War Films

90 Day Wondering is a 1956 animated short directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros., commissioned by the United States Army to encourage discharged soldiers to re-enlist. The cartoon follows Ralph Phillips, who is overjoyed to be a civilian again after his discharge, but finds civilian life less glamorous than expected. Two pixies named Pete and Re-Pete act as his conscience, debating whether he should stay out or re-enlist. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · War

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's World War I novel. Gary Cooper plays an American ambulance driver on the Italian front who falls in love with an English nurse, played by Helen Hayes in her screen debut. The romance unfolds against retreats, bombardments, and a hospital in Switzerland. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · War

A Few Quick Facts About Fear is a 1945 animated short from the "A Few Quick Facts" series, produced by UPA (United Productions of America) for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Directed by Zack Schwartz, it features Private Snafu in knight's armor encountering a fire-breathing dragon, using the allegory to examine the emotion of fear and its influence on human nature. The screenplay was written by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), who contributed to many of the Snafu shorts. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Educational

A Few Quick Facts About Inflation is a 1944 animated short from the "A Few Quick Facts" series, produced by UPA for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Directed by Osmond Evans, it features Private Snafu learning about inflation and its effects on the wartime economy. The short is one of a series of brief educational cartoons commissioned by the Army to explain complex topics to servicemen in an accessible, humorous way. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Educational

A Hitch in Time is a 1955 animated short directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros., commissioned by the United States Air Force to promote re-enlistment. The cartoon follows John McRogers, a character closely modeled on Private Snafu, who dreams about his future after four years in the Air Force. He is guided by Grogan, Technical Gremlin First Class — a reworking of the Technical Fairy from the original Snafu series — who explains the advantages of staying in the service versus returning to civilian life. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · War

A Lecture on Camouflage is a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, written by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel). Using Snafu as an example, Technical Fairy First Class teaches the methods of effective camouflage in a typically irreverent Snafu short, building to a famously shocking ending. As a U.S. government work produced for the Army Signal Corps, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Educational

A 1962 American drama film written and directed by James Landis, starring Bobby Diamond. Eddie Slocum, a young Indiana farm boy, volunteers for the Army's Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, inspired by his uncle's World War II paratrooper service. During jump school training, he clashes with Rocky, a bullying recruit jealous of the attention Eddie gets from local beauty Jenny May. During their first parachute jump, Rocky's chute becomes entangled in Eddie's lines, and Eddie must hold onto his former enemy as they descend to the ground — a brush with death that transforms Rocky and bonds the platoon.

Drama · War

Based on Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel, the film follows a group of young German schoolboys who enlist in the army at the urging of their teacher and are ground down by the realities of trench warfare in World War I. Lewis Milestone directed with a documentary plainness that was unusual for its time, and the result is one of the first great anti-war films. Lew Ayres plays Paul Bäumer, the idealistic recruit whose patriotism is hollowed out by what he sees; Louis Wolheim is Katczinsky, the veteran who teaches the new men how to survive. The film won the Academy Awards for Outstanding Production and Best Director, the first picture to take both. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama

Sergei Eisenstein's account of the 1905 mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin, in which the crew rebels after being served maggot-ridden meat and the uprising spreads to the port of Odessa. The Odessa Steps sequence — tsarist troops firing on civilians as a baby carriage rolls down the stairs — remains one of the most studied and imitated passages in film history, and the picture is the foundational text of Soviet montage editing. Aleksandr Antonov plays the mutiny's leader Vakulinchuk, with Vladimir Barsky and Grigori Aleksandrov. Made as a state commission to mark the revolution's twentieth anniversary, it was banned in several countries on release and is still ranked among the greatest films ever made. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · History · Silent · War

A sequel to Herbert Brenon's 1926 hit Beau Geste, this pre-Code adventure sends an American (Lester Vail) into the French Foreign Legion to rescue his boyhood friend John Geste (Ralph Forbes, reprising his silent role). Filmed on location in the Sonoran Desert and on the RKO lot, the picture adapts P.C. Wren's novel with a Max Steiner score and early all-dialogue location recording. Loretta Young and Irene Rich round out the cast. The film is marked public domain on its Internet Archive item.

Adventure · Romance · War

A wartime espionage quickie from Monogram, rushed into theaters three months after Pearl Harbor. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Melcher, a plastic surgeon who has spent years transforming six agents of Japan's Black Dragon Society into doubles of prominent American industrialists — a fifth column planted to sabotage the US war effort. When the infiltrators start turning up dead with ceremonial daggers in their chests, a doctor and a detective try to untangle the conspiracy. Clayton Moore, a few years away from the Lone Ranger, plays a young FBI man. Cheap even by poverty-row standards, but a vivid snapshot of wartime paranoia. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Thriller · Mystery · War

An American newspaper editor in 1920s Tokyo uncovers a secret Japanese military plan for expansion across the Pacific, and becomes a target of both the army and a double agent. James Cagney stars in this wartime thriller, which won an Academy Award for art direction. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Thriller · War · Drama

