List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
During World War II and immediately after it, in addition to the many private films created to help the war effort, many Allied countries had governmental or semi-governmental agencies commission propaganda and training films for home and foreign consumption. Animated films are not included here.
Contents
British Empire and Commonwealth
United Kingdom
1939
| Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The Lion Has Wings | Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, Michael Powell, Alexander Korda (uncredited) |
1940
1941
1942
| Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| After Mein Kampf | ||
| Alice in Switzerland | ||
| Battle Is Our Business | ||
| Border Weave | ||
| Coastal Command | J. B. Holmes | |
| Dover | ||
| Greek Testament | ||
| Listen to Britain | Humphrey Jennings | Nominated for Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject |
| Making a Compost Heap | ||
| Malta G.C. | ||
| Men of Tomorrow | ||
| Message from Canterbury | ||
| The Next of Kin (aka Next of Kin) |
Thorold Dickinson | Originally a British War Office services training film by Ealing Studios based on the wartime security axiom that "Loose lips sink ships" / "Careless talk cost lives", it was also distributed commercially as its propaganda was of general strategic importance thus applicable to all citizens. |
| Night Shift | ||
| Trinity House | ||
| Twenty-One Miles | Nominated for Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject | |
| Went the Day Well? | Alberto Cavalcanti | |
| Winning Your Wings | John Huston and Owen Crump (uncredited) | Nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary |
1943
1944
1945
| Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Burma Victory | Roy Boulting | |
| A Diary for Timothy | Humphrey Jennings | |
| Farm Work | ||
| Homes for the People | ||
| Song of the People | ||
| Steam | ||
| The Ten Year Plan | ||
| This Was Japan | ||
| The True Glory | Carol Reed | Shows the final invasion and victory in Europe; won Academy Award for Documentary Feature |
Australia
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In Australia the Australian News & Information Bureau, as well as the Australian Department of Information, produced the following
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | Advance to Libya | Frank Hurley | |
| 1942 | Kokoda Front Line! | Ken G. Hall | Won Academy Award for Documentary Feature |
| 1942 | Men of Timor | Damien Parer | |
| 1942 | Moresby Under the Blitz | Ken G. Hall | |
| 1942 | Soldiers Without Uniform | Charles Chauvel | |
| 1943 | Assault on Salamaua | ||
| 1943 | The Bismarck Convoy Smashed | ||
| 1945 | Mid East | Frank Hurley |
Canada
In Canada, the National Film Board of Canada either distributed or produced the following as part of its Canada Carries On and The World in Action series.
1940
1941
| Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ACK ACK | Peter Baylis | French title: Défense contre avions |
| Battle of Brains | Stanley Hawes | |
| Call for Volunteers | Radford Crawley | |
| Churchill's Island | Stuart Legg | Won Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. First NFB Oscar winner. |
| Fight for Liberty | ||
| Food, Weapon of Conquest | Stuart Legg | |
| Guards of the North | Raymond Spottiswoode | |
| Heroes of the Atlantic | J.D. Davidson | Watch online |
| Iceland on the Prairies | Radford Crawley | |
| The People's War | ||
| Soldiers All | Stuart Legg | |
| Strategy of Metals | Raymond Spottiswoode | |
| Strategy of Metals | Graham McInnes | Combination of A Call for Volunteers (above) and Ottawa, Wartime Capital |
| Tools of War | ||
| Warclouds in the Pacific | Stuart Legg | Nominated for Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject |
| Who Sheds His Blood | Judith Crawley | |
| Wings of a Continent | Raymond Spottiswoode |
1942
| Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Battle for Oil | Stuart Legg | |
| Battle of the Harvests | Stanley Jackson | |
| Blitzkrieg Tactics | Contains footage of Nazi film Feuertaufe | |
| Everywhere in the World | Stuart Legg | Stresses Commonwealth and American solidarity |
| The Face of Time | Graham McInnes | Centenary of the Geological Survey of Canada. Contains war related information. |
| Ferry Pilot | Stuart Legg | |
| Field Training in Winter | Stanley Hawes | |
| Fighting Ships | Graham McInnes | |
| Forward Commandos | Raymond Spottiswoode | |
| Freighters Under Fire | ||
| Geopolitik - Hitler's Plan for Empire | Stuart Legg | |
| Great Guns | Graham McInnes | |
| If | Philip Ragan | |
| Inside Fighting Canada | Jane Marsh | Watch online |
| Inside Fighting China | Nominated for Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject | |
| Inside Fighting Russia | ||
| Voice of Action | James Beveridge | Watch online |
1943
1944
1945
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | John Bull's Own Island | Stuart Legg |
India
United States
The United States had the largest film industry of any of the Allied powers, and its use for propaganda purposes is legendary. Because it was so big, there was no single governmental or semi-governmental agency that centrally controlled it. Instead, the Office of War Information co-ordinated efforts among many entities to produce propaganda:
OCIAA: Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
OEM: Office for Emergency Management
OSS: Office of Strategic Services
USAAF: United States Army Air Forces
USASC: U.S. Army Signal Corps
USASSD: U.S. Army Special Service Division
USDA: United States Department of Agriculture
USDT: United States Department of Treasury
USN: United States Navy
USDW: United States Department of War
WACMPI: War Activities Committee of the Motion Pictures Industry
Several of these films, although they have propaganda value, were used as training films for the United States armed forces.
