20 Best War Movies Released Since 2000
3. City of Life and Death (2009)
Set in 1937, Lu Chuan's searing third picture is set over several bloody weeks that history came to call the Nanjing Massacre, the systemic murder of over 100,000 innocent civilians by the Imperial Japanese Army.
Shining a light on a crime less known than many other events that led to the Second World War (at least in the west), Chuan's black-and-white must-see is a devastating display of war's toll, a painfully vital story that needs to be seen to be believed.
There are no battlefields here, no gunfights, no politics. City of Life and Death is a personal portrait of everyday people caught in a war they want no part in, doomed to pay the ultimate price for the violence of others.
Grand and intimate in equal measure - a human story that paints striking pictures of fiery destruction - City of Life and Death is a must for anyone wishing to know more about the forgotten cost of war, as well as a stirring work of cinematic art.