Many Wars Ago (1970)

Director
Francesco Rosi

Main cast
Alain Cuny; Gian Maria Volonté; Mark Frechette; Giampiero Albertini; Pier Paolo Capponi

Genres
War, Drama

Description
On the Italian/Austrian front during World War I, a disastrous Italian attack upon the Austrian positions leads to a mutiny among the decimated Italian troops.


Similar movies

As World War I rages, brave and youthful Australians Archy and Frank, both agile runners, become friends and enlist in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps together. They later find themselves part of the Dardanelles Campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula, a brutal eight-month conflict which pit the British and their allies against the Ottoman Empire and left over 500,000 men dead.
In 1951 ceasefire is declared, but two remaining armies fought their final battle on the front line Towards the end of the Korean War, a South Korean battalion is fiercely battling over a hill on the front line border against the North in order to capture a strategic point that would determine the new border between two nations. The ownership of this small patch of land would swap multiple times each day. Kang is dispatched to the front line in order to investigate the tacit case that’s been happening there. But he gets spiraled into the war that’s more terrifying than death itself when he meets his friend Kim, who has transformed into a war machine, and his unit. As the countdown for ceasefire begins, both sides become more vicious, resulting in deaths of countless lives until the last man could claim the land.
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.
An insane general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a war room of politicians and generals frantically try to stop. A classic black and white war satire from director Stanley Kubrick starring Peter Sellers.
From the director of “Made In America” and “The Money Pit” comes a hilarious look at one of the most expensive blunders in military history. Over 17 years and almost as many billion dollars have gone into devising the BFV (Bradley Fighting Vehicle). There's only one problem. . . it doesn't work.
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill is pulled into an unexpected journey as he chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars.
Allied forces land at Anzio unopposed but instead of moving straight inland their commanding officer decides to dig in. A battle-hardened war correspondent borrows a jeep and drives to Rome and back without meeting any German forces, but his report on this absence of the enemy is discounted. By the time it is finally decided to make a move the Germans have arrived in strength and a prolonged ...
General Clive Candy lives through four decades of war and peace - from the Boer War to World War II - trying to stay true to his belief that "right will always defeat might" and trying to stay relevant while the world changes irrevocably around him.
Last months of World War II in April 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theater, a battle-hardened U.S. Army sergeant in the 2nd Armored Division named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank called "Fury" and its five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
One Serbian army battery in the First World War, in forced march with no stopping and rest, arrives to Cer and, in decisive moment, enters the fight and throws off Austrian troops which penetrated into the country. This is not only the chronicle of Cer battle, but Serbian drama and drama of one nation who made impossible possible during the fight against the empire which wanted to take away their country. This drama is based on credible events and authentic documents.
At the height of Hitler's infamous U-boat war, the crew of the U.S.S. Swordfish were heading home after months at sea. They never made it. Now prisoners of war aboard U-boat 429, a small group of American survivors will find their loyalties put to the ultimate test when they're forced to join their German captors to fight for their very lives.
The theme is the founding of the state of Israel. The action begins on a ship filled with Jewish immigrants bound for Israel who are being off loaded on Cyprus. An Intelligence officer succeeds in getting them back on board their ship only to have the harbor blocked by the British with whom they must negotiate. The second part deals with declaring independence and the resulting warring.
When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad. Written by Marcio Eduardo
Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.
In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership. Cy Endfield co-wrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives, with the British contingent outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached  manner leads to one mistake after another.
The Great Raid is an inspirational true story of one of the most triumphant rescue missions during World War II. As the war rages, the elite 6th Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 prisoners of war.
