WWII Historical Fiction Movies

How Films Mix Fiction With Real History

Some of the most memorable World War II movies aren't true stories at all.

Their battles may be real. Their uniforms, weapons and locations may be painstakingly researched. Real political events may determine what their characters can and cannot do. Yet the people at the centre of the story never existed.

WWII historical fiction movies have used that freedom in very different ways. Some place fictional characters inside documented events. Others invent missions that could plausibly have happened. Some use the war simply as the historical world for an entirely fictional adventure. And a few deliberately throw the history books away and change what happened altogether.

So what makes a movie historical fiction rather than a true story? And how much can a WWII movie invent while still feeling historically authentic?

These seven films provide very different answers.

Is CASABLANCA Based on a True Story?

No. Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund and Victor Laszlo are fictional characters, and the love triangle at the centre of CASABLANCA never happened.

But the world surrounding them is grounded in genuine wartime circumstances.

Released in 1942, while World War II was still being fought, CASABLANCA takes place in Vichy-controlled French Morocco. Refugees really did seek routes out of Nazi-controlled Europe through neutral countries and territories, and Casablanca became an important wartime crossroads.

The movie uses that historical environment to create the pressures surrounding its fictional characters. Laszlo is a Resistance leader being hunted by the Nazis. Rick wants to remain neutral. Ilsa's arrival forces him to choose between personal desire and something larger.

None of those people needed to exist for the history surrounding them to be real.

CASABLANCA demonstrates one of the broadest forms of historical fiction: invent the people and their story, but let real history determine the world in which they have to live.

Were the Characters in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI Real?

The principal characters in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI are fictional, but the history surrounding them certainly isn't.

David Lean's 1957 film, adapted from Pierre Boulle's novel, takes its setting from the construction of the Burma-Thailand Railway, where Allied prisoners of war and Asian forced labourers endured appalling conditions under Japanese control.

Alec Guinness's Colonel Nicholson was not a real British officer. The character has frequently been compared with Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey, the senior British officer at the real Tamarkan POW camp, but their behaviour differed significantly.

The real Toosey did not share Nicholson's obsession with demonstrating British superiority by helping the Japanese build an excellent bridge. Accounts of his actions instead describe efforts to protect his prisoners and impede the Japanese war effort where possible.

William Holden's Commander Shears is also fictional, as is the film's commando operation to destroy the bridge.

Yet THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI feels inseparable from WWII history because its fictional drama is built around a horrific historical reality.

It also demonstrates one of the complications of historical fiction: sometimes the fictional version becomes more famous than the history that inspired it.

Was THE GUNS OF NAVARONE a Real WWII Mission?

No. There was no Allied mission during World War II exactly like the one depicted in THE GUNS OF NAVARONE.

The 1961 movie, based on Alistair MacLean's novel, follows a fictional Allied commando team attempting to destroy enormous German guns threatening British naval operations in the Aegean.

The characters are fictional. The mission is fictional. Even the island of Navarone is fictional. But the historical world is recognizable.

Germany occupied Greek islands. British forces conducted dangerous special operations in the region. The Aegean and Dodecanese became contested areas of military importance.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE therefore takes another step away from documented history.

It doesn't place fictional characters directly inside a famous event. Instead, it uses real wartime circumstances to make an invented adventure feel as though it could belong in WWII. That distinction is important.

Historical fiction doesn't always have to dramatize something that happened. Sometimes history provides the boundaries within which something fictional becomes believable.

Is SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Based on a True Story?

Not in the usual sense.

The Normandy landings depicted at the beginning of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN are historical. American troops really did land on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and the film's depiction of the invasion became famous for its attempt to convey the violence and chaos experienced by soldiers there.

Captain John Miller, however, is fictional. Private James Ryan is fictional. The squad sent to find him is fictional. And the central rescue mission is fictional.

The premise has often been connected with the real Niland brothers, four American servicemen whose wartime circumstances helped inspire screenwriter Robert Rodat. But SAVING PRIVATE RYAN isn't a dramatization of the Niland family's story.

