15 Best World War II Shows, Ranked
World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history and is a topic that is popular in the media. The primary reasons for this are, of course, the scale of it and the fact that there was a clearly defined good and evil, with many of the world’s nations putting their differences aside to fight a common evil. For six years, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania were wracked with bloody conflict, with almost every single country in the world taking part in some way.
It’s an event that provides a lot of ground to cover (both literally and figuratively), so it lends itself quite nicely to both movies and TV. In fact, many TV shows have touched upon various aspects of the war, but with the size of the conflict, they only really scratch the surface. Regardless, they are some of the best television shows ever made, shows that simply must be watched by Second World War enthusiasts.
15
‘All the Light We Cannot See’ (2023)
Mark Ruffalo staring ahead in a crowd in All the Light We Cannot SeeImage via Netflix
All the Light We Cannot See is a romantic drama that critics were not too pleased with. In fact, most critics gave it pretty scathing reviews, which is honestly kind of surprising. Casual viewers actually liked this show quite a lot, and gave it much better reviews than the critics, making for a pretty remarkable disparity between the two groups. Perhaps that speaks to the polarizing quality of the show. The story here is based on a novel by Anthony Doerr, which follows a blind French woman who unexpectedly crosses paths with a young German man who was conscripted to fight for the war effort. Despite Germany occupying France and ruling with an iron fist, the two form an unlikely and forbidden romance. The four-part miniseries has some star quality, but some people can’t get past how some of the dialogue is kind of cringe. It’s not a show for everybody, but it did find its niche of fans.
14
‘The Liberator’ (2020)
Two American soldiers stand by a ruined brick building having a discussion in ‘The Liberator’ (2020).Image via Netflix
The Liberator is a super unsettling animated miniseries that is intentionally drawn to look hyperrealistic, resulting in visuals that come straight from the uncanny valley. This might seem unintentional, but it actually does help the mood of the show, as the entire point of it is to showcase the horrors of war in a way that doesn’t shy away from showing uncomfortable things in full force. The series centers on real-life military officer Felix Sparks (Bradley James) during his time fighting in the Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The show details the journey of Sparks and his unit as they perform monumental feats and become one of the most decorated units in American military history, winning loads of medals and awards. Though the show did have some clichés and flaws, it’s pretty good overall, if not anything groundbreaking.
13
‘Transatlantic’ (2023)
Deleila Piasko as Lisa Fittko, Ralph Amoussou as Paul Kandjo, Lucas Englander as Albert Hirschmann, Gillian Jacobs as Mary-Jayne Gold, Cory Michael Smith as Varian Fry and Amit Rahav as Thomas Lovegrove in TransatlanticImage via Netflix
Transatlantic is a series about American heiress and journalist Mary Jayne Gold (Gillian Jacobs), a woman who traveled to France in the early days of World War II to arrange for safe passage out of the country for Jewish people, along with others who were marked as targets of interest by the Third Reich. She spent 13 months there, and in the end, saved the lives of over 2,000 people. Since Transatlantic is about a real person, many of the characters are also based on real people, who come to life in a whole new way via the small screen. There isn’t a whole lot of action in it on account of the fact that it’s primarily a drama/thriller, but it’s still a remarkable tale of heroism, and shows that there was more than one way to aid the war effort, and that anyone can stand up for what is right, provided they are willing to do it.
12
‘Masters of the Air’ (2024)
Masters of the Air is the third companion series to the all-time classic, Band of Brothers. The story follows the 100th Bomb Group, which is assigned to conduct air raids and bombing runs on key targets in German-occupied areas of Europe during World War II. The series dispels the illusion that being a pilot or airman during the war was a walk in the park, as the crew faces intense violence and repeated dangers during what should be some very basic missions. Masters of the Air was nominated for three Emmys but only won one of the awards. Still, this is pretty impressive and is a testament to its overall quality. The series didn’t hold up as much as Band of Brothers, as it seems to sacrifice the authenticity the latter was known for in favor of flashy visuals and casual storytelling, but all in all, it’s a rather enjoyable addition to the universe that Band of Brothers created.
11
‘Catch-22’ (2019)
Christopher Abbott looking concerned in Catch-22.Image via Hulu
Catch-22 is a dark comedy series about a beleaguered British Air Force bombardier named John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) who initially chose his position because he was under the impression being up in the air was way less dangerous than being on the ground. Unfortunately for him, the Crown repeatedly sends him on missions that get increasingly more dangerous, driving John to try to find some way to weasel his way out of the Air Force. Much of the series centers on the ridiculous series of legal loopholes and hoops that he has to jump through just to try and quit before his deployment is over. Much of the show is satirical in nature and contains a lot of gallows humor and tongue-in-cheek jokes, which is by far part of the appeal. Another great part of it is Abbott’s chemistry with George Clooney on screen, which keeps the show lively and interesting.