Private Snafu blunders through a booby-trapped North African landscape, ignoring every warning about hidden explosives until the traps teach him their lessons the hard way. A Bob Clampett-directed Army training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A pre-Code crime film directed by John Ford and staged by Andrew Bennison, based on the novel Louis Beretti by Donald Henderson Clarke. Edmund Lowe stars as a notorious gangster who is sentenced to fight in World War I rather than go to prison, a scheme cooked up by a district attorney looking to use the publicity to get re-elected. After returning from the war, Beretti tries to go straight by opening a nightclub, but his old criminal connections pull him back in. Lee Tracy plays a fast-talking reporter, and Marguerite Churchill plays Beretti's sister. The film features early uncredited appearances by John Wayne and Randolph Bond as soldiers. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · War

Bosko endures the mud, shells, and absurdities of the First World War trenches, keeping spirits up with music until the bees and bullets prove too much. An early Looney Tunes short directed by Hugh Harman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu resents having his mail censored by the Army and wishes for a free hand to tell all, only to learn that his loose letters leak secrets straight to the enemy. A Frank Tashlin-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A U.S. Army Air Forces documentary produced by the First Motion Picture Unit and narrated by Clark Gable, who interrupted his superstar career to enlist after the death of his wife Carole Lombard. The film follows a single B-17 Flying Fortress crew of the 351st Bombardment Group from training in the United States through combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe — Gable himself flew five missions over Germany gathering footage. Built to sell war bonds and reassure audiences about what their sons were facing, it doubles as an unusually frank portrait of daylight bombing at its most dangerous. As a work of the United States government it is in the public domain.

Documentary · War

Coming!! Snafu is a 1943 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. This is the very first Snafu short, serving as an introduction to the bumbling soldier character. The cartoon sets the template for the series: Snafu demonstrates exactly what NOT to do in military situations, with humorous consequences. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

Stockholm, 1918: a French spy running a high-fashion dress shop, played by Vivien Leigh, falls for the German counterintelligence chief assigned to catch her, played by Conrad Veidt. Both know what the other is; neither can quite stop. Victor Saville directs the London Films production as an elegant cat-and-mouse romance where every ballroom scene doubles as tradecraft. Leigh, on the verge of Gone with the Wind, and Veidt, the great German exile who had played Cesare in Caligari, make an improbably magnetic pair, and the neutral Swedish setting lets the film keep its sympathies ambiguous. It is in the public domain in the United States.

War · Romance · Thriller

John Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland made this film about the attack on Pearl Harbor for the U.S. Navy. The original cut ran 82 minutes and asked uncomfortable questions about American readiness and the treatment of Japanese Americans; the Navy shelved it and Ford cut it to 32 minutes, concentrating on the battle and the recovery. The shorter version won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1944. Toland's staged recreation of the attack was so convincing that feature films borrowed footage from it for decades. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A British documentary about the Allied campaign to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa, centered on the Battle of El Alamein. Produced by the Army Film and Photographic Unit and the Royal Air Force Film Production Unit, it was shot by cameramen embedded with the Eighth Army during the advance across the desert, and four of them were killed, seven wounded, and six captured in the making of it. The film follows Montgomery's army from the defensive line at El Alamein through the pursuit of Rommel's forces across 1,400 miles to Tripoli. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. As a work of the United Kingdom government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The third chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series picks up after Britain and France declare war on Germany. It follows the Nazi capture of Denmark and Norway, the conquest of Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and the collapse of France in just over a month. The film pays blunt attention to Nazi atrocities, including the bombing of Rotterdam, and explains the German tactic of flooding roads with refugees to slow Allied armies. Made for the U.S. War Department, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Buster Keaton's most successful sound picture, directed by Edward Sedgwick for MGM. Keaton plays Elmer J. Butts, a wealthy young man who accidentally enlists in the army during World War I after trying to follow his girlfriend's brother into the service. Through a series of mix-ups, the hapless millionaire finds himself in the trenches of France, where his ineptitude becomes an asset. The film was Keaton's biggest box office success of the sound era, though by his own account he had minimal creative control—the gags were largely devised by Sedgwick and the MGM story department. Still, Keaton's physical comedy shines through, particularly in a memorable sequence where he disguises himself as a tree. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War

Four soldiers stranded behind enemy lines in an unnamed war make their way toward a river and escape, killing an enemy officer and a peasant girl along the way. Stanley Kubrick's first feature, made on a tiny budget with a crew of friends; he later disowned it and tried to suppress it. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

War · Drama

Private Snafu learns the hard way that a soldier is only as good as his equipment, as he neglects his weapons and pays the price on the front lines. A Bob Clampett-directed Private Snafu training short featuring a Daffy Duck cameo. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Flight is a 1929 pre-Code aviation adventure directed by Frank Capra for Columbia Pictures, dedicated to the United States Marine Corps and made with their full cooperation. Jack Holt plays Panama Williams, a hard-boiled Marine gunnery sergeant and pilot stationed in Nicaragua, where he and a hotshot young corporal (Ralph Graves) fly missions against the rebel leader Sandino and rivalry over a nurse (Lila Lee). Columbia built a complete flying field at North Island in San Diego and shot the aerial sequences from real planes without process photography, and Holt's plane actually crashed during filming. Capra wrote the dialogue from a story by Graves, and the film was advertised as the "first all-talking aviation epic." As a 1929 release whose copyright was not renewed, the film is in the public domain.

