Movies like Youth of Athens (1949)
The best movies like Youth of Athens (1949) are Waiting for Anya (2020), The Grey Zone (2001) and The Big Red One (1980). If Youth of Athens 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 ratedInglourious Basterds (2009)8.2/10 from 25,149 votes
- NewestThe World Will Tremble (2025)Released 2025
Waiting 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 thisThe Grey Zone (2001)
The story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando — one of the thirteen consecutive "Special Squads" of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of assisting in the extermination of fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Red One (1980)
A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivor Pvt. Griff, the writer Pvt. Zab, the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson, in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, and ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Island on Bird Street (1997)
Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all his relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Midnight Clear (1992)
In 1944 France, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German Platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight the other.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEscape from Sobibor (1987)
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
A dramatization of the American general and his court martial for publically complaining about High Command's dismissal and neglect of the aerial fighting forces.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEscape to Victory (1981)
A group of POWs in a German prison camp during World War II play the German National Soccer Team in this powerful film depicting the role of prisoners during wartime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Note (2017)
The execution of 200 Greek resistance fighters by the German occupiers on May 1st, 1944 in Kaisariani, as reprisal for the Greek Resistance ambush against Nazis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe World Will Tremble (2025)
The incredible, untold true story of how a group of prisoners attempt a seemingly impossible escape from the first Nazi death camp in order to provide the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Zone of Interest (2023)
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUprising (2001)
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boy in the Woods (2023)
The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009)
Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIke: 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJacknife (1989)
A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe War Below (2021)
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama
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 thisInglourious Basterds (2009)
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Six Triple Eight (2024)
During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Thin Red Line (1998)
The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Tóth Family (1969)
The Tóth family resides in Northern Hungary. The couple has a daughter and a son, the latter a member of the armed forces. When his weary major is ordered to take a vacation, the son talks him into a visit to his family home. Hilarity ensues when the Tóths go overboard trying to make things pleasant for the visiting major in hopes of an easier life for their son, the soldier.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
The Emperor's Bed (1973)
In the first day of liberation, partisan Meke enters the palace where the king used to live.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Europa Europa (1990)
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFlame & Citron (2008)
Gunman Flame and his partner Citron assassinate Nazi collaborators for the Danish resistance. Assigned targets by their Allies-connected leader, Aksel Winther, they relish the opportunity to begin targeting the Nazis themselves. When they begin to doubt the validity of their assignments, their morally complicated task becomes even more labyrinthine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCharlotte (2022)
The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Paisan (1946)
Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Tin Drum (1979)
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLower City (2005)
Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Final Countdown (1980)
During routine manoeuvres near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft-carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Youth of Athens?
The closest matches to Youth of Athens are Waiting for Anya (2020), The Grey Zone (2001) and The Big Red One (1980). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Youth of Athens?
Start with Waiting for Anya (2020), the closest match to Youth of Athens.
What is the highest-rated movie like Youth of Athens?
Inglourious Basterds (2009), rated 8.2/10 by 25,149 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Youth of Athens?
The World Will Tremble (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Youth of Athens chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Youth of Athens, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.