Movies like Army (1944)
The best movies like Army (1944) are The Most Beautiful (1944), The Burmese Harp (1956) and Anatahan (1953). If Army hooked you with its drama and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSeven Samurai (1954)8.5/10 from 4,455 votes
- NewestOnoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021)Released 2021
- In JapaneseThe Most Beautiful (1944)Also in Japanese
The Most Beautiful (1944)
Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Burmese Harp (1956)
In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAnatahan (1953)
From June 1944, twelve Japanese seamen are stranded for seven years on an abandoned and forgotten island called Anatahan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)
Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOnoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021)
Japan, 1944. Trained for intelligence work, Hiroo Onoda, 22 years old, discovers a philosophy contrary to the official line: no suicide; stay alive whatever happens; the mission is more important than anything else. Sent to Lubang, a small island in the Philippines where the Americans are about to land, this role will be to wage a guerrilla war until the return of the Japanese troops. The Empire will surrender soon after; Onoda, 10,000 days later.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFires on the Plain (1959)
In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTombstone of the Fireflies (2008)
Set during World War II, the film follows a young brother and sister as they attempt to survive the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe City.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)
After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labour chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts and moves with his newlywed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Eternal Zero (2013)
A brother and sister learn their biological grandfather was a kamikaze pilot who died during World War II. During their research into his life, they get conflicting accounts from his former comrades about his character and how he joined his squadron.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTruman (1995)
Biographical account of America's President for the latter part of WWII. Shows Truman's rise from small-town nobody to leader of the USA, his decision to use the Atomic Bomb against Japan, and subsequent election as the US' post-war President.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Sunflower (1970)
After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his old life, he faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his men sneak behind enemy lines.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGrave of the Fireflies (2005)
Hisako loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. Kobe is bombed and Kyoko is killed. Hisako is forced to take care of Kyoko's two children in addition to her own, but there is not enough food for everyone.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBlack Rain (1989)
Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRed Angel (1966)
In 1939, Sakura Nishi is a young army nurse who is sent to the field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. She has to assist the surgeon Dr. Okabe with an incredible number of amputations. In the crowded wards, she gives sympathy to some of the soldiers, including sexually servicing one who has lost both arms and has no hope of returning home. She falls in love with Dr. Okabe, and follows him to the front, even though he is impotent from his morphine addiction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Samurai (2003)
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHacksaw Ridge (2016)
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisIn This Corner of the World (2016)
Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBlood on the Sun (1945)
Nick Condon, an American journalist in 20s Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisFlags of Our Fathers (2006)
There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmperor (2012)
As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSergeant York (1941)
Alvin York a hillbilly sharpshooter transforms himself from ruffian to religious pacifist. He is then called to serve his country and despite deep religious and moral objections to fighting becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWife of a Spy (2020)
It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalking 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 drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOutrage (2010)
When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSeven Samurai (1954)
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTwenty-Four Eyes (1954)
From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins (2012)
In 1868, after the Bakumatsu war ends, the ex-assassin Kenshin Himura traverses Japan with an inverted sword, to defend the needy without killing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like this47 Ronin (2013)
Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this13 Assassins (2010)
A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Army?
The closest matches to Army are The Most Beautiful (1944), The Burmese Harp (1956) and Anatahan (1953). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Army?
People who watched Army most often go on to The Most Beautiful (1944), The Burmese Harp (1956) and Anatahan (1953).
What is the highest-rated movie like Army?
Seven Samurai (1954), rated 8.5/10 by 4,455 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Army?
Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Army?
Yes: The Most Beautiful (1944), The Burmese Harp (1956) and Anatahan (1953).
How are movies similar to Army chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Army, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.