Top 250 Movies Like Manhattan
A list of the best movies similar to Manhattan. If you liked Manhattan then you may also like: Day One, The Fourth Protocol, Unknown World, Victory Through Air Power, War Pigs and many more great movies featured on this list.
Set against the backdrop of the greatest clandestine race against time in the history of science with the mission to build the world's first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Flawed scientists and their families attempt to co-exist in a world where secrets and lies infiltrate every aspect of their lives.
The Fourth Protocol
Led by Kim Philby, Plan Aurora is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst an MI5 agent attempts to prevent it's detonation.
Unknown World
With the cyclotram, an atomic-powered rock-boring vehicle, Dr. Jerimiah Morley leads an expedition into a subterranean world.
Victory Through Air Power
This is a unique film in Disney Production's history. This film is essentially a propaganda film selling Major Alexander de Seversky's theories about the practical uses of long range strategic bombing. Using a combination of animation humorously telling about the development of air warfare, the film switches to the Major illustrating his ideas could win the war for the allies.
When the Wind Blows
With the help of government-issued pamphlets, an elderly British couple build a shelter and prepare for an impending nuclear attack, unaware that times and the nature of war have changed from their romantic memories of World War II.
Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike
The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation.
The Negro Soldier
Documentary focusing on the contributions to the American war effort of African-American soldiers.
Night Boat to Dublin
British intelligence officers head off a Nazi plot to kidnap an atomic scientist.
The Rape of Europa
World War II was not just the most destructive conflict in humanity, it was also the greatest theft in history: lives, families, communities, property, culture and heritage were all stolen. The story of Nazi Germany's plundering of Europe's great works of art during World War II and Allied efforts to minimize the damage.
Albert R.N.
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.
The Atomic Cafe
A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
The Atomic Kid
A uranium prospector is eating a peanut butter sandwich in the desert where atom bomb tests are being done. He becomes radioactive, and helps the FBI break up an enemy spy ring.
Battle Cry
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 Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The controlled explosion of an atomic bomb in the Arctic Circle awakens a frozen dinosaur that will wreak havoc in New York City.
The Beast of Yucca Flats
A refugee Soviet scientist arrives at a desert airport carrying secret documents, but is attacked by a pair of KGB assassins and escapes into the desert, where he comes in range of an American nuclear test and is transformed into a mindless killing beast.
Bless Me, Ultima
In a village in New Mexico, the life of young farm boy Antonio is dramatically changed when an old medicine woman joins his household. This affecting coming-of-age tale recounts Antonio's experiences to reveal the spiritual conflict in his community.
Blue Sky
Hank Marshall is a tough, square-jawed, straitlaced Army engineer and nuclear science expert, assigned to help conduct weapons testing in 1950s America. Hank has become a thorn in the side of the Army, though, for a couple of very different reasons. He is an outspoken opponent of atmospheric testing, though his superiors hold contrary views and want to squelch his concerns...and his reports. The other problem is his wife, Carly. She is voluptuous and volatile, wreaking havoc in his personal life and stirring up intrigue at each new Army base.
Buffalo Dreams
Josh Townsend finds himself living in New Mexico after his father's new job requires the family to move from their home in Utah. While acclimating to his new surroundings, Josh becomes involved with a group of teens attempting to preserve the buffalo and Navajo traditions. Along the way he makes friends and learns important lessons about life in this Disney Channel Original movie.
Carriers
A deadly virus has spread across the globe. Contagion is everywhere, no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. Four friends race through the back roads of the American West on their way to a secluded utopian beach in the Gulf of Mexico where they could peacefully wait out the pandemic. Their plans take a grim turn when their car breaks down on an isolated road starting a chain of events that will seal their fates.
Oppenheimer
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Them!
As a result of nuclear testing, gigantic, ferocious mutant ants appear in the American desert southwest, and a father-daughter team of entomologists join forces with the state police officer who first discovers their existence, an FBI agent and, eventually, the US Army to eradicate the menace, before it spreads across the continent, and the world.
