World War 1 movies

I get asked for movie suggestions for different time periods rather frequently. I’ve answered the question of what World War 1 movies to watch so many times I could have sworn I’d written about this. However, that must have been one of those, “I did it in my mind, not in reality” moments. Since we just covered World War 1 in our history lessons, and we just watched two World War 1 movies, I guess it’s time to write this post for real now.

Most of my history movie posts I’ve split up into all ages, elementary and up, middle school and up, or high school and up. World War 1 is a bit more difficult. There are approximately 10 movies I can easily find on World War 1, and while one or two could be watched with all of your kids, they’re going to be bored out of their mind, so this time I’m just going to start with elementary age, and I’ll note the movie you could watch with all of your kids.

(and of course there are affiliate links in here)

Elementary WW1 movies

• Seargent York– this is pretty much the only movie you could watch with all of your kids, but your younger kids will be bored out of their minds because it was produced shortly before WW2 (like months before) and our style of story-telling was a very different pace then. This is the true-life story of Alvin York, the pacifist who capture an entire battalion of Germans almost single-handedly.
• Fly Boys– The story of American pilots who wanted to fly in the war before US joined in, this is more for upper elementary and probably middle school in reality, we really enjoyed watching this last time through studying World War 1.

Middle School World War 1 movies

This is where most of the World War 1 movies are going to fall. Some of these might be watchable by your 4th grader, but that is your call.

• All Quiet on the Western Front– the original version of this movie was the first WW1 movie, it was created as a silent movie and was a huge anti-war movie, wildly popular before World War 2. Told from the point of view of a German soldier, it’s an interesting book movie to talk about. Though it’s rather depressing
• They Shall Not Grow Old– actual footage from the war colorized, and it’s supposed to be amazing (I didn’t hear about it until after it was out of theaters). Given it’s actual footage, it won’t have super a lot of blood and guts because they didn’t have embedded reporters and actual video of the battles

High School movies

I super love some of these movies.

• 1917– I love this movie, super duper love it, it’s amazing. My brother took me to an advance showing, and I took Jeff and the boys to go see it once it officially came out
• War Horse– I saw this when it first came out, and it’s so god-awful depressing and I hated it. Batman chose to read this and I told him under no circumstances was I watching this movie again, so we watched Seargent York instead (primarily because we’d watched 1917 relatively recently)
• Tolkien– I haven’t seen this, but it’s (obviously) a Tolkien bio-pic, and I missed getting to see it in the theaters, which I’m rather sad about. It’s not only about the war, however it does more on the war.

I just found out about these, so can’t tell you who can watch these

As I was searching up these movies to link to them in the post, these were suggested and looked good, but I don’t know for sure about them.

• Red Baron– I’d guess middle school
• Aces High– middle school, maybe upper elementary (it looks older)
• Blue Max– I’d guess high school with it being 2003 and unrated
• Journey’s End– I was literally looking for a different movie and saw this, I’d guess high school
• The Somme– I’d guess high school, I want to go watch it now
• The Trench– big names, and it looks to be created in imitation of 1917 to capitalize on its popularity
• The Rifleman– I found this when trying to find the name of the Tolkien bio-pic, only to discover the bio-pic was named after him. I’d guess high school.

More movieschooling

• Shakespeare at the Movies
• 9th grade books made into movies
• 10th grade books made into movies
• American Revolution movies

“A World War 1 Story, Part 5” by In Memoriam: PhillipC is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“File:WWI – Battle of the Piave River – Italian trench on the Piave river dam.jpg” by Italian Army Photographers 1915-1918 is licensed under CC BY 2.5