On Thursday May 8, Britain, France and other Allied nations commemorate the end of World War II in Europe. It’s been 80 years since the war’s end but the date remains deeply symbolic of the gargantuan effort that went into defeating Nazi Germany. There’s been thousands of war films to memorialise the conflict itself but in case you’re looking to mark this week’s memorials with a movie that captures the events of May 1945 in mood, if not recreation – VE Day has rarely appeared on screen – these six movies should stir the spirits.
A Royal Night Out (2015)
Set entirely on VE Day, this sprightly comedy-drama imagines that Princess Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and her party-loving sister Margaret (Bel Powley) embarked on a wild night of West End revelry to celebrate the war’s end. On their dance cards are Soho nightclubs, gambling dens, brothels and a romantic rendezvous with an RAF pilot (Jack Reynor). The pair did famously head out into the crowds that night, winding up at The Ritz, but there’s no record of anything quite this scandalous happening.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
No VE Day commemoration is complete without a Powell and Pressburger movie. A Matter of Life and Death is the legendary filmmaking duo’s most soulful vision of life during wartime and 49th Parallel is them at their Jerry-bashing. But The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and its noble but obstinate title character, best evokes the challenge of adjusting to a time when history was being made almost every day. It’s also a stone-cold classic.
Mrs Miniver (1942)
The Best Picture winner for 1942 was the story of a doughty British housewife (Londoner Greer Garson) who suffers the Blitz, personal loss, and the odd Nazi in her garden with courage and fortitude. The film’s director, William Wyler, was one of a clutch of Hollywood big shots who travelled to Britain to capture its experience of the war. For a wartime flick with a clear propaganda purpose – to persuade Americans to join the fighting – Mrs Miniver still hits hard.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The Colonel Bogey March has been around since 1914 but World War II saw lyrics added – something about Hitler’s missing body part – before David Lean made it famous afresh in his epic war film. Its whistled refrain feels like the perfect VE Day melody, as does the heroism of the British officer it’s named after, played with starchy eccentricity by Alec Guinness, who perfectly embodies his country’s ability to get right up the nose of its enemies.
Casablanca (1942)
Brits take a back seat in a classic wartime romance that was shot almost entirely at Warner Bros.’ LA studios, but Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine is the perfect avatar for all the sudden and occasionally out of character acts of resistance that helped Allied nations beat the Nazis. All the seemingly feckless American bar owner wants is a quiet life in his Moroccan speakeasy and a few tunes out of Sam when his old flame, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), turns up and he finds an inner nobility he didn’t know he had – and probably wishes he didn’t. What better time to play it again?
This Happy Breed (1944)
It was made before the end of the war and spans two decades leading up to the conflict (1919-’39), so David Lean’s stirring hymn his homeland is more of a DNA test for the British character than a history lesson. But it captures something that aligns pretty closely with the spirit of VE Day: the doggedness and pride of working-class Brits enduring violent upheaval and emerging triumphant from the rubble. It’d be corny if it wasn’t so touching.
The Imitation Game (2014)
This rollicking wartime thriller – based on Andrew Hodges’s book about genius mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) – is both a pulse-raising espionage flick and a sobering reminder that not every hero was given their due when VE Day rolled round. In fact, Turing’s reward for cracking the Nazi’s Enigma code was a form of disgrace: he was victimised for his homosexuality and later charged with indecent exposure, while his wartime deeds remained veiled in secrecy. Thanks to Cumberbatch’s intense performance, his deeds are charted in gripping fashion here.