The Rosie the Reviewer Podcast

Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer, a Dutch-Canadian female-led WW2 media podcast. A new episode airs every Friday!

WW2 in the Pacific: The Best Films and Series to Watch

The Pacific war gets far less screen time than the war in Europe, and the films it does get tend to cluster around a handful of famous battles. But across more than a hundred episodes, we’ve found the richest stories out on the edges: a Studio Ghibli film about two children in a firebombed city, a Godzilla movie that is really about survivor’s guilt, an Indian series about soldiers who fought alongside Japan for their own independence.

Not many of them are faultless. A Navajo code talker becomes a supporting act in his own story. A film about the Bataan nurses turns their ordeal into romance. The Pacific was fought by Americans, Japanese, Australians, Indians, Pacific Islanders and many others, and the screen has a strong preference for just one of them.

What we’ve found is that the most honest portrayals often come from unexpected places: Japanese animation, an Australian creature feature, a war musical with a genuinely radical streak. This page also has some films we simply love. Both things can be true, and we’ll tell you which is which.

WW2 in the Pacific: Pearl Harbor and the Road to War

Ep 12 – Tora! Tora! Tora! – A Deep Dive into Pearl Harbor from American and Japanese Perspectives

1970 · Pearl Harbor from Both Sides

The 1970 epic tells the attack on Pearl Harbor from both the American and Japanese sides, with each nation’s own filmmakers shooting their half. It is meticulous and arguably the most historically accurate WW2 film ever made – which is exactly why later blockbusters borrowed so heavily from it. We get into how a film this even-handed about the enemy got made at all, and why accuracy and spectacle keep pulling against each other.

Our angle: Does telling both sides of Pearl Harbor make for better history, better cinema, or both – and how much of Michael Bay’s version quietly came from here?

Ep 6 – Pearl Harbor – A Nostalgia Watch with a Critical Eye on Historical Accuracy

2001 · Hollywood Blockbuster

Michael Bay’s three-hour love triangle with an air raid in the middle – a nostalgia watch for one of us and a genuine ordeal for the other. We pull apart what the film gets wrong about the attack, how the romance swallows the history, and the way a day that killed more than 2,400 people becomes the backdrop for two pilots and a nurse.

Our angle: What does it say that the most famous modern Pearl Harbor film is more interested in its love triangle than in the day it is named after?

Ep 114 – From Here to Eternity – Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, and the Peacetime Army

1953 · Prewar Army Drama

The 1953 classic, adapted from James Jones’s novel, spends almost all its runtime on the peacetime army in Hawaii before December 7 ever arrives – the boxing, the brutality, the famous beach embrace. We hold the film against the real garrison life it dramatises, and against the women who ran the wartime radar operations that the story mostly keeps offscreen.

Our angle: A film set on the eve of Pearl Harbor that is really about the army’s own casual cruelty – what does it choose to see, and who does it leave out?

Further reading

From Here to Eternity by James Jones book cover

From Here to Eternity by James Jones – the sprawling 1951 novel behind the film, and far blunter than Hollywood could be about army life.

WW2 in the Pacific: The Island Battles - Midway to Okinawa

Ep 85 – Midway – Two Films, One Battle, and Why the 1976 Version Wins

1976 & 2019 · Naval Battle Epic

We take on Midway twice: the 1976 all-star classic against the 2019 CGI remake, and walk through the battle itself – the codebreaking, the carriers, the events that turned the Pacific war. We get to know the real players and make the case for why the older film, cardboard and all, still comes out ahead.

Our angle: When two films forty years apart tackle the same decisive battle, what does each generation’s version reveal about how it wants to remember the war?

Further reading

The Battle of Midway by Craig L. Symonds book cover

The Battle of Midway by Craig L. Symonds – a seminal, clear-eyed account of the codebreaking and the carrier duel that decided it. Sam’s pick.

Ep 105 – The Thin Red Line – Guadalcanal But Make It Anti-War

1998 · Anti-War Drama

Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’s Guadalcanal novel might be the most philosophical anti-war film ever made: less a battle picture than a meditation on paradise, dread, and men who would rather be anywhere else. We talk about Guadalcanal as Eden and the war itself as the real antagonist

Our angle: Can a war film this lyrical still work as an anti-war film, or does the beauty get in the way of the horror?

