Part 1 of Wajda's trilogy of wartime films, the hopeful one, is set in Wola, a working-class area of Warsaw in 1942, and deals with the graduation of a bunch of semi-delinquent street kids, through individual acts of defiance and courage, into a youth resistance group. The heroism is not simple, neither loyalties nor self-sacrifice are assured, but united they will be. find out more...

Elem Klimov's powerful, mesmerising and dynamic award winning feature has been deservedly hailed as one of the greatest war films ever produced. find out more...

A carefully constructed epic telling the story of a rich young English boy whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. Separated from his parents he is eventually captured and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp next to a captured Chinese airfield. As he and the other civilians are gradually starved, he turns from a child to an adolescent while learning the art of survival. When the war ends, the boy attempts to find his parents. Based on JG Ballard's autobiographical find out more...

John Boorman's semi-autobiographical story of London during the Blitz, as seen by the nine-year-old son of an ordinary suburban family. Air raid shelters, shrapnel, and GIs "stealing our women"; a clever blend of tragedy and irony make this a superb film, head and shoulders above average. find out more...

Mismatched city girl trio Stella, Ag and Prue (one sensible, one shy, one saucy) head for Devon to be "land girls" - working the fields while the boys go off to fight WW2. Needless to say, the uncommonly attractive sophisticats cause quite a stir down on the farm, not least in wannabe pilot Steven Mackintosh's trousers. The war itself seems almost incidental in this "growing-up" movie which, though somewhat uneventful, all looks very pretty. find out more...