The radar and electric boards, lightning, thigh-suffocating spaces, moments of crisis and despair, and breathable air running out — these are the hardships characters in submarine films must face. These high-tension machines are usually deployed in war endeavors and put those operating them in risky situations where their choices will mean life or death. The crews behind submarines are essentially blind to most senses, going off into the darkness with their sonar as their eyes. The daunting scenarios that encompass everything that is submarine-related would crush nearly anyone.

The films portraying those courageous individuals aboard these underwater vessels during wartime have resorted to precise technical filmmaking, great acting, and building claustrophobic tension to bring the dangerous lives of sailors aboard submarines to screens around the world. Here are the best films depicting submarines at war.

Updated on May 18, 2024: If you're a fan of submarine war films, then you will be happy to know that this article has been updated by Samuel Cormier with additional content.

15 Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

Clark Gable leads in Run Silent, Run Deep, a WWII tale of a submarine captain looking for revenge. Commander P.J. Richardson (Gable) finally gets a chance to commandeer a submarine again, after his prior one was sunk by a Japanese destroyer, sending him to a desk job for over a year. In this new chance at proving himself, Richardson goes full in, looking to sink said destroyer, no matter the cost or how reckless his actions might be towards his crew.

Run Silent, Rub Deep Showcases Great Filmmaking Techniques

Run Silent, Rub Deep is surprisingly fairly similar, technically speaking, to more recent submarine films as the shots are quite familiar. Though it had a lot of star power and was directed by the great Robert Wise, the film was a box office failure and did not fare that well with critics. However, watching it today, it is an incredible testament to just how many techniques were used and invented during the Golden Age of cinema in order to build the appropriate sets which help to convey the tension and anxiety of working on a submarine under the iron fist of a revenge-fueled captain.

14 Operation Pacific (1951)

John Wayne was not only keen on portraying stories of the Old West, but also wars. Operation Pacific, directed by George Waggner, finds him as Duke Gifford, the second in command of a submarine with failing torpedoes that can’t seem to do any damage to Japanese destroyers in WWII. At the same time, he struggles to regain the love of his ex-wife Mary (Patricia Neal), now engaged to his commander’s brother Bob (Philip Carey). Ward Bond plays the straight-minded captain of the ship, John "Pop" Perry.

Operation Pacific Has a Captivating Portrayal of Anxiety

While the entire film does not take place on a submarine, Operation Pacific still earns its rightful spot on this list due to its captivating portrayal of the anxiety of this specific time period in WWII in Pearl Harbor. Part of the story is about romance and the movie finishes on a high note, so this may be a perfect entry into submarine movies for those who may not have much affinity with them. Following exactly what a Wayne war film is, being overtly patriotic, heroic, and nationalistic, Operation Pacific succeeds at making an entertaining and, at times, humorous war drama.

13 K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson star in Kathryn Bigelow’s K-19: The Widowmaker, which follows the story of Russia’s K-19 nuclear submarine launched in 1961, at the time one of the Soviets' greatest technological achievements. Captain Alexi Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) is in command of the ship on its maiden voyage to test its nuclear capabilities in the Arctic and then towards the Atlantic on patrol. However, the vessel’s crew soon learn that the submarine’s nuclear reactor is leaking and that it could kill all of them and lead to a catastrophic explosion which could spark WWIII.

K-19: The Widowmaker Has Great Submarine Shots

K-19: The Widowmaker tanked at the box office after its release and received criticism for being a dramatized and inaccurate account of the true story of K19. However, it is a proverbial Hollywood spin on the story and remains a noteworthy film within the submarine war film genre, with some great modern shots of a submarine over and underwater. Ford and Neeson show incredible chemistry and bounce dialogue off each other intensely in their only big project together outside of Star Wars. K-19: The Widowmaker is an epic, intense, and wildly entertaining watch.

12 Kursk: The Last Mission (2018)

Kursk: The Last Mission, also known as The Command, directed by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, explores another Soviet submarine incident. The K-141 Kursk, a Russian submarine, was left stranded at the bottom of the ocean after an explosion killed most of the vessel’s crew and resulted in severe damage to the sub, leaving it languishing in the depths of the sea with the surviving crew members desperately in need of rescue. Colin Firth, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Léa Seydoux star as the main characters.

Kursk: The Last Mission Has Amazing Cinematography

The plot is based on the true story of a naval incident from the year 2000 that took place in the Barents Sea off the coast of Russia, but plays out much more dramatically in the movie. The film was released in 2018, and received mixed reviews, most praising its compelling cinematography and intense pacing of the action, while some were too rebuked by the unabashedly anti-Russian narrative. No matter what, Kursk: The Last Mission is still one of the most vivid submarine-themed movies ever depicted. It was also legendary actor Max von Sydow's last film released before his passing in 2020 (Greek drama Echoes of the Past came out in 2021, posthumously).

11 Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (2005)

Lorelei: The Witch of the Ocean is an intense Japanese thriller by Shinji Higuchi as his directorial debut. In it, the Imperial Japanese Navy attempts to save Tokyo from a third atomic bomb right after the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As mission chef Commander Masami (Yakusho Kōji) attempts to use the I-507 gifted by the falling Nazi empire, he also needs to deal with the two suicide corps members sent onboard with him, and a mysterious teenage girl whose allegiance is unclear. It is refreshing to see the opposite perspective from films such as Destination Tokyo or Torpedo Run without being overly nationalist or propagandist.

Lorelei: The Witch of the Ocean Made Bold Stylistic Choices

Using some traditional Japanese methods of storytelling and cinematography, Lorelei: The Witch of the Ocean was primarily aimed at a Japanese audience, and the average foreign viewer may be thrown off by it. With that said, it did break away from the rules in place a bit, by making a lot of stylistic choices that borrow from Western cinema and even manga. This can particularly be felt in the way that underwater explosions are portrayed, with violent camera shakes and low, muffled booms. Lorelei: The Witch of the Ocean was the highest-grossing film in Japan during the week of its release and grossed exactly twice its ¥1.2 billion budget.

10 Crimson Tide (1995)

Crimson Tide is set right at the end of the Cold War, and explores the ramifications of the proxy conflicts fought throughout the world by the United States and the Soviet Union. Right after the dismantlement of the USSR, a civil war starts in Russia due to the ongoing conflict in Chechnya. An ultranationalist rebel takes control and threatens to launch nuclear missiles at the United States and Japan. The plot finds Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington as a captain and first officer, respectively, struggling with making the right decision regarding the use of nuclear weapons aboard a US submarine. The story is fictional, but parallels a real incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis (the B-59 submarine incident).

Crimson Tide Benefits From Phenomenal Writing

If the threat of WWIII was not enough, Crimson Tide takes the anxiety further by making most of the action take place on a submarine. The writing is truly phenomenal, putting the viewer at the center of the nerve-wracking psychological battle between its leads, and making them more scared than if it was a horror movie. The film also features excellent cinematography, is dark and moody, and makes use of dirty shots (where the main action is obstructed by an object in front of the camera), contributing even more to the constricted nature of the submarine.

9 Torpedo Run (1958)