Movies like A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941)
The best movies like A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941) are Hanover Street (1979), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Sea Chase (1955). If A Yank in the R.A.F. hooked you with its war and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedFirebird (2021)7.4/10 from 255 votes
- NewestSpitfire Over Berlin (2022)Released 2022
Hanover Street (1979)
Margaret is a nurse in England during WW2, and married to a secret agent. Things get complicated when she falls for David, an American pilot.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisThirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sea Chase (1955)
As the Second World War breaks out, German freighter captain Karl Ehrlich is about to leave Sydney, Australia with his vessel, the Ergenstrasse. Ehrlich, an anti-Nazi but proud German, hopes to outrun or out-maneuver the British warship pursuing him. Aboard his vessel is Elsa Keller, a woman Ehrlich has been ordered to return to Germany safely along with whatever secrets she carries. When Ehrlich's fiercely Nazi chief officer Kirchner commits an atrocity, the British pursuit becomes deadly.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAir Force (1943)
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAcross the Pacific (1942)
Rick Leland makes no secret of the fact that he has no loyalty to his home country after he is court-martialed out of the army and boards a Japanese ship for the Orient in late 1941. But has Leland really been booted out, or is there some other motive for his getting close to fellow passenger Doctor Lorenz?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSpitfire Over Berlin (2022)
August 1944. With the American Eighth Air Force poised to strike over Nazi Germany, British Intelligence learns that they could be flying into a deadly trap. With only hours to spare, Flight Lieutenant Edward Barnes must fly a life and death mission over Berlin in his unarmed Spitfire to obtain photographic evidence and save the lives of 1200 men.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Americanization of Emily (1964)
American sailor Charlie Madison falls for a pretty Englishwoman while trying to avoid a senseless and dangerous D-Day mission concocted by a deranged admiral.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBitter 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: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Guy Named Joe (1944)
A cocky U.S. Army Air Force pilot stationed in England during World War II falls for a daring female flier. After he's killed on a mission, he's sent back to Earth by a heavenly General with a new assignment.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFlying Tigers (1942)
Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReunion in France (1942)
Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed American flyer, Pat Talbot, and attempts to get him safely out of the country.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Yanks (1979)
During WWII, the United States set up army bases in Great Britain as part of the war effort. Against their proper sensibilities, many of the Brits don't much like the brash Yanks, especially when it comes to the G.I.s making advances on the lonely British girls. One relationship that develops is between married John, an Army Captain, and the aristocratic Helen, whose naval husband is away at war. Helen loves her husband, but Helen and John are looking for some comfort during the difficult times.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisOperation Petticoat (1959)
A World War II submarine commander finds himself stuck with a damaged sub, a con-man executive officer, and a group of army nurses.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFortress (2012)
When the commander of the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber is killed in action in a raid over Sicily in 1943, his replacement, a young, naive pilot struggles to be accepted by the plane's already tight-knit Irish American crew.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
SnoozefestMovies like thisCrash Dive (1943)
A US Navy submarine, the USS Corsair, is operating in the North Atlantic, hunting German merchant raiders that are preying on Allied shipping. Its new executive officer, Lt. Ward Stewart, has been transferred back into submarines after commanding his own PT boat. At the submarine base in New London, Connecticut, he asks his new captain, Lt. Cmdr. Dewey Connors, for a weekend leave to settle his affairs before taking up his new assignment. On a train bound for Washington D.C., Stewart accidentally encounters New London school teacher Jean Hewlett and her students. Despite her initial resistance to his efforts, he charms her and they fall in love.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & romance
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJet Pilot (1957)
U.S. Air Force aviator Jim Shannon is tasked with escorting a Soviet pilot claiming -- at the height of the Cold War -- that she wants to defect. After falling in love with and marrying her, Shannon learns from his superiors that she's a spy on a mission to extract military secrets. To save his new wife from prison and deportation, Shannon devises a risky plan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisOnly Angels Have Wings (1939)
A traveling performer arrives at a remote South American port town where the head of an air freight service must risk his pilots' lives to earn a major contract.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDarling Lili (1970)
World War I. Lili Smith is a beloved British music hall singer, often providing inspiration for the British and French troops and general populace singing rallying patriotic songs. She is also half German and is an undercover German spy, using her feminine wiles to gather information from the high ranking and generally older military officers and diplomats she seduces.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Firebird (2021)
At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPrivate Peaceful (2012)
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe History of Love (2016)
The story of a long-lost book that mysteriously reappears and connects an old man searching for his son with a girl seeking a cure for her mother's loneliness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTheir Finest (2017)
During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
A German soldier home on leave falls in love with a girl, then returns to World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDear John (2010)
While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattle of Britain (1969)
In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVon Richthofen and Brown (1971)
Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAces High (1976)
The first World War is in its third year and aerial combat above the Western Front is consuming the nation's favored children at an appalling rate. By early 1917, the average life-span of a British pilot is less than a fortnight. Such losses place a fearsome strain on Gresham, commanding officer of the squadron. Aces High recreates the early days of the Royal Flying Corps with some magnificently staged aerial battles, and sensitive direction presents a moving portrayal of the futilities of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A Yank in the R.A.F.?
The closest matches to A Yank in the R.A.F. are Hanover Street (1979), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Sea Chase (1955). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A Yank in the R.A.F.?
People who watched A Yank in the R.A.F. most often go on to Hanover Street (1979), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Sea Chase (1955).
What is the highest-rated movie like A Yank in the R.A.F.?
Firebird (2021), rated 7.4/10 by 255 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A Yank in the R.A.F.?
Spitfire Over Berlin (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like A Yank in the R.A.F.?
Yes: Hanover Street (1979), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Sea Chase (1955).
How are movies similar to A Yank in the R.A.F. chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A Yank in the R.A.F., then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.