Enemy Lines
In the frozen, war torn landscape of occupied Poland during World War II, a crack team of allied commandos are sent on a deadly mission behind enemy lines to extract a rocket scientist from the hands of the Nazis.
Mosquito Squadron
While a WW2, RAF squadron leader mourns the death of a comrade, he receives a bombing mission against a secret Nazi V-2 rocket testing facility in France.
The Atomic City
Spies hold the son of a nuclear physicist (Gene Barry) hostage in exchange for the Los Alamos bomb formula.
The Dam Busters
The story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ruhr industrial complex and the execution of the raid by 617 Squadron 'The Dam Busters'.
The Guns of Navarone
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
The Andromeda Strain
When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.
To Hell and Back
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.
The Man from the Alamo
During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?
Tobruk
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.
Valkyrie
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
The Manhattan Project
Named after the World War II-era program, the plot revolves around a gifted high school student who decides to construct a nuclear bomb for a national science fair. The film's underlying theme involves the Cold War of the 1980s when government secrecy and mutually assured destruction were key political and military issues.
Duck and Cover
An instructional short aimed at school-aged children of the early 1950s that combines animation and live-action footage with voice-over narration to explain what to do to increase their chances of surviving the blast from an atomic bomb.
Fat Man and Little Boy
Assigned to oversee the development of the atomic bomb, Gen. Leslie Groves is a stern military man determined to have the project go according to plan. He selects J. Robert Oppenheimer as the key scientist on the top-secret operation, but the two men clash fiercely on a number of issues. Despite their frequent conflicts, Groves and Oppenheimer ultimately push ahead with two bomb designs — the bigger "Fat Man" and the more streamlined "Little Boy."
All This and World War II
Peter Gabriel is among the rockstars performing the music of Lennon and McCartney against a montage of World War II newsreel footage.
The Tuskegee Airmen
During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the "Tuskegee Airman" for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.
Seven Days to Noon
An English scientist runs away from a research center with an atomic bomb. In a letter sent to the British Prime Minister he threatens to blow up the center of London if the Government don't announce the end of any research in this field within a week. Special agents from Scotland Yard try to stop him, with help from the scientist's assistant future son-in-law to find and stop the mad man.
The Small Back Room
At the height of World War II, the Germans begin dropping a new type of booby-trapped bomb on England. Sammy Rice, a highly-skilled but haunted bomb-disposal officer, must overcome his personal demons to defeat this new threat.
Theirs Is the Glory
Re-enactment of World War 2 Battle of Arnhem using the survivors from the battle.
Thunderbolt
Documentary about the U.S. Air Force's P-47 Thunderbolt bomber's role in the Italian Campaign.
Code Name: Emerald
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.
The Second Front
In the midst of World War 2, intelligence services from England, Germany and Russia collided in a fierce fight for the mind of Nicky Raus, a genius German Jewish scientist who's developing a weapon of tremendous power. An American agent, Frank Hossom, enters the game when German agents undertake a daring operation stealing the scientist. Frank has to get the scientist back - dead or alive. His mission is complicated by his developing relationship with Olga Ryabina, Nicky's lover, an actress forced to work for KGB. The love triangle and the international intrigue weave into a deadly net.
Count Five and Die
Dutch patriots, a U.S. officer and a British spy fool the Nazis with a fake Soho film company.
Rich Hall's Red Menace
2019 marks the 30th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Rich Hall examines the relationship between the West and the USSR in his inimitable fashion.
The Short History of the Long Road
Nola grew up living on a van with her father, Clint; two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past and her new destination.
Adventures of a Mathematician
The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.
Donovan's Echo
A series of uncanny déjà vu events force a man to re-examine his tragic past, memory, instinct, and future.
Bitter Victory
During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.