THE FALLEN is a three-sided story about German, Italian, and American soldiers, set in Northern Italy during the final weeks of the World War II. On the one side, a group of American supply soldiers delivers ammunition to the front line, a journey that becomes a descent into hell, the success of the mission becomes less likely with every setback. On the other, a doomed German unit and their ragtag Italian partners struggle to maintain morale and discipline amongst their beleaguered troops in the face of certain defeat. Torn between these are the divided loyalties of the Italians, both fascist soldiers and communist partisans, who have turned brother against brother in a bloody civil war. The film looks at the everyday life of the soldiers, their encounters on the road, their hopes and dreams, and the differences in values, morals, and patriotism between the cultures at the end of that era.
Subtitled The Fighting Guerillas, Chetniks tells the story of Yugoslavian guerilla fighter General Draja Mihailovitch. Based on the General's own memoirs, the film depicts Mihailovitch (played here by Philip Dorn) as a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WW II.
As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.
A damaged U-boat is stranded in a Canadian bay in the early years of World War II. The Fanatical Nazi captain and his crew must reach the neutral United States or be captured. Along the way they meet a variety of characters each with their own views on the war and nationalism. In this film Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger show their ideas of why the United States should join the Allied fight
Heinz is a German soldier stationed as a sniper overlooking his own army from a tree. When he falls asleep, his troops are gone and he is left alone to defend the incoming enemy invasion. Flashbacks recall his wartime experiences and his transition from a human being into a sadistic murderer and rapist.
A sprawling war film, Midway stars nearly every actor who wasn't in A Bridge Too Far. Charlton Heston, Toshirô Mifune, Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda are among the familiar faces depicting the American and Japanese forces in a naval battle that became the turning point of the Pacific war. Using some real wartime footage, Midway provides an exciting view of a gigantic battle.
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
Upon returning home at war's end, a young lieutenant discovers that his family has been murdered by the Nazis. It's all the handiwork of a treasonous "Chetnik," who during the war worked against the partisans on behalf of the Germans. In bitter retaliation, the lieutenant sets about to decimate the Chetnik's family. He stops short, however, when he realizes that the sins of the fathers are not always passed down to the innocent children.
During the winter of 1943, the German army halted the American advance in the mountains of Italy; back-and-forth combat decimates Joe Peterson's platoon. On leave in Naples, Joe meets WAC lieutenant Eleanor MacKay; initially cool, she begins to melt during a bombing raid. Their romance develops despite Joe's periodic returns to the front. But whether he'll come back in the end becomes more than doubtful...
During the military phase of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Sentaro joins a local militia loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate in order to fight Imperial troops. But Sentaro's friendship with a pickpocket, who switches sides whenever it suits his needs, leads to complications that could cost Sentaro his life as they infiltrate enemy lines.
In the towm of Tynen, Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. A military lawyer, also a black man, is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Captain Davenport must battle with deceipt and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill Sergeant Waters.
Documentary-drama recounting the Martian War of 1913 - 1917. Europe was on tenterhooks in the 2nd decade of the 20th century, everyone was expecting a Great War between the major European powers. But then, in 1913, something crashed into the forests of SW Germany. Troops were sent to investigate but were wiped out. Martian fighting machines began making their way across Western Europe and the countries of Europe combined forces to resist them. With aspects taken from "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells and from WWI itself, this dramatisation presents a documentary style look at events as they unfolded and the effect they had of our world today. Lots of references to real events including the mass attacks and defeats as men were thrown against machines on the Western front, the Christmas truce and the Angel of Mons, America's isolationism and late entry into the conflict, the worldwide "Spanish" flu epidemic that killed more people than the war, and many other things.
