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...

Adapted from the classic, absurdist, anti-war novel by Joseph Heller. "Catch-22" is the story of Yossarian, a pilot who trys to opt out of flying bombing missions by being declared insane, the catch being that anyone trying to avoid bombing missions by being insane must be sane. This dark classic catches much of the flavour of the book, the insanity, the corruption and the absurdity of war. Think MASH, but non-linear - flawed but awesome. find out more...

In Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's brilliant and chilling re-write of history, Germany has won World War II and Nazi troops occupy England. Pauline, an apolitical nurse, hopes only that normal life will return to England. It is only after she accepts a nursing job with Nazis that she slowly begins to realize the horrifying reality behind the occupation. It Happened Here is a masterful, terrifying vision of what might have happened if the Allied effort had been in vain. find out more...

Part 2, and surely the greatest, of Wajda's trilogy describes the last days of the failed 1944 Warsaw uprising against the Nazis. The imagery of the sewers, to which the Polish fighters retreat, is superbly used to represent both their desperation and their new Soviet prison. Made in 1956 despite Stalinist censorship. find out more...

Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con find out more...

Set during WW2; Veronica is madly in love with her fiancé, Boris, who departs for the front to do his patriotic duty. The story unravels to depict a poignant portrayal of blameless individuals doing their best to survive the travails of tragedy and hardship in the face of such an all consuming conflict. The compelling narrative is complemented by stunning black and white cinematography and the film deservedly won the Cannes Palme d'Or in 1958, reintroducing Soviet cinema to the Western world. find out more...

Bresson's remarkable and detailed account of the brilliantly conceived escape of imprisoned and condemned to death real-life resistance fighter Andre Devigny. The intensity of the direction is augmented superbly by the music; Mozart's Mass in C Minor. Superb. find out more...