World War II has been adapted to film and television more than any other conflict in history, and it's not close. The reasons are obvious — global scale, clear moral stakes, every theater and branch of service represented, and a surviving documentary record dense enough to support any angle a filmmaker wants to take. Eighty years on, the output hasn't slowed. New films and series arrive every year, and the back catalog is deep enough that a serious viewer could spend a lifetime working through it.

Finding what's actually worth watching is harder than it should be. Streaming catalogs rotate constantly — a film that was on Netflix last year may be on Prime Video this year, or may have dropped off entirely. Listicles go stale within months. And the same twenty titles get recycled endlessly in recommendation roundups, many of them without anyone checking whether they're still streaming where the list says they are.

This guide is the anchor for our WWII coverage. It stands on its own as a starting point, and it routes to four deeper guides — one on what's on Netflix, one on limited series, one on documentaries, and one on the films you can't stream at all. Every title listed below has been verified through Watchmode as currently streaming in the US. Availability changes, but as of publication, these are where things stand.

Where to Start

If you've watched nothing, start here. Seven titles across films, a series, and a documentary — enough to cover the range of what WWII cinema can do.

Schindler's List (1993, 195 min). Spielberg's account of Oskar Schindler's efforts to shield Jewish workers from the Holocaust. Shot in black and white, restrained where it could have been operatic. The film that set the modern standard for Holocaust cinema. Streaming on Netflix.

Saving Private Ryan (1998, 169 min). The D-Day landing sequence alone makes this essential — 25 minutes of combat filmed with a level of visceral detail that changed how war films are made. The mission that follows is more conventional, but the opening is the reason it matters. Streaming on Paramount+, the Roku Channel, and Pluto TV.

Band of Brothers (2001, 10 episodes). The HBO miniseries following Easy Company of the 101st Airborne from D-Day through the occupation of Germany. The gold standard for WWII television — grounded in veteran testimony, produced with a budget that shows, and structured so each episode focuses on a different man. Streaming on Max.

The Pianist (2002, 150 min). Roman Polanski's film about a Jewish pianist surviving in the Warsaw Ghetto. It's a survival story, not a hero story, and the perspective is intimate rather than sweeping. Streaming on Prime Video, Tubi, and the Roku Channel.

Downfall (2004, 155 min). The final days of Hitler in the Berlin bunker, told from the inside. Bruno Ganz's performance is the reason to watch — he plays the role without sympathy but with a specificity that makes the banality of the regime's end legible. Streaming on Prime Video and Tubi.

Shoah (1985, 566 min). Claude Lanzmann's nine-and-a-half-hour documentary built entirely on testimony — survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators, interviewed at the sites where the events took place. No archival footage. The length is the method: the film gives testimony space rather than reducing it to a summary. Streaming on Philo.

The Great Escape (1963, 173 min). The classic Allied POW escape film, based on a true story, with Steve McQueen and a cast that defines the genre. It's the film most people picture when they think of WWII cinema, and it holds up. Streaming on Prime Video, MGM+, Philo, and YouTube.

The Films

The best WWII feature films currently streaming, grouped loosely by what they're about.

The Holocaust and Civilian Survival

Schindler's List (1993) — Netflix. The Pianist (2002) — Prime Video, Tubi, Roku. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) — Hoopla, YouTube. Europa Europa (1990) — Max, Criterion Channel. Sophie's Choice (1982) — Peacock, Tubi. The Zookeeper's Wife (2017) — YouTube. These films approach the Holocaust from different angles — industrial-scale murder, individual survival, moral compromise, and the impossible choices civilians faced under occupation.

Combat and the Front Line

Saving Private Ryan (1998) — Paramount+, Roku, Pluto TV. Fury (2014) — Philo, fuboTV, MGM+. The Thin Red Line (1998) — DirecTV. Hacksaw Ridge (2016) — Lionsgate+ via Amazon, DirecTV, Fandango at Home. Unbroken (2014) — Netflix. Defiance (2008) — Paramount+, fuboTV. These are the films that put you in the fighting — from the Normandy beaches to Okinawa to the tank columns pushing into Germany.

The Pacific Theater

Midway (2019) — Lionsgate+ via Amazon, YouTube. Greyhound (2020) — Apple TV+. Battle of Britain (1969) — MGM+, fuboTV, Philo, Tubi. The Pacific campaign gets less attention than Europe, and the streaming catalog reflects that — but these three cover the naval war, the air war, and the island fighting from different angles.

Intelligence and Resistance

The Imitation Game (2014) — Lionsgate+ via Amazon, Hoopla, Tubi. Anthropoid (2016) — Netflix, Paramount+, fuboTV, Tubi. Inglourious Basterds (2009) — DirecTV, Hulu on Disney+, Fawesome. Munich: The Edge of War (2022) — Netflix. Darkest Hour (2017) — YouTube. The war behind the front lines — codebreaking, assassination plots, the appeasement debate, and the messy business of resistance.

The Classics

Casablanca (1942) — Max. The Great Dictator (1940) — Max, Criterion Channel. The Great Escape (1963) — Prime Video, MGM+, Philo, YouTube. Patton (1970) — Prime Video. The Longest Day (1962) — Prime Video. The Dirty Dozen (1967) — YouTube. Das Boot (1981) — fuboTV, YouTube. Come and See (1985) — Criterion Channel. The Guns of Navarone (1961) — Netflix. Valkyrie (2008) — Roku, MGM+, Prime Video, Tubi. The Bridge at Remagen (1969) — Prime Video, Tubi. Battle of the Bulge (1965) — DirecTV, Hoopla, Tubi. The Eagle Has Landed (1976) — Roku, fuboTV, Prime Video, Tubi. The Caine Mutiny (1954) — YouTube. Dunkirk (2017) — Paramount+. The films that built the genre — from Casablanca's wartime romance to Come and See's unflinching account of the Eastern Front.

