The defence The Prestige Tourist
“Ambition earns the room.”
The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.
Back to trending 
The War Below
War · Drama · History · 2021
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
Movie details
The War Below
“Hope runs deep.”
2021 War · Drama · History 1h 37m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.5 / 10
4K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
88 %
Tomatometer
TMDB
6.6 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The War Below?
For the defence
The Prestige Tourist
“You like your greatness pre-approved.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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The Lost Battalion
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Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.
The Boy in the Woods
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The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.
Operation Mincemeat
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In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.
Tobruk
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In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
Devotion
War · 2022
The harrowing true story of two elite US Navy fighter pilots during the Korean War. Their heroic sacrifices would ultimately make them the Navy's most celebrated wingmen.
The Scarlet and the Black
Drama · 1983
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
Munich - The Edge of War
Drama · 2021
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Radium Girls
Drama · 2020
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
The One That Got Away
War · 1957
Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
J.P. Watts
Written by
J.P. Watts · Thomas Woods
Sam Hazeldine
William Hawkin
Tom Goodman-Hill
Hellfire Jack
Kris Hitchen
Harold Stockford
Elliot James Langridge
George MacDonald
Sam Clemmett
Charlie MacDonald
Joseph Steyne
Shorty
Sonny Ashbourne Serkis
Henry
Court is in session
Put The War Below on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Importance has entered the chat.”
The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.