Adventure · War

John Ford's silent drama about a Bavarian widow whose four sons are scattered by the First World War: three go to fight for Germany, and one emigrates to America and ends up on the other side of the lines. The film was Ford's answer to the wave of anti-war films that followed The Big Parade, and it is built around the mother waiting at home while the war absorbs her family one by one. Ford's feeling for family and loss, the thing his later films are most remembered for, is already fully formed here. The film was a hit and established Ford as a director who could handle large-scale emotional material, not just westerns and action pictures. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · War · Silent

Private Snafu tosses away his gas mask, confident that poison gas will never reach him, until a surreal gas attack proves him catastrophically wrong. A Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu training short with a Bugs Bunny cameo. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Go for Broke! is a 1951 war film directed by Robert Pirosh and produced by Dore Schary for MGM, starring Van Johnson as a young National Guard lieutenant who is assigned to command the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the segregated Japanese-American unit that became the most decorated in American military history. Initially resentful of his assignment, the lieutenant comes to respect and depend on his men as they fight their way through Italy and France. Many of the soldiers on screen were actual veterans of the 442nd, and the film is notable for treating its Japanese-American characters with a dignity and directness that was rare for the era. The film is in the public domain.

War · Drama

Private Snafu goes on leave and can't stop blabbing military secrets to everyone back home, with disastrous consequences for his unit. A Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu training short written by Dr. Seuss. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit leads a band of animal soldiers in a silent-era parody of war films, complete with cannon gags and battlefield absurdity. A Walt Disney-directed Oswald short produced by Winkler Pictures. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu grumbles about army life until a magical fairy grants his wish to be in charge, with predictably disastrous results. A Friz Freleng-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A wartime drama based on the real-life Makin Island raid by the U.S. Marine Corps' 2nd Raider Battalion, led by Colonel Evans Carlson. Randolph Scott plays the officer who assembles a volunteer unit of "Carlson's Raiders" from civilians and soldiers, trains them in jungle warfare, and leads them on a mission to attack a Japanese-held Pacific island. The film was made with the cooperation of the Marine Corps and was released less than a year after the raid it dramatizes. A young Robert Mitchum appears in one of his earliest credited roles. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

War · Drama

A Wheeler & Woolsey comedy directed by Paul Sloane for RKO. Bert and Bob are two American soldiers in Paris during World War I who go AWOL to enjoy the city's nightlife. When military police catch up with them, they disguise themselves as officers and end up in increasingly absurd situations, including a run-in with a German spy. Dorothy Lee plays the nurse who falls for Bert, adding romance to the duo's rapid-fire comedy. The film was one of several Wheeler & Woolsey service comedies and helped establish their formula of wisecracks, physical gags, and musical numbers. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War

Howard Hughes produced and directed this World War I aviation epic, spending three years and a fortune on it and reshooting much of it for sound after The Jazz Singer changed the industry. The story follows two brothers, Roy and Monte, who join the Royal Flying Corps and fall for the same woman, with Jean Harlow making her debut as the platinum blonde who comes between them. The film is best remembered for its airborne sequences, staged with real aircraft and real danger; several pilots died during production. The Zeppelin climax, shot in early two-color Technicolor, is a spectacle of its era. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama · Action

A wartime propaganda short produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to convince American farmers to plant hemp. With Japan's 1942 occupation of the Philippines cutting off the rope fiber imports the Navy depended on, the government needed domestic production fast — this film walks farmers through planting, harvesting, and processing the crop, with hemp promised to buy war bonds at harvest. Long suppressed after the war when hemp was lumped back in with marijuana prohibition, it resurfaced as a staple of cannabis-reform lore; the USDA denied the film existed until a copy turned up in a government archive in 1989. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain.

War · Documentary · Short

A pair of Scottish rabbits bedevil a gullible American tourist duck named Claude Hopper in this wartime Looney Tunes short. A Norman McCabe-directed Leon Schlesinger production. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu finds himself in a literal hot spot when he is transported to a devilish atlas come to life, with Bugs Bunny making a brief cameo. A Friz Freleng-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu is stationed on the cold, remote Aleutian Islands, where boredom and isolation prove as dangerous as the enemy. A Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A pre-Code spy drama set at Gibraltar during the First World War, where a pair of German agents posing as a British officer and a family friend plot to seize the key to the harbor's mine field, each unaware of the other's true loyalty. Betty Compson and Ralph Forbes star, with Montagu Love as the governor and Mischa Auer as the Hindu servant who unmasks them. Directed by effects pioneer Roy Pomeroy for RKO from Earl Derr Biggers' 1915 play, the film entered the public domain in the United States when its copyright was not renewed after 28 years.

Drama · War

It's Murder She Says is a 1945 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. In this installment, Snafu becomes the victim of a murder mystery aboard a military base, with the cartoon using the whodunit format to deliver its instructional message about military security and vigilance. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

The U.S. government's own film about the internment of Japanese Americans, produced by the Office of War Information with the War Relocation Authority. WRA director Milton Eisenhower, the president's brother, appears on camera to explain that more than 100,000 people — most of them American citizens — have been moved from the West Coast to inland camps, and the narration frames it as a humane wartime necessity. What it does not mention is that no charges or trials were involved. It stands as a primary document of wartime propaganda aimed at Americans themselves. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary · Short

