Custom image from Jefferson Chacon of Jacob Elordi looking serious for The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Hollywood has been making war movies for practically the entirety of its century-plus existence. Beginning with the wartime propaganda films of the 20th century, the genre has evolved to incorporate many perspectives and styles, inspiring and educating generations to come about the horrors of humanity’s darkest chapters.
War movies continue to enjoy great popularity with both critics and audiences, but as great as they are, the 21st century has seen the dawn of something even better: the war miniseries. With all the scale of a war movie and an extended runtime in which to narrate their stories, the greatest war miniseries rival and even surpass their big-screen counterparts, delivering an experience that’s both grand and intimate at the same time. In the process, these shows reveal the full human cost of war in all its layered complexity, opening our eyes to the tragedies that so many faced before us. So, if you’re a fan of war films, read on to discover our handpicked selection of epic war miniseries that are better than any classic movie, including some of the most acclaimed shows ever to hit television screens. 1 ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Created by Erica Lipez and based on Georgia Hunter's bestselling novel, We Were the Lucky Ones is a limited series chronicling the story of a Jewish family torn apart by World War II. Joey King and Logan Lerman lead the cast as two of the five Kurc siblings, who are all scattered by the war and Hitler’s persecution of Jews. The series follows their journeys through the years of the war, exploring their struggles and eventual reunion. The ensemble cast also includes Lior Ashkenazi, Robin Weigert, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Hadas Yaron, Amit Rahav, and more. Inspired by the real history of author Georgia Hunter’s own family, We Were the Lucky Ones is a heartbreaking saga grounded in the realities of life during the Holocaust. The series premiered on Hulu in March 2024 to critical acclaim and high viewership, earning praise for its performances, narrative, and visceral story. It’s a painful yet ultimately inspiring drama that brings the horrors and hopes of history to life, and it’s earned several accolades, including a Critics’ Choice Award nomination for Best Limited Series. 2 ‘Band of Brothers’ Based on the 1992 nonfiction book by Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers is an iconic war drama miniseries created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Set during World War II, the series is a dramatized retelling of the history of"Easy" Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, exploring their training and deployment on the Western Front. The ensemble cast includes Kirk Acevedo, Eion Bailey, Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Neal McDonough, and many more. A critically acclaimed and widely loved war series, Band of Brothers is easily one of the best TV shows of the 21st century so far across genres. Combining a dramatized plot with documentary-style interviews of real Easy Company veterans, the series reconstructs historical events to create an epic, moving journey through one of the most horrific wars in human history. The series received several accolades, including the Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries, and it’s widely held as the gold standard against which all other war drama shows are evaluated. 3 ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ Based on the novel by Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is an Australian miniseries that stars Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds as doctor and war hero Dorrigo Evans. The series explores his life and torrid love affair with his uncle’s young wife across three periods: as a young medical student before his World War II deployment, as a prisoner of war working on the Burma Railway, and as a renowned surgeon decades after the war. Written by Shaun Grant and directed by Justin Kurzel, the show also stars Olivia DeJonge, Heather Mitchell, Show Kasamatsu, Simon Baker, Essie Davis, and Dan Wyllie in notable roles. Released in April 2025, The Narrow Road to the Deep North was universally acclaimed by critics, earning the highly coveted 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. Masterfully adapting its Booker Prize-winning source material, the series is a layered and poignant journey following a flawed and deeply human man through the different eras of his life, exploring the futility of war and the enduring power of human connection. Despite all the praise it’s received, however, the show is still relatively underrated and deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for. 🤠Yellowstone 🛢️Landman 👑Tulsa King ⚖️Mayor of Kingstown FIND YOUR WORLD → QUESTION 1 / 10POWER 01 Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind. ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 10LOYALTY 02 Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly. AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 10CONFLICT 03 Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed. AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 10SETTING 04 Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people. AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 10MORALITY 05 How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt. AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 10AMBITION 06 What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending. AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 10LEADERSHIP 07 How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested. ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 10OUTSIDERS 08 Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you. AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 9 / 10COST 09 What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal. AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 10 / 10LEGACY 10 When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind. AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it. REVEAL MY SHOW → Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In… The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes. 🤠 Yellowstone 🛢️ Landman 👑 Tulsa King ⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown YELLOWSTONE You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it. LANDMAN You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to. TULSA KING You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land. MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 ‘Masters of the Air’ Created by John Shiban and John Orloff, Masters of the Air is a war drama miniseries inspired by Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book. Executive-produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the show is a spiritual companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific that explores the dramatized story of the 100th Bomb Group, following bomber crews as they take on dangerous missions over German-occupied territory during the Second World War. The ensemble cast features Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Barry Keoghan, and more. Supported by the companion documentary The Bloody Hundredth, Masters of the Air is an epic reconstruction of real events that comes fairly close to the brilliance of Band of Brothers. Widely acclaimed by critics and audiences, the series has been hailed as an entertaining and compelling work of historical fiction, though it has received some criticism for its visual effects and the liberties it takes with historical events. Those flaws, however, are more than balanced out by the moving human drama and storytelling. The series earned numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award and two BAFTA nominations. 5 ‘Catch-22’ Based on Joseph Heller’s classic 1961 novel, Catch-22 is a satirical black comedy miniseries starring Christopher Abbott as John Yossarian, an American bombardier serving in the Mediterranean theater of World War II. Furious about his inability to be relieved from duty due to bureaucracy, Yossarian attempts various tactics to get out of flying, while all around him, the war rages on with no end in sight. The show’s cast also includes Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie, George Clooney, Lewis Pullman, and more. The series was written by Luke Davies and David Michôd, with Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Ellen Kuras directing. While the series may not be a perfect adaptation of its source material, the Catch-22 miniseries was widely acclaimed by critics for its deliciously dark sense of humor and stellar performances. Bringing razor-sharp wit to the front lines of WWII, the show is as horrifying as it is hilarious, revealing the absurdity of war bureaucracy through the stories of its idiosyncratic characters. The miniseries went on to receive numerous accolades, including nominations for two Emmys, two Golden Globes, and three Critics’ Choice Awards. 6 ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ A historical drama miniseries adapted from the novel by Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz stars Harvey Keitel and Jonah Hauer-King as Lali Sokolov, the titular character. A Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who is tasked with tattooing identification numbers on his fellow prisoners, Lali unexpectedly falls in love with fellow prisoner Gita , and the two become determined to keep each other alive through the horrors of the Holocaust. The series also stars Melanie Lynskey, Jonas Nay, Tallulah Haddon, and more in significant roles. Subscribe for deeper coverage of epic war miniseries Curated recommendations, historical perspectives, and sharp analysis await when you subscribe to the newsletter: thoughtful coverage of war miniseries and related film and TV to sharpen your viewing choices. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. The Tattooist of Auschwitz debuted to favorable reviews in 2024, earning praise for its powerful narrative and performances. Both the miniseries and the book it’s based on are inspired by the true story of the real-life Lale Sokolov, who recounted his story to author Heather Morris over a three-year period, a fact that adds greater emotional authenticity to the narrative. The show arguably improves on its source material, which has been criticized for historical inaccuracies, by giving greater attention to the fickleness of memory while presenting its heartbreaking story. 7 ‘Five Came Back’ Directed by Laurent Bouzereau and inspired by Mark Harris’s 2014 book, Five Came Back is a documentary series that explores the real-life stories of five famous Hollywood filmmakers — John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, John Huston, and George Stevens — who served during World War II. The show combines hours of archival footage with analysis of their work and legacy by modern auteurs Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass, and Lawrence Kasdan, with narration by Meryl Streep. Five Came Back may just be one of the most significant war shows ever made because it’s a series that actually goes back to the real historical roots of Hollywood’s ongoing relationship with war stories. Through the experiences of its legendary subjects and the analyses of its contemporary experts, the series presents an eye-opening exploration of truth, realism, and propaganda, revealing how the experiences of the Second World War shaped the Hollywood of today. Appropriately, the show received near-universal acclaim at the time of its release and went on to earn numerous accolades, winning Streep an Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator. Like Five Came Back TV-MA Documentary Biography History War Release Date 2017 - 2017-00-00 Directors Laurent Bouzereau Writers Mark Harris Cast See All
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