10
‘Combat!’ (1962–1967)
John Van Dreelen as Lt. Kramer, wearing a lieutenant’s uniform and looking worried in Combat!Image via ABC
Combat! might just be the very first war-themed TV show to ever be broadcast to American audiences. Coming out of the 1960s, this series comes from director Robert Pirosh, who, at the time, was known primarily for his comedy films. One would expect this show to be appropriately comedic; however, it’s quite the opposite. Combat! is a deeply serious drama following the lives of American soldiers on the Western Front in the months following D-Day. While its name may have become more obscure in the 21st Century, Combat! is an all-time classic, and one of the greatest and first examples of war television. It’s doubtful that any of the other shows on this list would ever have been made had it not been for Combat!. While it may seem dated now, it was state-of-the-art for the time, and remains exciting and emotionally moving even to this day.
9
‘Das Boot’ (2018)
Image via Sky One
Das Boot (German, “The Boat”) is a miniseries based on the original novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. It also serves as a pseudo-sequel or spiritual successor to the classic 1981 film of the same name, which is one of the most gripping and powerful war films ever made. The original movie was known for its brutally realistic depiction of life in a German U-Boat, and its successor definitely follows suit in this regard. The story follows a mutiny within the crew of a German U-Boat; the captain intends to abandon Nazi Germany and defect to the United States of America. Meanwhile, opposition against the Führer begins to gain traction amongst the other men of the Kriegsmarine. While this miniseries was nowhere near as perfect or legendary as the original film, it’s still pretty darn good, and felt like a fitting continuation of the story.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would BeYour Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
Rambo
James Bond
Indiana Jones
John McClane
Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them.
BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy.
CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart.
DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we’re walking into.
ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can’t follow.
BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it.
CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire.
DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won’t explain until it’s needed.
EBy whatever means are available — I’ve driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I’ve reloaded.
BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works.
CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision.
DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive.
ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings.
BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting.
CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation.
DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway.
EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you’ve had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost.
BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire.
CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise.
DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven’t thought of yet.
EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we’re there.
BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past.
CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them.
DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows.
EFind the one thing they haven’t accounted for — there’s always one thing — and make sure we’re holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there.
BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running.
CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I’d do the same for them.
DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I’m out — they don’t leave people behind.
ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn’t exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions.
BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it’s been tested.
CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless.
DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it.
EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner.
BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet.
CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through.
DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down.
EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn’t ending. Then we move.
BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen.
CA plan I don’t fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat.
DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next.
ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that’s who they’ve always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
8
‘SAS: Rogue Heroes’ (2022–2025)
Connor Swindells in ‘Rogue Heroes’Image via MGM+
Britain’s Special Air Service, or the SAS, is one of the best special forces units in the world, and to this day remains the primary tier one spec ops unit used by the Crown, specializing in counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and intelligence gathering operations. SAS: Rogue Heroes takes viewers back to the unit’s origins during the Second World War. Many of the characters in the show are dramatizations of real people and are some of the founding members of the organization.
The series has been a smash hit in its native United Kingdom, and though the show isn’t very historically accurate (and it knows it), it is still pretty exciting and shows how the new unit is utilized to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines and perform various operations to help the war effort from afar.
7
‘The Man in the High Castle’ (2015–2019)
Image via Amazon
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history TV show that focuses on a bleak world where the Nazis and the Axis forces have won the Second World War, and begin to rule over the majority of the world with an iron fist. The show is quite paradoxical, as it can be pretty daunting to see how the world would have turned out had the Allies lost World War II, yet at the same time, it’s kind of uplifting, as it serves as a poignant reminder of how lucky we really are that things turned out the way they did. It is primarily set in the 1960s, with the war being won by Germany as a result of them getting a huge technological boost, assassinating President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and dropping the first atomic bomb on Washington, D.C. On top of that, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is still alive, and his reign of terror is just as oppressive as it once was. For a morbid show speculating on a potential outcome, or for a sci-fi drama series, The Man in the High Castle really delivers and has remained a hallmark show about the Second World War, even if the conflict itself isn’t depicted in full detail.
6
‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ (2024)
Jonah Hauer-King signing a paper while in a prison uniform.Image via Peacock
With a title like The Tattooist of Auschwitz, you know you’re in for a really rough ride. The quality of this miniseries is impeccable, but it’s a real downer, emotionally speaking. As its name suggests, the series is set in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, a name synonymous with terror and death. Here, over 1,000,000 Jewish inmates were systematically executed by the Nazis during the war, making it one of the most prolific and effective death camps operated by the Reich. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is about an inmate whose job is to tattoo ID numbers on other inmates, a practice common across concentration camps. The inmate in question, played by Harvey Keitel, was a real person whose name was Lali Sokolov. The man’s story was first told by way of the novel of the same name, originally written by Heather Morris, before making its way to the small screen. While it does do a good job, this series is a real tear-jerker, and there’s no way to prepare yourself for how emotionally devastating it is.
تم النشر: 2026-06-24 10:24:00
مصدر: collider.com