Frank Capra's companion piece to the "Why We Fight" series, produced for the War Department to orient troops headed for the Pacific. Joris Ivens began the film; Capra finished it, building a portrait of Japanese history and militarism out of captured Japanese footage — including material taken from Japan's own propaganda — before the surrender made it obsolete. It was withheld until 1977, and its portrayal of an entire people is both historically revealing and deeply of its moment. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

John Huston's last war documentary and the most controversial: filmed inside a military psychiatric hospital, it follows soldiers with what the Army called "psychoneurotic" conditions — today it would be PTSD — through treatment and back toward ordinary life. Walter Huston narrates. The War Department suppressed it for more than thirty years, reportedly because it showed damaged veterans too honestly, and it did not reach the public until 1980. It is now in the National Film Registry. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike is a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Snafu is stationed in a jungle where a malaria-carrying mosquito named Malaria Mike targets him as his next victim. The cartoon was part of a series of instructional films designed to teach soldiers about malaria prevention in tropical theaters. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

Josef von Sternberg's first Hollywood film with Marlene Dietrich, made immediately after The Blue Angel launched her to stardom. She plays Amy Jolly, a cabaret singer who arrives in Morocco with no money and fewer illusions, and falls for a Legionnaire played by Gary Cooper. Adolphe Menjou is the wealthy man who offers her everything except the one thing she wants. The film is famous for Dietrich's performance in a man's tailcoat, kissing a woman in the audience, a scene considered scandalous in 1930. Lee Garmes's photography wraps the desert and the nightclub in the same haze of smoke and shadow. Dietrich received the only Academy Award nomination of her career for this role. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Romance · Drama · War

No Buddy Atoll is a 1945 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Snafu finds himself stranded on a tropical island, where he believes he has found a companion — only to discover that his new "buddy" is actually a Japanese sniper. The cartoon is one of the later Snafu shorts, produced near the end of World War II. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

Operation Snafu is a 1945 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Friz Freleng for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. In this dialogue-free short, Snafu does something right for once — he personally steals Japanese war plans and captures Tojo himself. The cartoon is one of the final Snafu shorts, released near the end of World War II. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

Payday is a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Friz Freleng for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Snafu receives his first paycheck and must decide what to do with his newfound wealth, learning lessons about financial responsibility and the dangers of gambling. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

A reckless test pilot and his mechanic brother clash over a woman and the dangerous new aircraft they are developing for the war effort. Richard Arlen and Jean Parker star in this brisk PRC aviation programmer. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Action · War

The first chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series, made for the U.S. War Department to explain to soldiers and the public why the country was at war. The film frames World War II as a struggle between the "slave world" of the Axis dictatorships and the "free world" of American liberty, tracing the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Japanese militarism through archival footage and animated maps. Walter Huston narrates. The series was supervised by Capra, then a major in the Army Signal Corps, who drew on captured enemy footage and Hollywood editing techniques to make propaganda that played like a feature film. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A 1942 American comedy-musical film directed by Edward F. Cline and produced by Universal Pictures. Released during World War II, the film combines military comedy with musical performances by The Andrews Sisters and Harry James and His Music Makers. The story follows entertainer Lon Prentice (Dick Foran), who enlists in the United States Army and struggles to adapt to military life during basic training. Shemp Howard (later of The Three Stooges) co-stars as First Sgt. "Muggsy" Shavel. The Andrews Sisters perform several songs including "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else But Me)" and "Three Little Sisters." A young Donald O'Connor also appears in a supporting role.

Comedy · Musical · War

The first of John Huston's three war documentaries, made while he served as a captain in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The film follows the daily life of American soldiers stationed on the Aleutian island of Adak, a cold and barren outpost of immense strategic value in the Pacific, and culminates in a bombing run over Japanese-occupied Kiska that Huston filmed from the plane himself. He narrates with his father, Walter Huston. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A U.S. Army Air Forces docudrama training film directed by Robert B. Sinclair and produced by Ronald Reagan. The film dramatizes the experiences of a five-man American bomber crew shot down over Italy and captured by German forces. Though reminded to provide only name, rank, and serial number, the crew members gradually fall prey to the clever interrogation techniques of their Nazi captors at Dulag Luft, revealing seemingly harmless information that is pieced together into valuable military intelligence. The film stars Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Tormé, Craig Stevens, and Peter Van Eyck. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature in 1945. As a U.S. government work, it is in the public domain.

War · Drama

Rumors is a 1943 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Friz Freleng for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Snafu overhears a rumor about an impending enemy attack and spreads it through the camp, demonstrating how rumors can spiral out of control and damage morale and military effectiveness. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

John Ford's Salute is a military drama set at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, where two brothers — one a West Point cadet, the other a Navy midshipman — find themselves on opposite sides during the annual Army-Navy football game. George O'Brien stars as the older brother, with Helen Chandler as the love interest. The film features early sound sequences and was made during the transition from silent to sound cinema. A young John Wayne, then a prop man and extra at Fox, served as an assistant on the production. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent · War

Seaman Tarfu in the Navy is a 1945 Private Snafu cartoon directed by George Gordon for Harman-Ising Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. This is the only Snafu cartoon not produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons — it was instead produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising's independent studio. The short follows Snafu's misadvent ures in the Navy, with the usual bumbling behavior that gives the character his name (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up). As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

