"Many saw evil. They dared to stop it."
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
Tom Cruise
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Kenneth Branagh
Henning von Tresckow
Bill Nighy
Friedrich Olbricht
Terence Stamp
Ludwig Beck
Tom Wilkinson
Friedrich Fromm
Carice van Houten
Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg
Kenneth Cranham
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
Thomas Kretschmann
Otto Ernst Remer
Suzy Eddie Izzard
Erich Fellgiebel
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
Not all Germans supported that madman RELEASED IN 2008 and directed by Bryan Singer, "Valkyrie" is a World War II crime thriller based on the true story of the last German plot to assassinate Hitler in the Summer of 1944, although it wasn't a crime, of course, but rather an act of heroism. Tom Cruise resembles the protagonist, Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, but he lacks his height. Despite this, Cruise is solid in the role and the story works up some quality suspense. Even though we know the plot will fail, you can't help but root for the dissenters' success. Almost 5000 Germans were subsequently executed on grounds of treason for the failed attempt, although not all of them were connected to this specific conspiracy. The film is both entertaining and educational. It shows that there were thousands of Germans who were willing to risk all to get that lunatic out of office. And they almost succeeded. "Valkyrie" is reminiscent of 1976's "The Eagle has Landed" in some ways so, if you liked that one, you'll probably appreciate "Valkyrie." I like the '76 film a little better. THE MOVIE RUNS 2 hours, 1 minute and was shot in Germany, Czech Republic and California. WRITERS: Christopher McQuarrie & Nathan Alexander. GRADE: B
Tom Cruise sports an eye-patch as he takes on the role of Nazi war hero Claus von Stauffenberg. Badly injured he returns to Germany where he is quickly appointed to staff rank with regular access to an appreciative Führer (David Bamber). His arrival co-insides with the increasingly stark realisation from many politicians and officers alike that their hopes of winning the war were dwindling and that something is going to have to be done about removing their neurotic Chancellor and instituting a new national order that might be able to negotiate some sort of peace. Of course, some of the High Command were still fiercely loyal so it was a bit of an eggshell treading operation for von Stauffenberg and his allies as they are not sure whom to trust whilst they put a daring plan into action that could result in a coup treasonable in anyone’s book if they fail. Relying on a fair-to-middling selection of mainly British actors, Bryan Singer does ok with his star here, but the film does really lack jeopardy as it rather trundles out of the traps and gurgles it’s way along before finally enlivening for the last twenty minutes or so. Cruise’s legendary charisma deserts him here and frankly, he hasn’t really the gravitas to carry this off convincingly - and that goes for Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and (fleetingly) Kenneth Branagh too as this whole production struggles to really capture the complexities and dangers faced by these conspirators - the braver ones and the skin-savers. The actual intricacies of their “Valkyrie” operation itself are superficially glossed over and, given we all know what really happened, the film offers us little compelling to get our teeth into. Disappointing, I’d say. Sorry.
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.
A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.
Great Britain, 1944, during World War II. Relentlessly pursued by several MI5 agents, Henry Faber the Needle, a ruthless German spy in possession of vital information about D-Day, takes refuge on Storm Island, an inhospitable, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of northern Scotland.
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle for the city.
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.
As the Second World War breaks out, German freighter captain Karl Ehrlich is about to leave Sydney, Australia with his vessel, the Ergenstrasse. Ehrlich, an anti-Nazi but proud German, hopes to outrun or out-maneuver the British warship pursuing him. Aboard his vessel is Elsa Keller, a woman Ehrlich has been ordered to return to Germany safely along with whatever secrets she carries. When Ehrlich's fiercely Nazi chief officer Kirchner commits an atrocity, the British pursuit becomes deadly.