British writer/director John Boorman (The Emerald Forest) draws us into an astonishing and exhilarating portrait of his own childhood, set against the terrors of a London torn apart by the onset of WWII. Seven-year-old Billy Rohan (Sebastian Rice Edwards) finds his childhood to be atime of great dangerand even greater discovery. From thunderous bombings at his own doorstep andthe constant threat of Luftwaffe air raids to the landing of a German paratrooper in his neighborhood and the joyous obliteration of his much-hated school, Billy's young life is shapedand even enrichedby the one positive thing war has brought him: liberation from the ordinary. And though Billy is surrounded by decimation and the smoking remnants of ruined lives, his sense of enchanted wonderment and innocence in the face of man's most destructive folly affect him in a way that alters his life forever.
When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardizes the ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.
The Hornblower series is based on C.S. Forester's classic maritime adventures - the story of one young man's struggle to become a leader of men. Set against the back drop of the 18th century Anglo-French wars, the bloodiest time in British naval history. Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but obviously mentally unstable captain and eventually must mutiny.
Beau, John, and Digby Geste are three inseparable, adventurous brothers who haven been adopted into the wealthy household of Lady Brandon. When money in the uppercrust household grows tight, Lady Brandon is forced to sell her most treasured jewel the mighty "Blue Water" sapphire. The household gets it out for one final look, the lights go out and it vanishes stolen by one of the brothers, no doubt. That night, Beau, Digby, and John each "confess" and slip out, John leaving behind Isabel, whom he loves. They all join the Foreign Legion, and Beau and Digby are split from John and put under the command of the ruthless and sadistic Sergeant Markoff. Things begin to get hairy as the rest of the Legionaires plot a mutiny against Markoff, in the midst of an attack by Arab hordes.
Academy Award winners Gary Cooper and Ray Milland star along with Robert Preston in the epic adventure Beau Geste. When three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves trapped under the command of a sadistic sergeant deep in the scorching Sahara. Now the brothers must fight for their lives as they plot mutiny against tyranny and defend a desert fortress against a brutal enemy. Nominated for 2 Academy Awards, Beau Geste has been universally acclaimed by generations of critics and audiences alike as a true motion picture classic.
Set in the turbulence of the 1930s British India, Chittagong is a true story of a 14 year old boy, Jhunku, and of his journey to find where he belongs. For the first time in Indian history, the British army is defeated by a ragtag army of schoolboys and their teacher, Masterda. Called a traitor by his peers, and let down by a man he trusts, Jhunku impulsively joins the movement. As his world is turned upside down, Jhunku is forced to confront his self-doubts. As the leaders of the movement are progressively caught or killed, Jhunku battles against seemingly insurmountable odds to win a victory of his own. The film is an exciting action-drama, made more so by the fact that it is true.
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, legendary Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
An anachronistic martinet RSM on a remote Colonial African army caught in a local coup d'etat must use his experience to defend those in his care.
Phil Mercedes (Dix), who was once a record-setting pilot, is an aging, alcoholic, aeronautics show performer. While inebriated, he crashes his stunt plane into a barn and is grounded for a year. His sister Kay (Barrie) is his only means of support, who hopes to land a job as a draftswoman for Martin Ames (Taylor), the chief engineer for Dan McLean (Lowe), an airplane manufacturer that hopes to win a big contract with the government given the war in Europe. Though Kay is not a very skilled draftsman, she shows Ames some drawings with creative designs, from Phil, that interest him. Preliminary tests of the aircraft prove disastrous, but Phil establishes the viability of his designs by flying the experimental aircraft himself, which restores his damaged reputation.
An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
A squad of German soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front during WWII led by a battle-hardened officer fight to survive Soviet attacks and dogmatic commanders in a chaotic and lethal environment in this sympathetic portrayal of another side of the war not commonly portrayed in Hollywood film.
BENEATH HILL 60 is the action packed story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare - one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented, and mystifying conflicts of WW I. It was secret struggle BENEATH the Western Front that combined daring engineering, technology and science. Few on the surface knew of the brave, claustrophobic and sometimes barbaric work of these tunnellers.
In November 1941, Major Caton takes command of the small Marine garrison on Wake Island. His tendency toward spit and polish upsets the men's tropical lassitude, but Pearl Harbor changes everything. Soon the island is attacked and the Marines pull together day by day; but how long can they hold out?