A Charlie Chaplin comedy set during World War I, released just weeks before the Armistice. Chaplin's Little Fellow enlists in the army, endures the absurdities of military training, and is sent to the trenches of France, where his bumbling courage leads him to capture a group of German soldiers and infiltrate enemy lines. The film was a risky proposition—making comedy out of an ongoing war—but it was a enormous hit with both audiences and soldiers, who appreciated its humane, anti-authoritarian spirit. Chaplin's genius for finding comedy in adversity is on full display, particularly in the famous sequence where he sleeps in a flooded trench while standing upright. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War · Silent

Snafuperman is a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Friz Freleng for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. A Superman parody, the short features Snafu gaining superpowers after reading a comic book, only to bumble his way through a mission with his usual incompetence. The cartoon includes a brief cameo appearance by Superman himself (as "Super-Snafu"). As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy · Parody

Spies is a 1943 Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones for Leon Schlesinger Productions, produced for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Snafu inadvertently leaks military secrets to enemy spies through careless behavior, demonstrating the dangers of loose lips. The cartoon features a memorable sequence where Snafu is pursued through a nightmarish landscape of espionage. As a U.S. government work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · War · Comedy

Lois Lane's plane is shot down over Africa and she's captured by a German force occupying a jungle temple, where they use the natives' drums to signal strikes on Allied convoys. Superman follows her trail and turns the drums' own warning system against the occupiers. The fifteenth of the Paramount Superman cartoons, made by Famous Studios after the Fleischer brothers' departure, and the series' most direct piece of wartime propaganda. It is in the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Action · War

A 1927 American silent romantic drama directed by Edward Sloman, based on the 1915 play Lea Lyon by Alexander Brody. The film stars Mary Philbin as Lea Lyon, daughter of a rabbi in a Galician town near the Russian border, and Ivan Mosjukine as Constantine, a Russian prince. When war is declared and the Russians occupy the town, Constantine demands Lea surrender to him, threatening to burn the village and its inhabitants. Impressed by her character, the prince discovers he loves her and spares both the town and the girl. This was Mosjukine's only American film — a major star of Russian and French silent cinema, he never made another Hollywood picture.

Drama · Romance · War

The first of four Mr. Hook cartoons made for the US Navy to sell war bonds. Set in 1953, sailor Hook tells his young son how buying bonds a decade earlier helped him defeat a Japanese fighter pilot attacking his aircraft carrier. The only Hook short produced at Walter Lantz Productions — in Technicolor — before the series moved to Warner Bros., and the only one directed by James "Shamus" Culhane, with Dick Nelson voicing Hook. A US government film in the public domain; like much wartime propaganda it trades in the racial caricatures of the era.

Animation · Comedy · War

A documentary film directed by William Keighley for the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces. The film describes the preparation and mounting of an Eighth Air Force daylight bombing raid on Nazi Germany industrial targets in East Prussia, including Anklam, the air base at Marienburg, and Gdynia in occupied Poland. From target selection through briefing, takeoff, combat footage of B-17 and B-24 bombers, and post-mission interrogation, the film provides a comprehensive account of a single bombing mission. The film was also shown in civilian theaters in connection with war bond drives. As a U.S. government work, it is in the public domain.

Documentary · War

A Private Snafu training short directed by Frank Tashlin for Leon Schlesinger Productions, commissioned by the US Army Signal Corps during World War II. An armada of malaria-laden mosquitoes trains like a military squadron and attacks American troops, finding Private Snafu woefully unprepared with his mosquito netting and repellent. The cartoon was part of a series written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel and voiced by Mel Blanc, designed to teach soldiers about hygiene and discipline through humor that was too risqué for civilian audiences. The film is in the public domain as a US government work.

Animation · Short · Comedy · War

The fourth chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series is devoted to the British stand against Germany in 1940, from the fall of France through the Luftwaffe's campaign to destroy the Royal Air Force and the Blitz that followed. The film argues that the Royal Air Force's refusal to break saved Britain and, by extension, the possibility of a liberated Europe. It blends British combat footage with captured German material and animated maps. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The sixth chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series explains Japan's long ambition to conquer China. It covers the invasion of Manchuria, the fall of Nanking, and the Chinese resistance that unified a fractured country against a foreign enemy. The film highlights the Burma Road, the seven-hundred-mile supply route the Allies built over the mountains to keep the Chinese army fed and armed, and argues that Japan's frustration in China drove it toward the Pacific and the United States. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

John Ford, serving as a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, was on Midway Island when the Japanese attacked in June 1942 and was wounded while filming. The result is one of the first American combat documentaries of the war, shot in color and built around the pivotal naval battle that broke the back of the Japanese carrier fleet. The film shifts between the calm of island life, the chaos of the attack, and the recovery of American airmen from the sea. Hollywood voices including Henry Fonda, Donald Crisp, and Jane Darwell narrate, giving the footage a human, almost home-front tone. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The fifth and longest chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series covers the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Red Army's defense. Co-directed by the Russian-born Anatole Litvak, the film recounts seven hundred years of failed invasions of Russia, then traces the Nazi advance to the gates of Moscow and Leningrad and the turning point at Stalingrad. Released two years before the Cold War, it portrays the Soviet people sympathetically as allies. Walter Huston narrates, with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin drawing on Tchaikovsky and Russian folk song. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

John Huston's second war documentary is about the 1943 Battle of San Pietro Infine, a costly Allied fight in the Italian campaign. Huston filmed with troops in the field, and the result was so unflinching that the U.S. Army initially refused to show it, fearing it would damage morale. General George Marshall ordered its release, arguing that soldiers headed into combat should see what war really looked like. Some battle scenes were re-created with the soldiers who had fought there, but the cost is real: two members of Huston's crew were killed during filming. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The first great war documentary, assembled from footage shot by official cameramen Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell during the opening of the Somme offensive in July 1916. Released in British cinemas while the battle still raged, it was seen by an estimated 20 million people in its first six weeks — audiences at home had never before watched soldiers go over the top on screen. Much of the most harrowing "combat" footage was staged behind the lines, a fact that sparked one of the earliest debates about documentary truth. As a British government film from 1916, it is in the public domain.

