About
The war, arranged by history
History on Film is a chronological guide to the Second World War as represented through cinema and television.
Rather than organising films by release date, the project places each production within the historical events it depicts, allowing viewers to follow the war from its early conflicts in China through the final surrender of Japan.
The collection includes combat films, historical dramas, resistance stories, naval and aviation films, POW narratives, political dramas and television miniseries — 150 productions in all, across 10 theatres of war and 21 major events.
How records are ordered
Every entry carries two separate dates: the year it was released, and the span of history it portrays. The timeline sorts on the historical start date, then the historical end date, then the title. Release year is never used for ordering. Productions covering a broad span — Band of Brothers, The Pacific — are placed at the beginning of their span and shown with a full date range.
On accuracy
Historical chronology describes the events portrayed by each production and does not imply that every scene or detail is historically exact. Where a reliable value for a field was not available, the record says Information unavailable rather than guessing. Casualty figures for several events remain contested by historians and are given as ranges where that is the case.
Posters
Poster artwork is referenced by file name, not stored in the database. Images dropped into /images/posters/ named after each production’s slug appear automatically; anything missing shows an archival placeholder instead of breaking the layout.