10 War Films That Were Basically Just Propaganda

Hollywood has manipulated you! I know, you’re shocked, dismayed, outraged. But, don’t worry. They have good reason to do it.

They want your money.

Ok, that’s not the only reason filmmakers manipulate you. Sometimes they want to push their political agenda. It’s been happening for decades. Often with the explicit help of governments, the military, or both!

Crazy right? It’s like rich and powerful people have decided to shape public discourse through the media...

One thing that's always hard to sell to the public is war, so governments often look to filmmakers to make war a little more fun and sexy. Sometimes a branch of the military, like the US Navy, will hire a director to churn out a two-hour long recruitment video.

And there are films where directors take it upon themselves to sell an unpopular war, like Vietnam. John Wayne tried this trick more than once. But, sometimes filmmakers crank out an effective piece of propaganda without even trying to.

At least one film on this list was meant to sell audiences on Armageddon. It won't be that bad, really. (As long as you get raptured.)

The 2000 film U-571 depicts the daring theft of a German Enigma machine by American soldiers. The Enigma was a, nearly, indecipherable encoder used by the Germans during World War II. In reality, the Germans used the Enigma to send coded messages to ships during the war.

For the Allies, managing to capture and reverse engineer one of these Enigmas represented a massive victory. Allied codebreakers were able to determine German ship movements and save countless lives.

The only problem with U-571 is that it’s a complete work of fiction. The film, however, fails to make this distinction clear. Many moviegoers left theaters assuming that American sailors were solely responsible for capturing the German code machine.

In truth, Allied forces captured fifteen Enigma machines during the war. British forces captured thirteen Enigmas, while the Canadian and US forces captured the other two. The fact that U-571 fails to even acknowledge the British contribution to capturing and deciphering the Enigma machine was, understandably, met with anger.

At the time of the film's release, British Labour MP Brian Jenkins said it was an "affront to the memories of the British sailors who lost their lives on this action." Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with this sentiment saying,”... we hope that people realise these are people that, in many cases sacrificed their lives in order that this country remained free."

Filmmakers blamed their mistake on a desire to reach a wide audience. They decided that by Americanizing historical events it would make the film more broadly appealing. This is a pretty thin excuse, however.

Because of its glaring inaccuracies, U-571 ends up looking like the embodiment of American exceptionalism.