Further reading

The Thin Red Line by James Jones book cover

The Thin Red Line by James Jones – the semi-autobiographical Guadalcanal novel behind both film versions.

Ep 29 – Flags of Our Fathers – The Story Behind the Iconic Iwo Jima Flag Raising

2006 · Iwo Jima Drama

The story behind the most famous photograph of the war – the flag raising on Iwo Jima – and what the military did with the men in it. Eastwood shot this alongside its Japanese-perspective companion, Letters from Iwo Jima, and we get into how one image was turned into a bond-drive tool while the reality stayed far messier.

Our angle: What happens to the men in an iconic photo once the image becomes more useful to the war effort than the truth behind it?

Further reading

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers – written by the son of one of the flag raisers, and the source behind Clint Eastwood’s film.

Ep 27 – Hacksaw Ridge – A Tribute to Desmond Doss and Andrew Garfield's Performance

2016 · Okinawa Biopic

Desmond Doss, the conscientious objector who went to Okinawa without a weapon and carried dozens of wounded men off the ridge, gets the Mel Gibson treatment – which means real reverence bolted to real carnage. We talk Andrew Garfield, southern accents, and whether the film’s extreme violence honours or undercuts a story about refusing to kill.

Our angle: Does a famously bloody director do justice to a pacifist, or does the spectacle of the battlefield drown out the point of the man?

Ep 94 – Windtalkers – A Look at the Navajo Code Talkers

2002 · Code Talkers Drama

The real Navajo Code Talkers built the one code the Japanese never broke, serving through the brutal island campaigns including Saipan. This 2002 film tells their story – and then hands the lead to a white Marine assigned to guard, and if necessary silence, his Navajo partner. We are glad to talk Code Talkers. We are a good deal less glad about whose story the film decides to centre.

Our angle: Why does a film about the Navajo Code Talkers make its protagonist the white man watching them, and what does that centring cost?

WW2 in the Pacific: HBO's The Pacific

Ep 75 – The Pacific – Discussing Episodes 1-3 and a Lot of Bob Leckie (Part One)

HBO 2010 · Part One (Eps 1-3)

Our favourite HBO war drama, and the start of a three-part deep dive. With Bec back on the pod, we take on the opening stretch – the landings, the friendships, that theme music – and do a fair amount of gushing about Robert Leckie along the way. Sorry. Not really.

Our angle: How does The Pacific set itself apart from Band of Brothers from its very first episodes, and why does its version of the war feel so different?

Further reading

With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie – the two Marine memoirs the whole series is built on, and the best possible companion reading.

Ep 76 – The Pacific – Episodes 4-6, the Battle of Peleliu and More (Part Two)

HBO 2010 · Part Two (Eps 4-6)

The meaty middle of the series, with our friend Merc joining in. This is Peleliu, which means everyone on screen is having a catastrophic time, and Pavuvu, which is barely an improvement. We meet new favourites, brace ourselves for losing them, and get into why this stretch is some of the hardest viewing of the whole show.

Our angle: Why does the middle of The Pacific hit harder than almost any other screen combat, and what is it doing that most war shows won’t?

Ep 77 – The Pacific – Closing Out the Best War Show of All Time (Part Three)

HBO 2010 · Part Three (Eps 7-10)

We close out the series with episodes 7-10 and guest George in tow: the brutal end of Peleliu and Okinawa, John Basilone’s final chapter, and the long road home for Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie. We talk leadership, disillusionment, the place of civilians, and the way grief and memory trail these men long after the shooting stops.

Our angle: The Pacific spends its finale on coming home rather than on victory – what does that choice say about the war it wants you to remember?

Ep 30 – The Pacific Special with Actor Scott Gibson – Behind the Scenes of HBO's The Pacific

Interview · Actor Scott Gibson

Scott Gibson played Andy Haldane in The Pacific, and joins us for our first-ever video episode. He talks about stepping into Haldane, his trip to Guam and Peleliu with Beyond the Call, and how the role has stayed with him. Candid, warm, and a lovely counterpart to the series itself.