The Limited Series

The limited series format suits WWII better than almost any other subject — long enough to cover a campaign in detail, short enough to maintain a single arc. Four stand out.

Band of Brothers (2001, 10 episodes) — Max. The Pacific (2010, 10 episodes) — Max. Masters of the Air (2024, 9 episodes) — Apple TV+. Das Boot (2018, 3 seasons) — Hulu, Prime Video, Roku. The first three form a loose trilogy produced by Spielberg and Hanks, covering the European airborne campaign, the Pacific island war, and the bomber offensive over Germany. Das Boot is a different animal — a German-produced continuation of the film, following a U-boat crew and the resistance in occupied France.

For the full guide to WWII limited series — including Catch-22 on Hulu, The Tattooist of Auschwitz on Peacock, Transatlantic and All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix, and The Plot Against America on Max — see our complete guide to WWII limited series streaming now.

The Documentaries

The WWII documentary catalog is deeper than the fiction catalog, and the range is wider — from 1950s broadcast series built on raw newsreel footage to modern restorations that colorize and stabilize the same film. Four standouts.

Shoah (1985, 566 min) — Philo. Night and Fog (1956, 32 min) — Max, Criterion Channel. The Last Days (1998, 145 min) — Netflix. World War II in Colour (2009, 13 episodes) — Prime Video, Tubi. Shoah is the monumental work — nine and a half hours of testimony with no archival footage. Night and Fog is its opposite — 32 minutes of archival images, brief and devastating. The Last Days is a Spielberg-produced account of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors. World War II in Colour is the broad overview, colorized for contemporary audiences.

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For the full guide to WWII documentaries — including The World at War, Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, Victory at Sea, and more — see our complete guide to WWII documentaries streaming now.

Service by Service

Which streaming services have meaningful WWII catalogs, and which don't.

Netflix has a solid mix of prestige and popular titles: Schindler's List, Unbroken, The Guns of Navarone, Munich: The Edge of War, and Anthropoid, plus series like Transatlantic, All the Light We Cannot See, and The Liberator. The catalog leans recent — Netflix invests in new productions and licenses recognizable titles, but the classic catalog is thin. For the full breakdown of what's on Netflix, see our guide to WWII movies on Netflix.

Max (formerly HBO Max) is the strongest service for prestige WWII. Band of Brothers and The Pacific are here, along with the Warner/Turner classic library — Casablanca, The Great Dictator, Europa Europa, Night and Fog, and The Plot Against America. If you want the canon, this is where it lives.

Prime Video has the deepest classic catalog. Patton, The Longest Day, The Great Escape, Downfall, The Pianist, Valkyrie, The Bridge at Remagen, The Eagle Has Landed, and World War II in Colour are all here. The catalog skews older and more combat-focused than Netflix.

Apple TV+ has the newest prestige entry: Masters of the Air and Greyhound. The catalog is small but high-quality — both are worth watching and both are exclusive.

Paramount+ carries Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, and Defiance — the modern combat titles from the Paramount library. A smaller catalog but the titles are essential.

Hulu has Catch-22 and the Das Boot series. The WWII catalog is thin compared to Max or Prime Video, but those two are worth the visit.

Peacock has Sophie's Choice and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Limited WWII coverage, but the Tattooist series is a recent prestige production.

Criterion Channel has the art-house canon: Come and See, Europa Europa, Night and Fog, The Great Dictator, and the Rossellini war trilogy. If you want the films that take the war seriously as cinema, this is the service.

Tubi, Roku, Pluto TV, and Hoopla (free) have surprisingly deep catalogs. Tubi carries Downfall, The Pianist, Valkyrie, Battle of the Bulge, The Imitation Game, Battle of Britain, and Sophie's Choice. Roku has Saving Private Ryan, Valkyrie, and The Pianist. Hoopla has The Imitation Game, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and The Diary of Anne Frank. If you don't want to pay, these are where to look.

Disney+ and Discovery+ have essentially no WWII catalog.

What You Can't Stream

Not every important WWII film is streaming. Licensing gaps, rights expiration, and restoration costs leave notable titles without a subscription home. The Bridge on the River Kwai — one of the most acclaimed war films ever made — is rent-only. The World at War, the 1973 Thames Television documentary that set the standard for the entire genre, has no US streaming home at all. The Monuments Men, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance are all currently off streaming.

For films with no streaming home, physical media is frequently the only option, and for older war films the disc transfer is often better than any streaming version would be.

For the full breakdown of which WWII films aren't streaming and why — including The Bridge on the River Kwai, Where Eagles Dare, Army of Shadows, The Counterfeiters, and Stalingrad — see our guide to the WWII films you can't stream anywhere.

Finding Something Specific

If you half-remember a war film but can't name it — a scene, a character, a detail from the poster — you can describe it to Ask the Beam and the system will identify it. It works for both movies and series, and it's built for the kind of vague recollection that a normal search can't handle.

Streaming availability changes constantly — films move between services, licenses expire, and titles return without warning. This guide is updated periodically to reflect the current state. If something on this list catches your eye, it's worth checking the Leaving Soon page to track what's expiring and what's coming back across all services.