War · Documentary · Silent

A silent comedy directed by Cyril Seaward for Warner Bros., starring Syd Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's half-brother) as Old Bill, the beloved WWI cartoon character created by Bruce Bairnsfather. Old Bill is a grizzled British soldier in the trenches of France who, along with his mate Bert, navigates the absurdities of army life with phlegmatic humor. The film features a Vitaphone synchronized music score and sound effects, making it one of Warner Bros.' early sound experiments. Bairnsfather's Old Bill was one of the most popular comic characters of the WWI era, and the film captures the character's blend of grumbling resilience and quiet heroism. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War · Silent

A 1950 American drama written and directed by George Seaton, shot on location in bombed-out Berlin barely a year after the airlift ended. Montgomery Clift plays Danny MacCullough, a C-54 flight engineer, and Paul Douglas plays Hank Kowalski, a ground-controlled approach operator whose wartime experience as a POW leaves him bitter toward the Germans they are now feeding. Danny falls for a German war widow (Cornell Borchers) whose motives are not what they seem. Nearly every military role apart from the two leads is played by actual Air Force personnel, and the film incorporates real airlift operations at Tempelhof, making it a semi-documentary record of Operation Vittles. The copyright was never renewed; this is the complete 120-minute print rather than the common 102-minute cut.

War · Drama

King Vidor's World War I epic follows a wealthy young idler who enlists on a whim, ships out to France, falls for a French farm girl, and is marched into the meat grinder of the Western Front. The film was a sensation: it became the highest-grossing silent film of the 1920s and turned John Gilbert into a major star. Vidor stages the battle sequences with a grim, ground-level realism rare for the period, and the famous march through a forest under shellfire is still studied. Beneath the spectacle is an antiwar streak that distinguishes it from the gung-ho pictures that came after. MGM made it on a large budget and a long schedule, and it paid for itself many times over. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

War · Drama · Romance · Silent

D.W. Griffith's Civil War and Reconstruction epic was the first true blockbuster — the film that proved the feature-length movie could be a mass cultural event. Its technical innovations in cross-cutting, night photography, and large-scale battle staging reshaped the language of cinema. It is also infamous propaganda: adapted from Thomas Dixon's novel *The Clansman*, it depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors and portrays Black characters — mostly white actors in blackface — through vicious racist caricature. The film sparked protests led by the newly formed NAACP and helped inspire the Klan's real-world revival. It is presented here as a historically significant work that must be understood in that context. Published in 1915, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · War · Silent

A Scottish officer ordered to the Western Front instead deserts into India's Khyber Pass on a secret mission to quell a tribal uprising, torn between duty and the beguiling princess who may be friend or foe. Victor McLaglen and Myrna Loy star in John Ford's first sound film. The 1929 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.

Adventure · War

Private Snafu learns the importance of not wasting food, as his gluttony in the mess hall leads to a surreal lesson in military discipline. A Frank Tashlin-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Howard Hawks' World War I aviation drama follows a Royal Flying Corps squadron on the Western Front, where pilots are sent on near-suicidal dawn patrols and the survivors drink to forget. Richard Barthelmess plays Dick Courtney, an ace who chafes under the cautious command of Major Brand (Neil Hamilton); when Courtney is promoted to command the squadron himself, he learns the burden of sending men to their deaths. Hawks, a former flight instructor, flew in the film himself as a German pilot. The aerial sequences, shot by Ernest Haller, were considered state of the art and were later re-edited into the 1938 remake. The film won the Academy Award for Best Story. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

War · Drama · Action

A duck farm becomes a parody of Axis powers as a Hitler-duck, Mussolini-goose, and Hirohito-duck rise to power, until a peaceful dove finally has enough. A Norman McCabe-directed Looney Tunes wartime propaganda short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

A sinister mouse agitator infiltrates a peaceful mouse community and turns them against each other, a parable for fascist fifth-column subversion during World War II. A Friz Freleng-directed Merrie Melodies short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Directed by the renowned photographer Edward Steichen while he served in the U.S. Navy, this documentary follows life aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, identified only as "the Fighting Lady" for wartime security (she was the USS Yorktown). The film moves from the routines of life at sea through the Panama Canal to combat in the Marcus Islands and the climactic "Marianas Turkey Shoot," where American pilots downed nearly four hundred Japanese aircraft. Cameras mounted in cockpit canopies show what it is like to dive through anti-aircraft fire. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A 1921 American silent epic war film directed by Rex Ingram, based on the 1916 Spanish novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, adapted by June Mathis. The film follows the Desnoyers family: wealthy Argentine landowner Madariaga has a German son-in-law and a French one, and when he dies, the family splits — the French branch settling in Paris, the German in Berlin. Julio Desnoyers (Rudolph Valentino), Madariaga's favorite grandson, becomes a playboy in Paris, famous for his tango, and takes up with the married Marguerite Laurier (Alice Terry). When World War I erupts, the family finds itself on opposing sides, and Julio must choose between his hedonistic lifestyle and his duty. The film made Valentino an overnight superstar and was one of the highest-grossing silent films of all time, earning over $4 million worldwide. Its famous tango scene became iconic.

