21 thoughts on “Top 5 World War II Films That Are Really Good, But….

    1. Agreed with Hope and Glory, though the “clothing” I remember most is the big sister’s improvised stockings.

  1. Tora! Tora! Tora! Is much better than Pearl Harbor. It’s the definitive movie on the Pearl Harbor attack.

  2. At the very end of Midway, Many Moore wears a coral shirtwaist dress with a scalloped front. It looks to be true vintage, and I must sew myself a replica before I die.

  3. Also, while none of the costumes stuck out to me, ‘A Call To Spy’ is a GREAT female-focused WWII story, and it’s based on a true story to boot.

  4. Definitely an “A” for the costumes in Pearl Harbor (I really like Jennifer Garner’s look TBH), but I can only look at stills, because the film itself was terrible and mucks up history too much. I didn’t expect much when Michael Bay said the reason he made it was because of a dream he had with the camera-following-the-bomb shot.

    1. Do documentaries with inserts from TV series count? Then Nancy Wake is my favourite, aside from Schindler’s, and Wish Me Luck.

  5. I really liked the early 90s BBC series Wish Me Luck, about two women who go undercover for the French Resistance.

  6. I’m so glad you brought up Rogue Heroes!!! Sofia Boutella is the most glamorous thing ever! I did giggle when she popped in on Dominic West in the church wearing a daring halter crop top thingy – sexy as hell, but questionable to wear in a desert clime and into a church at that! She also smokes in an interestingly vintage way. The way she holds her cigarette reminds me of my Great Aunt Isabel who was a fashionable globe trotter herself.

    Also, Connor Swindells can really act, and man, o man, is he gorgeous.

  7. Ok, I can’t believe that I have to mention this movie: EVERYTHING Kristin Scott Thomas wore in The English Patient was beautiful. Also, the movie was incomparable. Also, Ralph Fiennes. The British TV Home Fires was about women and their clothes were VERY interesting. Another British TV show, Land Girls, had interesting costumes, though most of the ones I remember were “farm life” related, because you know, Land Girls. I don’t know how much we can consider The Man Who Cried as a WWII-film, but the costumes were definitely beautiful!!

    1. Interesting note: When I joined the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps in 1976, we were still wearing the white WWII nurse’s uniform. It buttoned from neck to hem with little two-pronged buttons that had to be pushed through little holes on one side and buttoned on the other. There was a detachable belt with more buttons. It was the devil to iron.

      White shoes with the correct number of holes for the laces (four?).

      The beautiful nurse’s cap had the black velvet and gold braid that showed our rank as officers.

      Alas, that uniform is no more.

      I laughed at the depiction of the Navy nurses in “Pearl Harbor”, showing them sitting on an empty patient bed, already made up with sheets…WHILE IN UNIFORM! NO! NO! NEVER!.

      AND…the hairstyles on the nurses in the top picture here is clearly not “off their collar”, another violation. Tsk, tsk.

  8. In the 70’s there was a BBC/Belgium TV series Secret Army. Set in Belgium about an underground network to get allied soldiers out. Was also the basis for the British comedy series Allo Allo. From what I remember of Secret Army the costumes were OK

  9. I’ll have to be on the look out for this SAS. There’s a documentary, drawn from the book, which are both likely the inspiration for this series. It has interview footage from the real people in the group. I look forward to seeing the miniseries!
    List always makes me cry. It’s a gut punch. Band of Brothers is amazing.

  10. The ladies costumes in Inglorious Basterds are pretty good, imo. Not sure if it’s period exactly, but I want the red dress Melanie Laurent wears when she burns down her movie theater.

  11. I just watched ‘Devotion,’ which is set in 1950 (the Korean War). The main female character wears a ton of cotton house dresses that look to be true vintage, and she wears them really well!

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