Copenhagen
No one knows for sure what transpired when German physicist Werner Heisenberg met with his Jewish Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen -- the event became the stuff of modern scientific mythology. Director Howard Davies puts his spin on the momentous meeting that occurred one night in September 1941, during which the longtime friends entered into a dangerous discussion about physics and politics.
Lancaster Skies
Douglas, a broken, solitary, Spitfire Ace, must overcome his past to lead a Lancaster bomber crew in the pivotal aerial war over Berlin, in 1944.
Deep Evil
An alien microbe lands in remote Siberia in the 1950's. In the year 2004, US scientist working at a top secret underground lab in Alaska clone the microbe. A garbled distress signal is heard from the lab just before a complete lock down of the facility. This is the last word sent out from the scientists. A team of scientists and military personnel are in charge of finding out what went wrong.
Fifty Years Before Your Eyes
A documentary about the major events of the first fifty years of the Twentieth Century.
The Devil Makes Three
Jeff Elliot is an American GI investigating a black market gang in Munich.
The Last Escape
During World War II, American officer Capt. Lee Mitchell (Stuart Whitman) and a British military unit boldly infiltrate German-occupied enemy territory and attempt to kidnap brilliant Nazi scientist Dr. Von Heinken (Pinkas Braun) and bring him back in one piece. While shuttling their prized captive to safety, the Allied forces courageously assist desperate refugees and tussle with overpowering German and Russian forces.
Striking Range
When millionaire businessman Ted Billings (Glenn Morshower) double-crosses his partners in a weapons deal, he decides to hire some protection. Billings enlists Eugene "Vash" Vasher (Lou Diamond Phillips) a mercenary-for-hire and soon, Vash is fighting off assaults on his boss from all sides, but on top of that, he doesn't even like Billings who has a hidden agenda. Among the shoot-outs and chases, Vash forms a bond with Emily (Yancy Butler) Billings' chief-of-security and Vash's former flame who's not all that she appears to be.
Final Flesh
The Pollard family is calmly discussing their impending death by atom bomb when Mrs. Pollard recounts a dream in which she sensually bathes herself in the "Tears of Neglected Children".
The 49th Man
Two federal agents do not believe an atomic-bomb threat is just another war game.
Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb
The story of Col. Paul Tibbets and his crew who flew the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, bringing World War II to a close.
Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis
True story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, its crew's struggle to survive the sharks and exposure, and the captain's scape-goat court-martial.
USS Seaviper
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.
First Yank into Tokyo
A U.S. pilot undergoes plastic surgery and drops into Japan to get a captive scientist's (Marc Cramer) atomic secrets.
Island of Lost Women
A plane crash-lands on a jungle island inhabited by a scientist and his nubile young daughters. Complications ensue.
Above and Beyond
The story of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the pilot that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Although unaware of the full potential of this new weapon, he knows that it can do tremendously more damage than any other weapon used before, and that the death toll resulting from it will be huge. He is reluctant to be the person who will end so many lives, but as time goes on, the pressure upon him only increase.
The Beginning or the End
The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.
The Long Dumb Road
Two guys serendipitously meet at a time when they both find themselves at personal crossroads and decide to embark on an unplanned road trip across the American Southwest.
Hiroshima
The documentary recounts the world's first nuclear attack and examines the alarming repercussions. Covering a three-week period from the Trinity test to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the program chronicles America's political gamble and the planning for the momentous event. Archival film, dramatizations, and special effects feature what occurred aboard the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the bomb) and inside the exploding bomb.
WWII From Space
WWII from Space delivers World War II in a way you've never experienced it before. This HISTORY special uses an all-seeing CGI eye that offers a satellite view of the conflict, allowing you to experience it in a way that puts key events and tipping points in a global perspective. By re-creating groundbreaking moments that could never have been captured on camera, and by illustrating the importance of simultaneity and the hidden effects of crucial incidents, HISTORY presents the war's monumental moments in a never-before-seen context. And with new information brought to the forefront, you'll better understand how a nation ranked 19th in the world's militaries in 1939 emerged six years later as the planet's only atomic superpower.