1941
Pre-December films given IMDb release date where available.
| Title | Director | Agencies or Organizations involved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminum | WACMPI | ||
| America Builds Ships | WACMPI; OPM | Released June 5 | |
| America Preferred | WACMPI; USDT | Released 20 May | |
| Army in Overalls | WACMPI; OPM | Released June 5 | |
| Bits and Pieces | WACMPI; OPM | Released June 5 | |
| Defense Review No. 1 | WACMPI | ||
| Defense Review No. 2 | WACMPI | ||
| Men and Ships | WACMPI; BPI | Released June 23 | |
| Pots to Planes | WACMPI; OEM | Released November 22 | |
| Power for Defense | WACMPI; NDC | Released February 18 | |
| Preflight Inspection of the B-17E | USASC; UASAAF | War Department Training Film 1-532 | |
| Red Cross Trailer | WACMPI; | ||
| Where Do We Go? | WACMPI; USO | Released May 28 | |
| Women in Defense | WACMPI; OEM | Released May 28; narrated by Katharine Hepburn; written by Eleanor Roosevelt |
1942
- The 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary, whose time frame included part of 1943, was split among four films, including the two seen here. Also, that year saw the almagation of the feature and short subject documentary categories into a single category.
1943
1944
1945
1946
| Title | Director | Agencies or Organizations involved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Tale of Two Cities | USDW; Army-Navy Screen Magazine | Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | |
| That Justice Be Done | OWI; OSS; WACMPI | Nuremberg Trials | |
| Seeds of Destiny | Gene Fowler Jr. | USDW; UNRRA | Asks public for humanitarian aid to post-war Europe and Asia |
| Special Delivery | USDW; Army-Navy Screen Magazine | Operation Crossroads (the atomic tests bombings on Bikini Atoll) |
1947
| Title | Director | Agencies or Organizations involved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Don't Be a Sucker! | USDW | Anti-intolerance film | |
| Thunderbolt! | USDW | About US airstrikes in Italy; introduced by Jimmy Stewart |
Year uncertain
| Title | Director | Agencies or Organizations involved | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Know Your Ally: Britain | OWI; USASC | ||
| Training Women For War Production | NYA | Narrated by Eleanor Roosevelt | |
| Victory Gardens | USDA |
Netherlands and Belgium
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The low countries were overrun by Nazi Germany in the May–June 1940 blitzkrieg. The Dutch East Indies, the Netherlands most important colony, was conquered by Japan in early 1942. However each had a government in exile which set up the Belgian Ministry of Information and Netherlands Information Bureau, which produced the following films. There were also films made by the resistance while the respective countries were occupied.
| Year | Title | Director | Agency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | Belgique toujours | Hippolyte De Kempeneer | Belgian resistance movement | Dutch title: Immer België; English title Forever Belgium |
| 1942 | Little Belgium | Belgian Ministry of Information | Nominated for Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject | |
| 1942 | People of the Indies | Netherlands Information Bureau | ||
| 1942 | Holland in the Western Hemisphere | Netherlands Information Bureau | ||
| 1942 | High Stakes in the East | Netherlands Information Bureau | ||
| 1942 | The Dutch Next Door | Netherlands Information Bureau | ||
| 1943 | Glorious Colours | Alfred Travers | Netherlands Information Bureau |
Soviet Union
.svg)
In the Soviet Union, unless otherwise noted, the Central Newsreel Studio produced these films.
Soviet films made for foreign markets
In addition to the above the Soviet cinema import company Artkino produced the following for foreign markets.
| Year | Title | Director | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | Our Russian Front | Joris Ivens & Lewis Milestone | Narrated by Walter Huston |
| 1942 | Moscow Strikes Back | Ilya Kopalin & Leonid Varlamov | Nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject |
| 1943 | Russians at War | ||
| 1947 | The Nuremberg Trials | C Svilov | Soviet view of the Nuremberg Trials |
See also
- List of films based on war books
- List of films made in the Third Reich
- List of Holocaust films
- List of World War II films
References
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- Pages with reference errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Lists of World War II films
- American World War II propaganda films
- British World War II propaganda films
- World War II films made in wartime
- Soviet World War II propaganda films
- World War II propaganda films
- National Film Board of Canada documentaries
- United States Marine Corps in popular culture
