Movies like THE MESSENGER
The best movies like THE MESSENGER are Walking with the Enemy (2014), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Outlaws - For Greater Glory (2012). If THE MESSENGER hooked you with its history and fantasy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Guns of Navarone (1961)7.3/10 from 932 votes
- NewestFear (2025)Released 2025
- In GermanThe Fox (2023)Also in German
Walking with the Enemy (2014)
Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Guns of Navarone (1961)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOutlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Great War (2019)
In November of 1918 as World War I was ending, a unit of American soldiers goes behind enemy lines to find a lost platoon of African American soldiers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisField of Lost Shoes (2015)
A group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisObjective, Burma! (1945)
A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSahara (1995)
After the fall of Tobruk in June 1942, U.S. Army sergeant Joe Gunn leads his tank into the Sahara desert, in order to evade advancing Rommel's forces and reach Allied lines. Along the way he picks up few Allied soldiers, but soon they are running out of water. They find water at the ancient well, but the well is a goal of an entire German battalion. Despite the impossible odds, Sergeant Gunn decides to defend the well.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)
A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and traitorous lord of Rohan seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both fantasy & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Fox (2023)
At the dawn of World War II, a young motorcycle courier in the Austrian army encounters a wounded fox cub and takes it with him to occupied France. The soldier and the fox develop an unlikely bond. Based on the true story of Franz Streitberger, director Adrian Goiginger’s great-grandfather.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Legion (2020)
Noreno, a half-Roman, is entrusted with the mission of crossing the snowy mountains of Armenia, swarming with Parthian patrols, to seek help for his slowly dying men.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisForce 10 from Navarone (1978)
World War II, 1943. Mallory and Miller, the heroes who destroyed the guns of Navarone, are sent to Yugoslavia in search of a ghost from the past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTriple Cross (1966)
Safecracker Eddie Chapman is languishing in prison on the island of Jersey when the Nazis arrive. An adept manipulator of situations, Chapman convinces the Germans to use him to spy on the British. And when the would-be traitor arrives home, he convinces the English to use him as a double agent -- in exchange for a full pardon.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Great Raid (2005)
As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMoonfleet (1955)
Set in the eighteenth century, Moonfleet is about John Mohune, a young orphan who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo Hell and Back (1955)
The true WWII story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in U.S. history. Based on the autobiography of Audie Murphy who stars as himself in the film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAngels Fallen: Warriors of Peace (2024)
When an Iraq War veteran receives a calling from a higher power, he embarks on a mission to stop a fallen angel from raising an army of the dead to take over the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & fantasy
SnoozefestMovies like thisSavior (1998)
A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFlyboys (2006)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlay Dirty (1969)
During World War II in North Africa, a group of British commandos disguised as Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital Nazi oil depot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIce Cold in Alex (1958)
A group of army personnel and nurses attempt a dangerous and arduous trek across the deserts of North Africa during the second world war. The leader of the team dreams of his ice cold beer when he reaches Alexandria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisResistance (2020)
The story of mime Marcel Marceau as he works with a group of Jewish boy scouts and the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFear (2025)
March 1945, on the frontlines of the Tatra Mountains, Romanian and German soldiers prepare for battle, bound by the same hidden fear. In the chaos of combat, beyond bullets and grenades, a harsh truth emerges: in war, they are all just humans.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & history
Des trains dans la guerre (2025)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & war
Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004)
The story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisInvasion (2014)
INVASION is a documentary about the collective memory of a country. The invasion of Panama by the U.S in 1989 serves as an excuse to explore how a people remember, transform, and often forget their past in order to re-define their identity and become who they are today.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & war
We Were Soldiers (2002)
The year is 1965 and America is at war with North Vietnam. Commanding the air cavalry is Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Gibson), a born leader committed to his troops. His target: the Ia Drang Valley, called "The Valley of Death." As Moore prepares for one of the most violent battles in U.S. history, he delivers a stirring promise to his soldiers and their families: "I will leave no man behind...dead or alive. We will all come home together."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAfter We Are Born (2027)
A New Psychological Documentary About Children
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
Coming SoonMovies like thisSpähtrupp Hallgarten (1941)
Two German soldiers in the Norwegian Campaign.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
Patch of Sky (1975)
Two pilots and their beloveds, all of whom are close friends, try to navigate their lives separate from one another as the men transition to combat.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
The Dead Nation (2017)
A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like THE MESSENGER?
The closest matches to THE MESSENGER are Walking with the Enemy (2014), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Outlaws - For Greater Glory (2012). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after THE MESSENGER?
Start with Walking with the Enemy (2014), the closest match to THE MESSENGER.
What is the highest-rated movie like THE MESSENGER?
The Guns of Navarone (1961), rated 7.3/10 by 932 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like THE MESSENGER?
Fear (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like THE MESSENGER?
Yes: The Fox (2023) and Spähtrupp Hallgarten (1941).
How are movies similar to THE MESSENGER chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside THE MESSENGER, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.