Instead, Steven Spielberg's film moves from an intensely recreated historical event into an invented narrative.

That combination is particularly effective because the opening establishes the reality of the world the fictional characters inhabit. Once Miller and his men leave Omaha Beach, their invented mission carries the audience through a war that feels historically tangible.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN demonstrates that historical authenticity and historical fact aren't necessarily the same thing.

A character can be fictional while his experience reflects something very real.

Is FURY Based on a True Story?

Brad Pitt's tank commander Don “Wardaddy” Collier and the crew of the Sherman tank Fury are fictional. Their particular mission is fictional too. But the circumstances surrounding them are rooted in the experience of American tank crews fighting their way into Germany during the final months of the European war.

FURY doesn't need its characters to be disguised versions of famous soldiers. Their purpose is different.

They allow the movie to explore an experience shared by many real servicemen: living and fighting inside a tank, depending upon a small crew for survival and continuing to fight as the war becomes increasingly desperate.

That puts FURY in another category of WWII historical fiction.

Rather than inventing characters to participate in one famous historical event, it uses fictional characters to represent a broader historical experience.

The question isn't, “Did Wardaddy really exist?” He didn't. The more useful question is whether men like him did.

Is JOJO RABBIT a True Story?

No. JOJO RABBIT is adapted from Christine Leunens' novel Caging Skies, and its central characters and story are fictional. Its version of Nazi Germany is also deliberately stylised.

Jojo is a German boy indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth who discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl. His imaginary friend is an absurd version of Adolf Hitler who exists entirely inside the boy's head.

Writer-director Taika Waititi isn't attempting the kind of historical realism found in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. He uses satire instead.

But beneath the heightened comedy are real historical subjects: Nazi indoctrination of children, antisemitism, the Hitler Youth, resistance to the regime and the collapse of Nazi Germany.

JOJO RABBIT demonstrates that historical fiction doesn't even have to adopt the tone we associate with history.

A fictional character can provide distance from familiar events and allow a filmmaker to approach them through comedy, satire or fantasy while still engaging with what happened.

Does INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Change WWII History?

Very deliberately.

Quentin Tarantino spends much of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS doing something recognizable from other historical fiction. He creates fictional characters and places them inside Nazi-occupied Europe.

Lieutenant Aldo Raine and his Basterds are fictional. Shosanna Dreyfus is fictional. Their plots against Nazi leaders are fictional. But then Tarantino crosses a line the other films discussed here generally respect.

He changes history.

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and other senior Nazis are killed in a Paris cinema in 1944. World War II did not end that way, and the movie makes no attempt to persuade us otherwise.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS therefore belongs to a related category: alternative history.

Instead of asking what fictional story might have occurred within documented events, alternative history asks what might happen if documented events themselves changed.

That gives the filmmaker almost unlimited freedom, but it creates a very different relationship between fiction and historical fact.

How Much Can a WWII Movie Invent?

Taken together, these films form an interesting spectrum.

CASABLANCA invents a personal story inside a real wartime environment.

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI builds fictional characters and conflict around a documented wartime atrocity.

THE GUNS OF NAVARONE invents characters, location and mission within authentic military circumstances.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN moves from a famous real battle into a fictional mission.

FURY uses fictional soldiers to represent a wider historical experience.

JOJO RABBIT uses fictional characters and satire to approach genuine historical realities.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS finally abandons the historical outcome and rewrites WWII itself.

That variety is one reason World War II continues to generate fiction more than eighty years after it ended. The historical record establishes an enormous world. It gives screenwriters the opportunity to explore things from a perspective that real life may not provide. In the end, the authenticity comes just as much from the relationships between the characters as it does from the events.

Where Does THE THIRD BOMB Fit Into WWII Historical Fiction?

THE THIRD BOMB, a multi-award-winning spec script by screenwriter Phil Parker, draws inspiration for its story from two incredible aspects of World War II: America's plans to drop more atomic bombs on Japan after Nagasaki and the existence of forgotten POW camps on remote Japanese islands in the Pacific.

Find out more about THE THIRD BOMB.