LibGuides: Military and Defence Studies: Feature films

Feature films

War films are about so much more than the battle front: they can enrich our understanding of the home setting, combat tactics and military strategy, camp life, training and political agendas. The purpose of the war film made by commercial enterprises is primarily to entertain, and yet films about wartime as propaganda are a valuable genre to study, as are biographies of important historical figures. This is but a small selection of the many films available from the ANU Library branches.

Adama
Call Number: CHIFLEY PN1997.2 .A33 2020

Twelve-year-old Adama lives in a remote West African village. Defying the village elders, Adama decides to set off in search of him. With the steadfast determination of a child coming of age, he embarks on a quest that takes him over the seas, to the North, to the frontline of the First World War.
Dheepan
Call Number: CHIFLEY PN1997.2 .D54 2016

To escape the civil war in Sri Lanka, a former soldier, a young woman and a little girl pose as a family. They end up settling in a housing project outside Paris, and try to rebuild their lives together.
For Sama
Call Number: MENZIES DS99.A56 F68 2019

In the form of a love letter from a young mother to her daughter, Sama, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab's life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria.
L'armée des ombres (Army in the Shadows)
Call Number: CHIFLEY PN1997.A75 2006

A civil engineer who is one of the French Resistance's chiefs is given away by a traitor and interned in a camp during the Second World War.
Platoon [DVD and Streaming]
Call Number: CHIFLEY PN1997.P542 2011

Follows young Chris Taylor who arrives in Vietnam and quickly discovers that his worst enemies are not just the Viet Cong, but gnawing fear, physical exhaustion, and the anger growing within himself
Sands of Iwo Jima
Call Number: CHIFLEY PN1997.S3622 2009

Sgt. Stryker, a hard-nosed Marine sergeant, must mold a company of raw recruits into a combat-ready fighting machine. Feared by many and hated by all, Stryker's training is soon put to the test in a full-scale assault against the Japanese on Iwo Jima.
Yi jiu si er - Back to 1942
Call Number: MENZIES E ASIAN PN1997.2 .Y555 2012

This film centres on the 1942-43 Henan Famine, which occurred during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and depicts not only Japanese atrocities, but also the perceived aloofness and malicious corruption of the Nationalist leadership ruling China at the time.