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Malèna
Perfect 66 Points 2000

Deeply, floridly Italian, Malèna is a sumptuous WWII find, a Sicilian movie extraordinaire and a devastating depiction of Italian machismo reacting to the hottest signorina since Sophia Loren.

Monica Belluci plays the title character, a gorgeous war bride living in a small Sicilian town, bro…

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WikChip Image where Malèna went, the town followed
The Desert Fox:...
Really Great 66 Points 1951

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – the Desert Fox – was Nazi Germany’s national hero, their military icon. Hitler needed him, couldn’t kill him, so he had Rommel kill himself. Absolute evil, thy name is Hitler.

That and more make The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel a touchstone World War II movi…

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WikChip Video Start with the end: Churchill on Rommel
Their Finest
Great 66 Points 2016

Their Finest is an exceptionally fine movie, a post-modern take on the decidedly earnest Greatest Generation, British variety. Unfortunately, it takes exceptional effort to find a theater where it’s playing.

Speaking of exceptional, Gemma Arterton, Sam Clafin and Bill Nighy are exceptionally…

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WikChip Video Bill Nighy steals the show as a minor...
A Secret
Really Great 66 Points 2007

More a wartime romantic mystery than anything, A Secret is nonetheless as fine a Holocaust picture as you’ll find. Being French, it’s also a sensual love story, or two.

Let’s start at the beginning even though the movie starts in the middle. A supremely athletic and thoroughly assimilated …

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WikChip Image Cécile De France: lithe object of desire
Closed Season
Great 66 Points 2012

Closed Season’s home-front Holocaust drama gets amplified by delving into some serious sexual intrigue. Result? A great movie, one that’s titled Ende der Schonzeit in its native Germany. Google translates that as “End of the grace period”. Hmm, besser in Deutsch.

A near feudal German…

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WikChip Image "I need you to impregnate my wife here."
Operation Finale
Perfect 66 Points 2018

The banality of evil gets a powerful debunking in Operation Finale, an awkwardly if accurately titled docudrama about the Mossad’s 1960 capture of Final Solution logistics chief Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Little Adolf was famously said to embody “the banality of evil” as he dissembled during …

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WikChip Video The (real) Man Who Got Eichmann
The Reader
Really Great 66 Points 2009

Germans come to terms with Nazi evil in this spellbinding tale of inter-generational lovers. Searingly honest in its depiction of human weakness, the movie raises profound questions about how so many Germans participated in large scale evil within the heart of the civilized world.

The story’s…

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WikChip Image This celebrated book begat the movie.
Greyhound
Great 66 Points 2020

Greyhound delivers naval battle action that will likely never be topped. USN Captain Tom Hanks orders his men to General Quarters more often than you’ll go to the fridge for refills. Torpedoes get fired and outmaneuvered, depth charges deployed and cannons barraged at levels rarely seen and nev…

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WikChip Video Naval battles don't more intense than...
Woman in Gold
Great 69 Points 2015

Woman in Gold glitters with performances that are charismatic and affecting, a story that’s fascinating and true, and a happy ending that delivers emotional closure. In short, it’s a small treasure of a movie.

Helen Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, whose aunt was the model for the painting "Wo…

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WikChip Image Klimt's Woman in Gold: Aunt Adele
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The Bicycle Thief
Really Great 71 Points 1948

Reverential movie, thy name is The Bicycle Thief. Long considered one of the greatest movies of all time, it still qualifies. Real people play the parts, none more affecting than seven year-old Enzo Staiola’s Bruno.

The kid’s now my favorite boy in all of movie history.

Bruno’s Dad hock…

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WikChip Image "They don't pay for repairs!" Love t...
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