoslav partisans. He’s about to head back to Allied lines when he learns that the Partisans are plotting to assassinate the camp commander. He joins in the plot, aiming for revenge.

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.

During World War II, four British soldiers are commissioned to set up an observation post on a seemingly deserted island in the Mediterranean. However, while surveying the island, the Brits come across four German soldiers holed up in a monastery. The Brits and the Germans agree to a truce, sharing the monastery together until either the British or German troops arrive. But when a shipwrecked Slavic girl ends up on the island, a battle over her erupts amongst the men.

The story of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat responsible for saving thousands of lives from the Nazi Holocaust.

During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, an assorted group of refugees, including an American soldier, an Army nurse, a priest and a group of local children, try to make their getaway aboard a rattletrap, creaky bus.

Few wartime prisoners have attempted escape quite as many times as bumbling RAF Officer James Forrester. Though Officer Forrester has twenty-three escape attempts to his name, each successive attempt he makes to break free somehow seems to go worse than the last. But this time there's a difference, because Officer Forrester isn't just plotting his own escape, but the escape of all 327 of his fellow prisoners as well - and all at once. In fact even the Germans want to escape!

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

Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.

At the height of WWII, the Atlantic Ocean becomes a deadly battleground as an American torpedo boat fights against the constant bombardment of German forces.

Based on the true story of a British secret agent, shot down over Malaya near to a Allied POW forced labour camp. There she is hidden, disguised as a youthful prisoner, until her escape can be effected. The costs of keeping her identity secret fall on all the POW's as the Japanese embark on a policy of ruthless terror to extract her and the focus shifts to the conflicts of the group' s collective concerns against the necessities of personal survival.

No one in high command believed that German forces would attack in the sub zero temperatures and near blizzard conditions. As the pre-dawn attack comes, with communications down Sgt. Smith is left with no choice but to make his way through enemy fire, unarmed and wounded, into town and warn of the coming attack. Based on actual accounts "Everyman's War" explores the heroic events of this decorated veterans courage and the struggle between duty and desire. Between the prospect of the life and love, Dorine that waits at home and the harsh realities of war which marks the pivotal epoch in his life as he discovers that the loss of hope can be worse than the loss of life. One man's courage... One man's hope...Everyman's War.

Polish Martin Gray recalls the Holocaust, New York prosperity, and losing his wife and family.

This documentary tells the extraordinary story of a British prisoner of war tortured by the Japanese in World War II who spent 50 years trying to locate the man who cruelly interrogated him near Thailand's infamous Kwai bridge. Eric Lomax and Nagase Takashi met again on the bridge in a meeting that would profoundly change their lives. After this experience, Lomax wrote his famous autobiography "The Railwail Man", which was adapted to the cinema in 2013 with the same title. The documentary reveals exclusively what really happened when they both agreed to meet.

The fanatical son of a Nazi General leads a squad of German commandos, disguised as American Troops, behind the lines in order to sabotage the Allied Forces.

Based on a true story its the untold story of Italian World War II POW"S in Jan 1946. Luca Zingaretti stars as one of over 50,000 Italian Prisoners of War detained at POW camps in the U.S. Roy Schneider stars as Colonel Gartner, the Commander of the camp. Things take a turn for the worse when Manin is brought back from his most recent escape by a patrol force, only to realize that the camp has been evacuated while he was gone. Gartner is forced to keep Manin at the camp until another patrol force can come pick him up. However, no one ever comes. The phone lines get cut, and the two men realize they are completely isolated from the outside world. It is up to each man now to escape the camp.An untold and rarely known fact of US held Italian POW"S