Drama · War · Romance

Private Snafu learns the hard way that goldbricking—shirking duty and faking illness—has consequences when his laziness gives the enemy an opening. A Frank Tashlin-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A Mr. Hook cartoon made for the U.S. Navy, in which the sailor Hook dreams of the girl he left stateside and the egg that represents his future happiness. A Chuck Jones-directed Warner Bros. wartime short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu imagines what his family is doing back home, picturing a carefree civilian life that contrasts sharply with his own hardships, until reality sets in. A Frank Tashlin-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Private Snafu endures the grueling marches, drills, and discomforts of infantry life, learning that the blues of the foot soldier are the foundation of military victory. A Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Josef von Sternberg's first American film with Emil Jannings, made the year before they would make The Blue Angel together. Jannings plays a deposed Russian grand duke who has fled the Revolution and now scrapes by as a Hollywood extra, hired to play a general in a film about his own downfall. The role-within-a-role lets Jannings collapse the distance between his past authority and present humiliation, and the framing device is what the film is built on. William Powell plays the revolutionary who once served him and now directs him. The Last Command is a film about cinema's power to re-stage a life, and it earned Jannings the first Academy Award for Best Actor. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · War · Silent

Mary Pickford plays an American girl whose ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat on the way to France — a sequence Cecil B. DeMille staged as open propaganda while the United States was still deciding whether to join the war. Rescued and sheltered in a French chateau near the front, she is caught between a French officer and a German officer who both love her, and the film builds to the occupation of the chateau and an attempted assault that American audiences in 1917 read as Germany's crimes in miniature. Released months after the US entered the war, it was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. A 1917 release, it is in the public domain.

Drama · War · Silent

William Wyler, serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces, filmed the crew of the B-17 bomber Memphis Belle on its 25th and final mission over Europe, the milestone that would send the crew home. Shot with hand-held 16mm cameras mounted inside the plane, the documentary puts the viewer inside a real bombing raid, with flak so thick the crew said you could walk on it. Wyler combined footage from several missions to tell the story of one plane and its ten crewmen, ordinary Americans doing a job that might not let them come back. One of Wyler's cameramen was killed during filming. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The second chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series covers Adolf Hitler's plan for world conquest and Germany's march across Europe. From the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia through the invasion of Poland that triggered the British and French declarations of war, the film lays out the Nazi strategy of "softening up" future targets with political subversion before striking militarily. It uses captured German footage alongside Allied material. Made for the U.S. War Department, it was shown to troops heading overseas and then to the public. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A U.S. Army documentary produced under Frank Capra's supervision and directed by Stuart Heisler, The Negro Soldier was a landmark in the portrayal of African Americans in the military. Framed as a sermon in a Black church, it traces the contributions of Black soldiers from the American Revolution through the Spanish-American War and into World War II, intercut with footage of training and combat. The film was made to recruit Black soldiers and to push back against segregation within the ranks, and it was required viewing for all U.S. Army troops. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Five young friends in a Ukrainian village set out on a walking trip to Kiev in June 1941 — and march straight into the first wave of the Nazi invasion. Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, Walter Huston, and Walter Brennan star in Lewis Milestone's wartime drama from a Lillian Hellman screenplay, produced by Samuel Goldwyn with a score by Aaron Copland. A prestige Hollywood plea for the Soviet ally, released through RKO. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · War

Private Snafu is stationed on a remote island outpost, where isolation and boredom lead him into typical Snafu-style trouble. A Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu training short. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Sailor Mr. Hook regales his skeptical shipmates with his post-war plans, funded by his diligent war bond purchases, convincing them to invest too. A Robert McKimson-directed Mr. Hook short, his first directorial credit. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

Winsor McCay's animated depiction of the 1915 torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat, an event that helped pull the United States into the First World War. McCay made the film as a piece of wartime propaganda, animating the liner, the attack, and the drowning of passengers in a somber, documentary-like tone unlike his comic Gertie work. It is one of the earliest serious animated films and a rare example of animation used for journalism. The film is in the public domain in the United States as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short · War

Donald Duck faces a wartime dilemma: spend his paycheck on fun, or save it to pay his income taxes and fund the fight against the Axis. A thrifty Scotsman and a lavish spendthrift battle for his wallet in this Disney propaganda short made for the U.S. Treasury Department, which helped convince millions of Americans to pay their income tax for the first time. Clarence Nash voices Donald; Jack King directs. As a work made for the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · War