The Bomb
Using masterfully restored footage from recently declassified images, The Bomb tells a powerful story of the most destructive invention in human history. From the earliest testing stages to its use as the ultimate chess piece in global politics, the program outlines how America developed the bomb, how it changed the world and how it continues to loom large in our lives. The show also includes interviews with prominent historians and government insiders, along with men and women who helped build the weapon piece by piece.
Atomic Ed & the Black Hole
Atomic Ed & the Black Hole tells the story of a scientist-turned-atomic junk collector known as Atomic Ed. More than 30 years ago, Ed quit his job making "better" atomic bombs and he began collecting what he calls "nuclear waste," non-radioactive high-tech discards from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As the self-appointed curator of an unofficial museum of the nuclear age called "The Black Hole," Atomic Ed reveals and preserves a history of government waste that was literally thrown in a trash heap.
National Geographic: The World's Biggest Bomb Revealed
National Geographic 2011 Documentary on the World's Biggest Bomb (UK).
Stealing the Superfortress
How the Soviet Union was able to copy the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, and the influence of the resulting Tupolev TU-4 on the Cold War.
Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front
Molly is a girl living in the year 1944 and WWII has brought many changes to Molly's life. An English girl comes to live with Molly's family to escape the bombings. They slowly become good friends.
The Birdmen
During WWII an American soldier sent to Norway to help with the escape of a scientist working on the atomic bomb for the Germans. Before they can escape they are captured and sent to a POW prison camp in an alpine castle. Cook must find a way to escape with the scientist before the Gestapo discover the Norwegian's true identity and convinces the other prisoners to build a two person glider in which they plan to escape.
Beachhead
On a Japanese-occupied island during World War II, only two soldiers remain alive after a mission attempt goes horribly wrong. Trapped on the island, they must escort a scientist and his daughter to the other side of the island where their ship awaits. They must battle nature, hard terrain, and advancing Japanese troops.
Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes
The movie follows the perspective of several characters (such as Japanese victims, soldiers, American prisoners of war and others) and how they lived or tried to survive the effects felt during the aftermath of the Atomic Bomb dropping by the Enola Gay at Hiroshima, during World War II.
The Red Dragon
Chan is faced with suspects in a stolen atomic bomb formula case, that are being killed with bullets that are not fired from a gun.
Inside Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer
A look behind the scenes of Christopher Nolan's film "Oppenheimer" about an American scientist and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb
Explore how one man's relentless drive and invention of the atomic bomb changed the nature of war forever, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed mass hysteria.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
In 1940, Winston Churchill and Ian Fleming form a clandestine combat organization for Britain's military that changes the course of World War II and prefigures the modern black ops unit through its unconventional and entirely ‘ungentlemanly’ fighting techniques against the Nazis.
Design for Death
Documentary Feature winner "Design for Death" (1947) examines Japanese culture and how it led to Japan's role in WWII.
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of nuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.
The Day After Trinity
This essential, Academy Award–nominated documentary offers an urgent warning from history about the dangers of nuclear warfare via the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic physicist and all-around Renaissance man who led the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb that America unleashed on Japan in the final days of World War II. Through extensive interviews and archival footage, THE DAY AFTER TRINITY traces Oppenheimer’s evolution, from architect of one of the most consequential endeavors of the twentieth century to an outspoken opponent of nuclear proliferation who came to deeply regret his role in ushering in the perils of the atomic age.
Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia
The fifth film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War.
Report from the Aleutians
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.
The Bloody Hundredth
Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.
Day One
Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard leaves Europe, eventually arriving in the United States. With the help of Einstein, he persuades the government to build an atomic bomb. The project is given to no-nonsense Gen. Leslie Groves who selects physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the bomb is built. As World War II draws to a close, Szilard has second thoughts about atomic weapons, and policy makers debate how and when to use the bomb.