Movies Like It Happened on July 20th

If you liked It Happened on July 20th (1955), a drama and war movie directed by G.W. Pabst, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and history
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him…
2
The Monuments Men (2014)
★ 6.1/10Also war and drama
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians…
3
Uprising (2001)
★ 6.6/10Also drama and war
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
4
Devotion (2022)
★ 7/10Also war and drama
The harrowing true story of two elite US Navy fighter pilots during the Korean War. Their heroic sacrifices would ultimately make them the Navy's most celebrated wingmen.
5
Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and war
Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
6
Munich - The Edge of War (2021)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and history
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
7
The Boy in the Woods (2023)
★ 7/10Also drama and war
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
8
Battleground (1949)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and war
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their…
9
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and history
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…
10
The Guns of Navarone (1961)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and war
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.
11
The Longest Day (1962)
★ 7.6/10Also war and drama
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…
12
The Bunker (1981)
★ 6.3/10Also war and drama
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle for the city.
13
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)
★ 6.8/10Also history and drama
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
14
The Six Triple Eight (2024)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and war
During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers…
15
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
★ 7.2/10Also drama and history
The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of…
16
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
★ 7.8/10Also drama and war
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware…
17
The Tasters (2025)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and history
In autumn 1943, in Gross-Partsch, 26-year-old Rosa, who had come from Berlin to stay with the parents of her husband Gregor, who was fighting on the Russian front, was taken by the SS to a mysterious place. Forced to…
18
Taking Sides (2002)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and war
One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In…
19
Rose (2026)
★ 7.6/10Also drama and history
In the early 17th century, a soldier arrives at an isolated Protestant village in Germany claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farmstead. Even though he proves to be a good man, the villagers’ suspicions about his…
20
Flyboys (2006)
★ 6.5/10Also drama and history
The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.