The official Anglo-American film of the European campaign, co-directed by Garson Kanin and Carol Reed from footage shot by hundreds of combat cameramen on both sides of the Atlantic. Its unusual device is the narration: instead of one authoritative voice, the film is told in the voices of ordinary soldiers, nurses, and liberated civilians, written by playwrights including Paddy Chayefsky. Eisenhower introduces it. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. As a co-production of the U.S. Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information, it is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Private Snafu's three brothers—Tarfu, Fubar, and the Technical Fairy—each demonstrate a different branch of military service, with Bugs Bunny making a cameo appearance. A Friz Freleng-directed Private Snafu training short written by Dr. Seuss. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

A 1950 American war drama directed by Jean Negulesco and produced by Nunnally Johnson, based on Agnes Newton Keith's memoir of her imprisonment by the Japanese in Borneo during World War II. Claudette Colbert plays Keith, an American writer living in North Borneo who is separated from her husband (Patric Knowles) and interned with her young son in a brutal women's POW camp, where the camp commander Colonel Suga (Sessue Hayakawa) — an admirer of her book — proves an ambiguous figure. Grim and unusually frank for a studio picture of its era, the film was shot on location and earned Colbert some of the strongest reviews of her career. It entered the public domain through non-renewal.

War · Drama

A satirical tour of wartime Japan, lampooning Japanese military culture, propaganda, and industry through a series of blackout gags. A Norman McCabe-directed Looney Tunes propaganda short, his final Warner Bros. cartoon before being drafted. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · War

Mr. Hook battles the propaganda of Tokyo Rose, who tries to convince sailors not to buy war bonds, by firing a shell carrying a sentient war bond to Japan. A Bob Clampett-directed Mr. Hook short made for the U.S. Navy. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Animation · Comedy · War

George Pal's Puppetoon short, photographed in three-strip Technicolor, tells the story of Jan and Janette, a young Dutch couple whose windmill country idyll is overrun by an army of mechanical Screwball soldiers — an unmistakable allegory for the Nazi occupation of Pal's native Netherlands. When a thunderstorm rusts the invading machines into scrap, the tulips grow again. A young Ray Harryhausen worked on the film's replacement-animation puppets. Released by Paramount in 1942, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short and was added to the National Film Registry in 1997. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Animation · War · Short

A 1943 Office of Strategic Services training film directed by and featuring John Ford, and the first film ever produced by an intelligence service to train its agents. Structured as a film within a film, it dramatizes the experiences of two OSS recruits: the careful, studious "Student Al" (Victor Varconi) and the arrogant, impulsive "Student Charlie." Through their parallel stories, the film teaches proper preparation, cover establishment, and techniques for blending into enemy culture behind enemy lines. Ford appears as "Col. J.P. Baldwin," an OSS officer — his only sound film acting role. The film was classified during the war and declassified afterward. As a U.S. government work, it is in the public domain.

Documentary · War

The seventh and final chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series tells the story of America's slide into the war it had spent years trying to avoid. It traces the rise of isolationism and the German-American Bund, the growth of American industry and the draft as war grew inevitable, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that ended the argument. The film is both a defense of American values and an argument that those values could not survive a world ruled by the Axis. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Wings is the film that won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture, and it remains the only fully silent film to take the top prize. Directed by William A. Wellman, a former World War I fighter pilot, it follows two young American aviators who enlist in the Army Air Corps and become combat pilots in France, bound by friendship and divided by their love for the same woman. Clara Bow plays the hometown girl waiting back home. The aerial dogfight sequences were shot with real planes and real pilots, hundreds of them, and they still rank among the most thrilling ever filmed. Gary Cooper appears briefly in an early role that helped launch his career. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

War · Drama · Romance · Silent

An Army Air Forces short about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots in American history, made by the First Motion Picture Unit and narrated by Captain Ronald Reagan — the future president's own unit produced the film. It follows Black cadets through flight training at Tuskegee and into combat over Europe with the 332nd Fighter Group, pushing back against the Army's own official skepticism that Black men could fly fighters. Short, pointed, and a remarkable artifact of what the wartime government chose to say on film. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain.

War · Documentary · Short

A short documentary about the U.S. Marine assault on the Japanese-held island of Tarawa in November 1943, directed by Louis Hayward, who served in the Marine Corps. Shot in full color with no actors, it shows the landing, the fight across the beach, the casualties, and the burial of the dead at sea. The footage was so graphic that Hollywood distributors refused to release it, and only President Roosevelt's personal approval sent it to theaters. The film was meant to show Americans at home that the war was not a parade of easy victories. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

In the final days of the Second World War, six women — one from each of the Allied nations — are held captive in a Shanghai hotel by Axis officers developing a "cosmic ray" superweapon they claim could outmatch the atomic bomb. As the Allies close in, the prisoners plot to steal the weapon's plans and turn the tables on their captors. Tala Birell, William Henry, and Richard Loo star in this wartime thriller directed by William Rowland. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

War · Drama · Thriller

A 1955 independent production directed by R. John Hugh. In the closing days of the Civil War, five Confederate deserters — branded "yellownecks" — flee into the Florida Everglades, hoping to reach the coast and a boat to Cuba. The swamp itself becomes the enemy: snakes, alligators, disease, and Seminole pursuers pick the men off one by one. Shot on location in the Everglades and around Orlando before Disney existed, the production famously filmed its storm sequence during a real hurricane and borrowed its snakes from a local tourist attraction. A grim, unusual survival Western, the film is in the public domain.

Drama · War · Western