"A story about compassion and forgiveness set in a World War II Japanese prison camp, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence seems to improve with age and repeated viewings. The screenplay, by Nagisa Oshima and Paul Mayersberg, based on a book by Laurens van der Post, is oblique, brutal, poignant. Tom Conti, David Bowie, and Takeshi Kitano all give first-rate performances, and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score is heartbreaking. The last five minutes never fail to destroy me"

"I have special memories of the film not only because it’s one of my favorites but also because it was the film that introduced me to Tarkovsky. Though not as rigorous as later works such as Andrei Rublev or The Mirror (another film on childhood during World War II), it contains plenty of the thematic concerns and stylistic tendencies that would appear again and again in his work. And, of course, the end of the film is simply devastating."

"Another one of my favorite movies in the whole world is A Soldier’s Story. It was originally a play but this one stars Denzel Washington and David Allen Grier and Howard E. Rollins. [It’s set] in World War II, it’s about the racial divide in the army, but it’s also about a murder mystery, but then it also dealt with the social class differences, and so that was another one that — [Norman] Jewison directed that; he really hit the nail on the head. Very well written, very well acted, another movie I could quote from top to bottom."

"For when you need to see courage in action This is historical fiction about the occupation of France during World War II, and it’s hardly light reading. But it sure is gripping. It will transport you to another time and place so completely, you’ll feel like you lived it. And even though it’s maybe the last book I’d normally think of as vacation reading, it's a page-turning read about courage in action. Something we could all use right about now."