Movies like Sea of Sand (1958)
The best movies like Sea of Sand (1958) are Bitter Victory (1957), Tobruk (1967) and The Hill (1965). If Sea of Sand 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 ratedSchindler's List (1993)8.6/10 from 18,179 votes
- NewestBattle for Saipan (2022)Released 2022
Bitter Victory (1957)
During the second world war, two British officers, Brand and Leith, who have never seen combat, are assigned a vital mission. Their relationship and the operation are complicated by the arrival of Brand's wife, who had a tryst with Leith years earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTobruk (1967)
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Hill (1965)
North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)
The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattle of the Bulge (1965)
In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent it, Hitler orders an all-out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFive Graves to Cairo (1943)
During the 1942 North African campaign, a British straggler passes as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Erwin Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may provide an even better use.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Man Who Never Was (1956)
The true story of a British effort to trick the Germans into weakening Sicily's defenses before the 1943 attack. A dead soldier is dressed as a British officer and outfitted with faked papers showing that the Allies were intending to invade occupied Greece. His body is put into the sea where it will ultimately drift ashore and the papers be passed along to German Intelligence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisExodus (1960)
Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Bridge Too Far (1977)
The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Four Feathers (1939)
A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattleground (1949)
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWaiting for Anya (2020)
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & 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 & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHurricane (2018)
Polish pilots overcome prejudice to fight against the Luftwaffe with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in the hope of protecting both Great Britain and their own Poland from the German advance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisSahara (1943)
In Libya, an American tank commander, along with a handful of Allied soldiers, tries to defend an isolated well with a limited supply of water from a German Afrika Korps battalion during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Desert Rats (1953)
In North Africa, German Field Marshal Rommel and his troops have successfully fended off British forces, and now intend to take Tobruk, an important port city. A ramshackle group of Australian reinforcements sent to combat the Germans is put under the command of British Captain MacRoberts. The unruly Aussies immediately clash with MacRoberts, a gruff, strict disciplinarian, however this unorthodox team must band together to protect Tobruk from the German forces.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lost Patrol (1934)
A World War I British Army patrol is crossing the Mesopotamian desert when their commanding officer, the only one who knows their destination, is killed by the bullet of unseen bandits. The patrol's sergeant keeps them heading north on the assumption that they will hit their brigade. They stop for the night at an oasis and awaken the next morning to find their horses stolen, their sentry dead, the oasis surrounded and survival difficult.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKhartoum (1966)
English General Charles George Gordon is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by the Prime Minister. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWolf Hound (2022)
Inspired by the real-life German special operations unit KG 200 that shot down, repaired, and flew Allied aircraft as Trojan horses, "Wolf Hound" takes place in 1944 German-occupied France and follows the daring exploits of Jewish-American fighter pilot Captain David Holden. Ambushed behind enemy lines, Holden must rescue a captured B-17 Flying Fortress crew, evade a ruthless enemy stalking him at every turn, and foil a plot that could completely alter the outcome of World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDas Boot (1981)
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe English Patient (1996)
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Pianist (2002)
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisSchindler's List (1993)
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisRome, Open City (1945)
During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAnd the Violins Stopped Playing (1988)
This is the true story about a group of Romani's (gypsy) in occupied Poland during World War II as they confront the atrocities and tragedies of a forgotten holocaust.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & 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: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEverything Is Illuminated (2005)
A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCasablanca (1943)
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBattle for Saipan (2022)
On July 7, 1944, a U.S. Army hospital on the remote island of Saipan is overrun by Japanese forces during a relentless attack. Outgunned and surrounded by the enemy, a lone medic puts it all on the line to lead a band of wounded soldiers to safety.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Sea of Sand?
The closest matches to Sea of Sand are Bitter Victory (1957), Tobruk (1967) and The Hill (1965). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Sea of Sand?
Start with Bitter Victory (1957), the closest match to Sea of Sand.
What is the highest-rated movie like Sea of Sand?
Schindler's List (1993), rated 8.6/10 by 18,179 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Sea of Sand?
Battle for Saipan (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Sea of Sand?
Yes: Bitter Victory (1957), Tobruk (1967) and The Hill (1965).
How are movies similar to Sea of Sand chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Sea of Sand, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.