Our angle: What does it mean to an actor to carry a real fallen Marine’s story, decades on, all the way to the islands where he died?

Ep 86 – Bruce McKenna on The Pacific, Band of Brothers, and the Stories He'd Like to Tell

Interview · Writer Bruce McKenna

Bruce McKenna is the principal writer and co-executive producer of The Pacific, and wrote the Bastogne episode of Band of Brothers. We talk about the moral stakes of war, what made it into the show and what didn’t, and why, for him, everything comes back to narrative and theme. This one may change how you watch WW2 media.

Our angle: When the person who wrote the war tells you it is all about theme, how does that reshape what you thought these stories were doing?

WW2 in the Pacific: Civilians, Children and the Cost of War

Ep 71 – Grave of the Fireflies – Studio Ghibli's Animated WWII Film You Should Only Watch Once

1988 · Studio Ghibli Drama

Studio Ghibli’s account of Seita and Setsuko, a brother and sister trying to survive in Kobe in the last months of the war, after firebombing has taken almost everything. It is one of the most devastating films ever made about civilians in wartime, and about the ways a society lets its own children slip through the cracks. We talk about why it matters, and why once through is usually enough.

Our angle: What does this film ask us to see about the civilian cost of the Pacific war that combat films almost never do?

Ep 88 – Godzilla Minus One – PTSD, Guilt, and a Very Angry Lizard

2023 · Postwar Japan Drama

Yes, a Godzilla film, and one of the most affecting WW2 stories in years. Set in a shattered postwar Japan, it follows a former kamikaze pilot living with survivor’s guilt and the wreckage of a nation, the monster standing in for everything he can’t outrun. We get into how it works even if you are sure monster movies aren’t for you (one of us was very sure).

Our angle: How does a kaiju film end up saying more about survivor’s guilt and rebuilding than most straight war dramas manage?

Ep 107 – Empire of the Sun – Cadillacs of the Sky and the End of Innocence

1987 · Occupation Drama

Spielberg’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s memoir, told through a privileged British boy separated from his parents and interned near Japanese-occupied Shanghai. It is a coming-of-age story about the end of innocence, a very young Christian Bale, and the strange spectacle of a child who half-worships the planes overhead. We talk about what the war looks like from inside a child’s confusion.

Our angle: What does the Pacific war become when it is filtered entirely through a child who doesn’t fully understand what he is living through?

Further reading

Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard – the semi-autobiographical novel behind Spielberg’s film, based on Ballard’s own childhood in wartime Shanghai.

WW2 in the Pacific: Prisoners of War

Ep 4 – Unbroken – The True Story of Louis Zamperini's Survival and Strength

2014 · POW Survival Drama

Louis Zamperini – Olympic runner, downed airman, castaway, and finally a prisoner of the Japanese – had a life almost too extraordinary to film, and this adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s book gives it a game try. We might be a little mean about the movie. That has nothing to do with Zamperini, whose real story outruns anything the screen manages to capture.

Our angle: When a true story is this staggering, does a handsome, respectful film do it justice, or does it flatten a whole life into a highlight reel?

Further reading

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand – the extraordinary bestseller behind the film, which follows Louis Zamperini far past where the movie stops.

Ep 42 – Bridge on the River Kwai – A Deep Dive Into WWII's Legendary Story

1957 · POW Epic

The 1957 classic about British POWs forced to build a railway bridge for their Japanese captors, and the colonel whose pride curdles into something stranger. Sam read the source novel so you don’t have to, and Maartje gets improbably invested in a Canadian character. We weigh the film’s craft against how far it drifts from the real horror of the Burma Railway.

Our angle: A beloved classic about POW labour that is also strikingly disconnected from the real death toll of the railway – how do we hold both of those at once?

Further reading

The Bridge over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle – the source novel Sam read for the episode. For the real Burma Railway, The Railway Man by Eric Lomax is a survivor’s memoir the film never comes close to.

Ep 59 – The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Australian POWs and the Burma Railway

2025 · POW Drama Series

Based on Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel, this series follows Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans before, during, and long after his time as a prisoner forced to build the Burma Railway. We talk about the adaptation, the symbolism, and the way every character seems trapped – by the war, by love, by memory. And yes, we ask once more why it all has to be quite so dark.

