Entertainment

The Best WWII Series Ever Made Officially Returns With New Release

When it comes to film genres, few have had the same impact over the years as stories centered around World War II. There have been a few WWII movies hit the screen this year, starting with Pressure, the new movie starring Brendan Fraser and Andrew Scott. The film is set in the 72 hours before D-Day, following General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Captain James Stagg as they face an impossible choice: launch the most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether. The premiere of Pressure, which is now streaming on Peacock, set the stage for the arrival of Lucky Strike, another WWII movie starring Scott Eastwood. Lucky Strike is inspired by a true story, and it follows a wounded American soldier who was trapped deep behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge.

Few actors and producers have given as much to the WWII genre as Tom Hanks, who has collaborated with Steven Spielberg on iconic hits like Saving Private Ryan. The duo also worked together a few years ago to produce Masters of the Air, which was billed as a mash-up of Saving Private Ryan and Top Gun: Maverick. Hanks also garnered acclaim for his work in the 2020 WWII submarine thriller, Greyhound, which has a sequel coming soon to Apple TV. However, when it comes to important WWII releases, it’s hard to put anything above Band of Brothers, the 2001 HBO miniseries created by Hanks and produced by Steven Spielberg. To celebrate the 25 anniversary of Band of Brothers, HBO released a new trailer for Band of Brothers: Legacy, which is a new documentary honoring the making of the iconic series. The new documentary hits HBO Max on September 9.































































Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?

Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

01

What kind of film experience do you actually want?
The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.





02

Which idea grabs you most in a film?
Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?





03

How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.





04

What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?





05

What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?





06

Which setting pulls you in most?
Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.





07

What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.





08

What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.





09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.





10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?





The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

What Is ‘Band of Brothers’ About?

The official synopsis for Band of Brothers, which earned nearly-perfect scores of 94% from critics and 97% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, reads as follows: “This series, originally broadcast on HBO, tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Based on interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers’ journals and letters, this 10-part series chronicles the experiences of these young men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. Based on the book written by Stephen Ambrose.” Band of Brothers features big stars like Donnie Wahlberg, Neal McDonough, Michael Fassbender, David Schwimmer, Stephen Graham, Tom Hardy, and more.

Check out Band of Brothers on HBO Max and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of the best World War II movies and TV shows.



Release Date

2001 – 2001

Network

HBO

Directors

David Frankel, David Nutter, Mikael Salomon, Phil Alden Robinson, Richard Loncraine, Tom Hanks

Writers

Bruce C. McKenna, Graham Yost, John Orloff


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