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The Battle of Algiers poster

Movies that feel likeThe Battle of Algiers (1966)

Former petty criminal Ali la Pointe becomes a commander of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directing a guerilla insurgency against the colonial French occupation. Paratrooper commander Colonel Phillippe Mathieu, a veteran of World War II and the First Indochina War, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings.

If you loved The Battle of Algiers, the closest films we have are The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). All three share The Battle of Algiers' contemplative and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Shame (1968).

🍅 99% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8.1 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Gillo Pontecorvocontemplativebleakepic
8 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Criterion Channel

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If The Battle of Algiers hit the spot, these will too

The Longest Day poster
The Longest Day
1962 · dir. Ken Annakin
🍅 83%★ 7.7war · drama · history

Both land stillness and bleakness at once

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

Patton poster
Patton
1970 · dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
🍅 92%★ 7.9war · drama · history

Drama built on scale, twice over

"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.

The Guns of Navarone poster
The Guns of Navarone
1961 · dir. J. Lee Thompson
🍅 92%★ 7.5adventure · drama · warNetflix

Contemplative war in both cases

The difference: Leans harder into adventure than The Battle of Algiers does

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 Bridge on the River Kwai poster
The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957 · dir. David Lean
🍅 96%★ 8.1drama · history · war

History with a pulse of bleakness, in both cases

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.

Grand Illusion poster
Grand Illusion
1937 · dir. Jean Renoir
🍅 97%★ 8drama · history · war

Epic drama, and it commits to that

The difference: Made in the 1930s, in a different era of the craft

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

Stalingrad poster
Stalingrad
1993 · dir. Joseph Vilsmaier
★ 7.5drama · history · war

Both lean on stillness more than on war

A German Platoon is explored through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After half of their number is wiped out and they're placed under the command of a sadistic captain, the platoon lieutenant leads his men to desert. The platoon members attempt escape from the city, now surrounded by the Soviet Army.

Where Eagles Dare poster
Where Eagles Dare
1968 · dir. Brian G. Hutton
🍅 84%★ 7.6adventure · war

Bleak history, and it commits to that

The difference: Trades the stillness of The Battle of Algiers for an angle of its own

World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that's nearly impossible to breach. It's up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it's too late.

The Great Escape poster
The Great Escape
1963 · dir. John Sturges
🍅 94%★ 8.2adventure · drama · warPrime Video

From the 1960s, and it lands the same way

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.

Shame poster
Shame
1968 · dir. Ingmar Bergman
🍅 67%★ 8war · drama

Both play war straight

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

The Shadow in My Eye poster
The Shadow in My Eye
2021 · dir. Ole Bornedal
★ 7.3war · drama · historyNetflix

The history is handled with the same confidence

On March 21st, 1945, the British Royal Air Force set out on a mission to bomb Gestapo's headquarters in Copenhagen. The raid had fatal consequences as some of the bombers accidentally targeted a school and more than 120 people were killed, 86 of whom were children.

The Captain poster
The Captain
2018 · dir. Robert Schwentke
🍅 83%★ 7.3war · drama · historyPrime Video

Both working the same drama territory

Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of a Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.

9th Company poster
9th Company
2005 · dir. Fyodor Bondarchuk
🍅 69%★ 7.1war · drama · history

The same war instincts

Russian army recruits complete training and take their posting in late 1980s Afghanistan, where the insurgents are slowly gaining the upper hand.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Battle of Algiers’ defining feeling.