A young fighter pilot experiences hell on the western front in the first world war...
Set amid the atrocities of war in the Balkans, Witnesses is retold, Rashomon-style, from various characters' viewpoints, adding new information about the complexity of war and humanity. Beginning inside a rustic house with a woman in black (Mirjana Karanovic) standing beside her husband's coffin, Witnesses interweaves the stories of a small town confronting ethnic hatred and deep moral ambiguities.
Chris Taylor, a young, naive recruit in Vietnam, faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Based loosely on the poem by Rudyard Kipling, this takes place in British India during the Thuggee uprising. Three fun loving sergeants are doing fine until one of them wants to get married and leave the service. The other two trick him into a final mission where they end up confronting the entire cult by themselves as the British Army is entering a trap.
During World War II, a hand-picked group of American GI's undertook a bizarre mission: create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used inflatable rubber tanks, sound trucks, and dazzling performance art to bluff the enemy again and again, often right along the front lines. Many of the men picked to carry out these dangerous deception missions were artists. Some went on to become famous, including fashion designer Bill Blass. In their spare time, they painted and sketched their way across Europe, creating a unique and moving visual record of their war. Their secret mission was kept hushed up for nearly 50 years after the war's end.
During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.
Enemy at the Gates is a war film from Jean-Jacques Annaud from 2001 that takes place during the battle of Stalingard in World War II between the Russians and the Germans.
A civil war broke out in the 1950's between North and South Korea which changed the country forever. 71: Into the Fire centres on the struggles of 71 student soldiers that fought through the Korean War. Using real people and events, the film exposes the personal and physical conflicts that these students faced when finding themselves on the last line of defence in Pohang girls’ middle school, needing to hold out until back up from other Korean troops and the Allies arrived.
Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara, 'The Fog of War' depicts his life, from working as a WWII Whiz Kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the American Vietnam War, as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
An American patrol has to cross behind enemy lines by skis in order to blow up an important railroad bridge. The task is made harder by conflicts between the platoon's veteran sergeant and its inexperienced lieutenant and by constant attacks by pursuing German troops.
The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops are diverted to other islands. After a civilian evacuation ends in tragedy most of non-combatants are forced to remain on the island. Many convert to soldier status. Tokyo sends mixed messages that squander time and resources, as when they order the defenders to build an airstrip for aircraft that never come. The truth soon becomes obvious: the high command decides that the island cannot be held and effectively abandons the Okinawan defenders. When the Americans land many troops are deployed in the wrong places. As the slaughter mounts, a suicidal attitude takes hold. Okinawa becomes a death trap, for civilian volunteers and non-combatants as well.
During World War II, two French civilians and a downed English Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops - and the consequences of their own blunders.
In the wake of the Spanish-American war, military doctor Bill Canavan (Cooper) arrives at a war-torn Filipino outpost. Infested with cholera and under attack from a vicious local Moro chieftain, the troops are terrified and their commanding officer has all but given up hope. Outnumbered and out of supplies, Canavan decides to trade his scalpel for a rifle and rally the few remaining troops into one last stand before the outpost and everyone inside becomes just another footnote in history.
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.
In World War II, the greatest threat to the British navy is the German battleship Tirpitz. While anchored in a Norwegian fjord, it is impossible to attack by conventional means, so a plan is hatched for a special commando unit to attack it, using midget submarines to plant underwater explosives.
Attack on the Iron Coast is a 1967 British-American Oakmont Productions international co-production war film directed by Paul Wendkos in the first of his five picture contract with Mirisch Productions, and starring Lloyd Bridges, Andrew Keir, Sue Lloyd, Mark Eden and Maurice Denham. The film depicts an account of Allied Combined Operations Headquarters commandos executing a daring raid on the German-occupied French coast during the Second World War. The film is based on the commando raid on the French port of St. Nazaire and is reminiscent of the film The Gift Horse. In the United States it was released as a double feature with Danger Route.

© Valossa 2015–2024