Our angle: How does a story move between a POW camp and the whole arc of a life without letting either one swallow the other?

Further reading

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan – the Booker Prize-winning novel behind the series, drawn in part from his own father’s captivity on the railway.

WW2 in the Pacific: Beyond the Famous Battles

Ep 100 – So Proudly We Hail – US Army Nurses on Bataan and Corregidor

1943 · Army Nurses Drama

Made in 1943, while the war was still on, this follows American Army nurses through the Japanese invasion of the Philippines – jungle hospitals on Bataan, the desperate evacuation of Corregidor, and eventual captivity. We recorded it for our 100th episode, and got into how a film made in real time honours these women while also folding them into wartime romance and 1940s ideas about their place.

Our angle: How does a film made during the war itself both celebrate the Bataan and Corregidor nurses and quietly soften what they actually endured?

Further reading

I Served on Bataan book coverWe Band of Angels book cover

On the real Bataan and Corregidor nurses: I Served on Bataan and We Band of Angels.

Ep 106 – The Forgotten Army – The INA, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, and the War You've Never Heard Of

2020 · INA Drama Series

Kabir Khan’s Hindi-language series on the Indian National Army – the soldiers who broke from the British Indian Army and allied with Japan to fight for India’s independence. It includes the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, an all-female combat unit, and treats the war as a hinge in a much larger story. We talk about a theatre most Western WW2 media never touches.

Our angle: What does the Pacific war look like from the perspective of colonised soldiers, for whom the fight was never simply Allies versus Axis?

Ep 89 – Beast of War – Shipwreck, Mateship, and One Musical Shark

2025 · Survival Horror

Our accidental monster-movie streak continues. Loosely inspired by the real 1942 sinking of the Australian ship HMAS Armidale in the Timor Sea, this follows soldiers stranded on a failing raft and hunted by a great white shark. Our returning SAS-Rogue-Heroes-turned-creature-feature correspondent George joins us to work out why it is more than just a horror gimmick.

Our angle: Can a shark-attack survival movie tell you anything true about a real wartime disaster, or is the history just chum?

Ep 51 – South Pacific – A Deep Dive into Rodgers & Hammerstein's WWII Classic

1958 · Wartime Musical

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical set among Americans stationed in the South Pacific – which raises the obvious question of whether war is any place for a musical. We dig into its genuinely progressive streak, especially the anthem You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught, alongside portrayals that have aged far less well, plus a detour into the Seabees that one of us is frankly obsessed with.

Our angle: How does a wartime musical end up both ahead of its time on racism and stuck in its era’s stereotypes at once?

Frequently Asked Questions about WW2 in the Pacific

What are the best films about WW2 in the Pacific?​

Some of the strongest films and series on the Pacific war include Tora! Tora! Tora! and Midway (Pearl Harbor and the great naval battles), HBO’s The Pacific (the Marine ground war), Flags of Our Fathers and Hacksaw Ridge (Iwo Jima and Okinawa), Unbroken and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (prisoners of the Japanese), and Grave of the Fireflies and Godzilla Minus One (the war’s cost inside Japan). We break down what each one gets right and where it falls short.

Why is the Pacific war less represented on screen than the war in Europe?

Partly distance and unfamiliarity, partly discomfort. For Western studios the European theatre offered a more familiar landscape and a cleaner moral story, while the Pacific raised harder questions about racism, colonialism, and the atomic bombings. So the same few battles get retold while huge parts of the war – especially the experiences of Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Pacific Islander people – rarely reach the screen at all.

Is HBO’s The Pacific based on a true story?

Yes. The 2010 series follows three real Marines – Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge, and John Basilone – drawn largely from Leckie’s and Sledge’s own memoirs of the island campaigns at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Okinawa. We cover the whole series across three episodes, plus interviews with actor Scott Gibson and writer Bruce McKenna.

Where can I hear more about Pacific war films and history?

Every episode linked on this page is available on the Rosie the Reviewer podcast, where we review WW2 films and TV against the real history behind them. Get in touch if there’s a story you think we should cover next.