Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer, a Dutch-Canadian female-led WW2 media podcast. A new episode airs every Friday!
Everything about Rosie and our WW2 adventures.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Der Tiger (2025), a German film about a Tiger I tank crew on a special mission behind Soviet lines in 1943. What starts as a tense war film quietly becomes something else entirely. We talk about the Eastern Front after Stalingrad, give you much-needed tank facts (are we a tank podcast now?), and generally enjoy this one a lot.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Days of Glory (2006), the Rachid Bouchareb film that follows a fictional group of North African soldiers fighting with the Free French forces to liberate Europe. We talk about the film’s honest depiction of colonial racism, the ensemble cast, what the film gets right and where it falls flat, and the real history of the hundreds of thousands of African soldiers whose story went largely untold for decades.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Another Mother’s Son (2017), the true story of Louisa Gould, a Jersey shopkeeper who sheltered an escaped Russian POW on the German-occupied Channel Islands. We talk about the film’s strengths and where it shortchanges its own story, and we cover the history of the occupation, from Britain’s decision not to defend the islands to what happened to Louisa after her arrest. It’s also Mother’s Day this weekend, so we’re joined by a very special guest: Rhonda, Sam’s mom.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Empire of the Sun (1987), Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel about a kid more or less growing up in a Japanese POW camp and making it home. We feel a little old because Christian Bale is in this, and he’s a child.
Rosie the Reviewer reviews The Forgotten Army (2020), a Hindi-language mini-series about the Indian National Army and the all-women Rani of Jhansi Regiment: the WWII story most Western audiences have never heard.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss The Thin Red Line (1998), directed by Terrence Malick and based on James Jones’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. This might be the most philosophical anti-war film ever made. We discuss Guadalcanal as paradise, and the antagonist: the war as a whole. Not even the Americans are heroes in this one. The most heroic thing they did? Leave.
This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we talk about Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026), directed by Tom Harper and written by Stephen Knight. The film serves as the finale of the Peaky Blinders TV series (2013-2022) and is set during World War II, following an ageing Tommy Shelby as he navigates Nazi counterfeit schemes, the Birmingham Blitz, and a son he barely knows. We get into the writing choices that don’t land, the female characters who deserved better, the real history of Operation Bernhard and the Birmingham Blitz, and what made the original series work, and why this film loses it.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we’re joined by Lisa Koolhoven, Dutch historian and WWII Rotterdam bike tour guide, and Kristen Hayford, American-in-the-Netherlands, who joined forces to make the podcast Beb & Bob | Collateral Damage about their journey to discover whether their grandparents’ paths may have crossed in the Forgotten Bombing of Rotterdam by the Allies.
Together, we review The Shadow in My Eye (2021), a Danish film based on Operation Carthage, during which the RAF accidentally bombed a school in Copenhagen in March 1945.
We discuss the myth of the faultless liberator, what mainstream war media consistently refuses to show, and why the words ‘collateral damage’ carry so much weight.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss The Pianist (2002), based on Władysław Szpilman’s memoir of surviving the Holocaust in Warsaw. We talk about the film’s quiet perspective, the reality of life in the ghetto, and provide you with historical context for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss recent Netflix hit The Swedish Connection (2026), based on the true story of Swedish diplomat Gösta Engzell, who helped rescue Jewish people during World War II using the power of paperwork.
We also dive down the rabbit hole of a much smaller character in the film, but a real badass dude in real life: Raoul Wallenberg. (Can someone please make a movie about him, thanks?)
It’s our 100th episode and also Women’s History Month! So it’s only fitting that in this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss So Proudly We Hail (1943), a World War II film about American Army nurses during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941–1942. The story follows a group of nurses working in increasingly desperate conditions as the war closes in, from jungle hospitals on Bataan to the evacuation from Corregidor.
We also explore how the film reflects 1940s attitudes toward women, including Hollywood stereotypes, and obviously wartime propaganda. Along the way, we look at the real stories of the nurses on Bataan and Corregidor. These women kicked ass!
Netflix’s Nr. 24 (2024) follows Gunnar Sønsteby, Norway’s most decorated citizen and one of the most effective resistance operatives in occupied Europe.
Tense from beginning to end, the film uses a sparse, near-ticking score and a documentary-style framing device to press a harder question: was it worth it? An elderly Sønsteby lectures students who have never known occupation, and what he chooses not to say is sometimes as revealing as what he does.
How do resistance stories shape national memory? And who gets left out of the telling?
This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re heading to the beaches of postwar Denmark with Land of Mine (2015), a Danish film about a young German POW crew tasked with clearing a mine-affected beach and the Danish sergeant who oversees the process. It’s tense, visually striking, and explores trauma, anger, humanity and innocence. A movie about what comes after.
This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re tackling The Sound of Music (1965), directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. On the surface, it’s a sweeping musical about love, family, and catchy songs you’ve known since childhood. But watch it through a World War II lens and it’s surprisingly sharp.
We revisit the Von Trapps’ romance, the Anschluss, and the film’s portrayal of Austrian opposition to Nazism.
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss I Was Monty’s Double (1958), a British WWII film based on M.E. Clifton James’ memoir. The film tells the almost unbelievable story of an actor recruited to impersonate Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in the lead-up to D-Day, as part of a wider Allied deception effort. Clifton James plays himself, and Monty. How any of this was true, we don’t know, because it really is stranger than fiction.