1 of 5 | Rami Malek attends the EE BAFTA Film Awards at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2024. He stars in the new World War II film “Nuremberg,” released Friday. File Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
Rami Malek and Russell Crowe star in the new World War II film Nuremberg, about a psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Nazi leader Herman Göring to determine if he’s fit to stand trial for war crimes.
The movie, released in theaters Friday, is one of many over the decades that have told the true stories of some of those who worked behind the scenes during the war to save lives, develop technologies to help the war effort, document the realities of the war, keep the lines of communication open and even to protect priceless works of art.
Malek plays psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, whose story was originally told in the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai.
“The Allies, led by the unyielding chief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), have the task of ensuring the Nazi regime answers for the unveiled horrors of the Holocaust while a U.S. Army psychiatrist (Rami Malek) is locked in a dramatic psychological duel with former Reichsmarschall Herman Göring (Russell Crowe),” a synopsis of the film reads.
The drama features a large ensemble cast including Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Colin Hanks, Wrenn Schmidt, Richard E. Grant and Lotte Verbeek.
Here’s a look at five other notable World War II dramas that put some behind-the-scenes figures in the spotlight.
‘The Six Triple Eight’
Released in 2024, The Six Triple Eight tells the little-known story of the Black female soldiers of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in the Women’s Army Corps, who were tasked with sorting and delivering 17 million pieces of backed-up mail to and from service members.
The film from Tyler Perry stars Kerry Washington as Maj. Charity Adams, who oversaw the operation, and Ebony Obsidian as Cpl. Lena Derriecott King, whose stories from the effort informed Perry in the making of the film. The two women won NAACP Image Awards for their roles.
Perry previously told UPI that many of the veterans from the battalion didn’t like to talk about their experience in the war because some people assumed they were sent to Europe to “basically be prostitutes” for White American soldiers.
“A lot of them didn’t even talk about what had happened because there was a stigma about women in the military,” Perry said. “There was a lot of shame when a lot of the women came home, so they didn’t even talk about it.”
The Netflix film also stars Dean Norris, Sam Waterston, Oprah Winfrey and Susan Sarandon.
‘Lee’
Another film highlighting the pioneering roles women played during World War II is 2023’s Lee, a biopic about American photographer Lee Miller. Starring and produced by Kate Winslet, it shows how Miller forced herself onto the frontlines to document the violence of war and the men who tried to keep her from doing so.
“With a profound understanding and empathy for women and for the voiceless victims of atrocious crimes, her images feature both the fragility and ferocity of the human ability to survive, exist, fight, defend and live,” a synopsis of the film reads.
Winslet, who worked to bring about the film for years, and director Ellen Kuras were honored with the Crystal Award for Advocacy in Film at the Women in Film Honors for the feature. Winslet also received Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globe Awards and the AACTA International Awards.
Lee also stars Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough and Josh O’Connor.
‘Oppenheimer’
Perhaps one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters about World War II in recent years, Oppenheimer took home a slew of awards in 2023 and unwittingly introduced audiences to the summer of “Barbenheimer.”
The film tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who established the Los Alamos Laboratory and, with a team of hundreds of people, developed the atomic bomb. The weapons were crucial to the U.S. military’s efforts to finalize the Pacific theater of World War II — two were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
While many people already knew of Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) as the so-called “father of the atomic bomb,” the 3-hour film directed by Christopher Nolan introduced audiences to some other key figures of the Manhattan Project and its fallout.
Emily Blunt played Kitty Oppenheimer, Robert’s wife; Matt Damon was Gen. Leslie Groves, the go-between for Oppenheimer and the military; Robert Downey Jr. played retried Rear Adm. Lewis Strauss who sought to discredit Oppenheimer after the war; and Josh Hartnett was cast as Ernest Lawrence, a nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer at UC Berkeley.
The film’s huge cast also included Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke, David Dastmalchian, Dane DeHaan, Alden Ehrenreich, Tony Goldwyn, Matthew Modine and David Krumholtz.
‘Zookeeper’s Wife’
This 2017 film directed by Niki Caro tells the true story of Antonina Żabiński (Jessica Chastain) and her husband, Jan (Johan Heldenbergh), the director of the Warsaw Zoo during World War II. After Germany invaded Poland, the couple were forced to report to the Reich’s chief zoologist, Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl).
“To fight back on their own terms, Antonina and Jan covertly begin working with the Resistance — and put into action plans to save lives out of what has become the Warsaw Ghetto, with Antonina putting herself and even children at great risk,” a synopsis of the film says.
After many of the zoo animals were relocated during the war — and some died — the Żabińskis used the now-empty spaces of the zoo to temporarily hide hundreds of Jewish refugees seeking to flee the country.
‘The Imitation Game’
The 2014 film starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley tells the story of Allied code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park, particularly the role of computer scientist Alan Turing. The scientist, played by Cumberbatch, was responsible for creating one of the first large-scale computers in the world.
Turing and his team used to to decipher coded messages sent by the Nazis via the Enigma encryption machine, helping to bring about the end of World War II.
Despite Turing’s efforts on behalf of the British government, after the war he was convicted for being gay and forced to undergo chemical castration as part of his punishment. He lost his security clearance and was unable to continue working for the government.
In 2014, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II pardoned Turing.
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Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who co-star in “Titanic,” arrive at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., on January 18, 1998. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
