The best Donald Pleasence’s war movies
We present our ranking of the best Donald Pleasence’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Donald Pleasence.
The Great Escape
8.2/10
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
The Eagle Has Landed
6.9/10
When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.
All Quiet on the Western Front
7.1/10
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 Night of the Generals
7.2/10
An unusual World War II crime thriller about a Nazi investigation into the murder of a prostitute. Major Grau finds himself focusing on three suspects: the Generals Tanz, Kahlenberg and Seydlitz-Gabler – all three of whom, it seems, are also involved in a plot to kill Hitler
Diên Biên Phu
6.2/10
Vietnam, 1954. An American reporter finds himself in the middle of the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, between the French army and the Vietminh.
The Great Escape II: The Untold Story
5.4/10
Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.
The Two-Headed Spy
6.9/10
Wartime thriller with film noir elements based on a true story as written in A.P. Scotland's autobiography "The London Cage". The plot has greatly exaggerated the actual events of A.P. Scotland's experiences, including the addition of a fictional love interest.
Casablanca Express
4.1/10
It is 1942 and the conflict between the U.S. and Germany is getting heated, U.S. Intelligence soon discovers that the Natzis are planning to capture Winston Churchill. In order to protect him they send commando Al Cooper to guard Churchill who is going by train to Casablanca where he will meet with Roosevelt and Stalin.
Hanna's War
6.1/10
Hanna's War is the true story of Hanna Senesh, a Hungarian-Jewish WW2 resistance fighter, who would become Israel's "Joan of Arc". As a young person, she fled Nazi-occupied Hungary for Palestine, where she was recruited and trained by the British to serve as a commando. After completing her training in Britain, she parachutes into Yugoslavia with a commando team to establish escape routes across the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border for downed British pilots. Her attempts to save Hungarian Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary, however, leads to her capture, torture and demise at the hands of the Gestapo and the Nazi-controlled Hungarian police.
The Commander
4.8/10
Lewis Collins is back to leading mercenaries on the move in Southeast Asia. This time the cast is unusually good including Lee Van Cleef, Brett Halsey (Cop Game), Romano Puppo (Robowar), Mike Monty (Raiders of Atlantis), Bobby Rhodes (The Great Alligator), etc. Anyway, Van Cleef has Collins go on some random mission to locate a disc with all sorts of valuable crazy intelligence data on it. It just happens that Donald Pleasence, a random government official, hires another mercenary-for-hire Manfred Lehman to tag along and make sure the data ends up in the right hands. Van Cleef isn't taking any chances, and since he is crooked and murders Collins's other bosses quickly, he places Romano Puppo in the group as well to make sure the operation runs smoothly. Collins may not be too expressive but at least he seems to figure out quickly who's out to get him, so the mission continues with lots of double-crosses, twists and turns, and of course lots of explosions!
The Wind Cannot Read
6.1/10
Dirk Bogarde is an officer during World War II learning Japanese in India in order to do intelligence work on the Indian front. While there he gets a Japanese teacher, who is full of the inscrutable and mysterious East, like a Chinese motorcycle.
Last Platoon
4.3/10
After ex-cop and highly decorated war hero Chet Costa's Vietnamese girlfriend disappears, he accepts a risky mission: he shall blow up a bridge at the Vietnamese border to close the Vietcong's line of communication. He's given a group of prisoners to accompany him. Already on the way there their helicopter is shot down; a march through the wilderness begins. When his soldiers recognize that they're effectively on a suicide mission, they decide to get rid of their Seargent and to flee to Bangkok.
The Falklands Factor
Is there nothing new under the sun? 1770. The South Atlantic. A fleet sets sail from Buenos Aires to expel the British forces and reconquer the Falkland Islands. A major international crisis explodes. What follows may sound strangely familiar, but is firmly based on the historical record and the actual speeches and writings of the time.
