The shift still marks a notable change. Older war films’ themes can often be reduced to “America Good,” while nowadays the sentiment has shifted to “Nazis bad.” That might not seem sizable, but it marks a startling difference in viewer’s motivations.
Most modern WWII movies—particularly foreign language and arthouse films—are reflections on the nature of fascism, anti-semitism and the complicity of the societies that enable evil. We see this in films like “The Zone of Interest,” “Never Look Away,” “Bardejov,” “Son of Saul,” “The Captain” and “A Hidden Life.”
War dramas also continue to be popular, with films like “Oppenheimer,” “Operation Mincemeat,” “Imitation Game” and “Allied” finding sizable audiences; exploring the messy morally questionable underbelly of technocracy and espionage—a further curiosity for modern people’s moral relativism.
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