Nazis suck. Fascism sucks. If you want to see some Nazis get what's coming to them, the World War II horror film Overlord is now playing in theaters. But if that's still not enough Nazi ass-kicking for you, here's a list of feel-good catharsis for when you're feeling pissed off about Aryans and authority.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1981 and 1989, dir. Steven Spielberg)
If adventure has a name, it's "Nazis Get Hurt or Killed." I don't think you need a big diatribe on Indiana Jones, but hurting the Third Reich is as iconic to old Henry as the whip and fedora. It's why these two are always considered the best of the franchise. Anyway, I'll just assume that if you're reading this, you've seen these movies.
Nazi Suffer Factor: 10/10. It would be a 10 just for Toht's face getting melted in Raiders, but more get shot, punched, and shredded by plane rotors. This is why I prefer Indy to Han Solo.
DEAD BANG (1989, dir. John Frankenheimer)
When a black convenience store clerk is murdered by a white supremacist, L.A. cop Don Johnson is on the case. He's so on the case that he derails Bob Balaban's Christmas for help and assaults his boss (Michael Jeter!) so he won't lose the case. Eventually, the trail leads to a "white and pure" cabal of neo-Nazis in Colorado that isn't welcoming to TV's Sonny Crockett. He enlists black sheriff Tim Reid and his all-black deputy team to kick the Fourth Reich's ass. The script teeters on the brink of a TV movie with squibs and f-bombs, but the great Frankenheimer keeps the pacing well-oiled. Admittedly, the trailer is better than the movie, but the movie delivers the goods.
Nazi Suffer Factor: 6/10. Johnson pukes after a foot chase with one of the villains, but once he teams up with Reid, Hitler's grave gets pissed on good.
THE ROCKETEER (1991, dir. Joe Johnston)
Studios' responses to Batman were to invoke two things: an impressionistic ad campaign and Art Deco production design. The Rocketeer has a lot going for it. It's a rousing adventure with an enviable cast, one of James Horner's best scores, and stunning action sequences. Unfortunately, Americans in the summer of 1991 preferred Kevin Costner's intermittent English accent and Robin Hood. Nazism invades Hollywood in the form of sniveling Errol Flynn type Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton). While Sinclair is fictional, his presented credentials make him a more viable turncoat than James Woods or Steven Seagal. Johnston, who won an Oscar for Raiders' visual effects, later helmed more Nazi ass-kicking twenty years later in Captain America: The First Avenger. However, that has been excluded due to the multitude of non-human Nazis.
Nazi Suffer Factor: 3/10. The Rocketeer spends most of his adventures on the homefront and a lot is going on in the film. Johnston saves the fire sale for the end, where plenty of fascists meet their end on a blimp—Sinclair's death is particularly great.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic has stayed riper than ever since its debut almost a decade ago. While we get Christoph Waltz's complex, sinister-but-endearing Hans Landa as the focus Nazi, Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) conspire to exact bloody vengeance on the Third Reich. The film is a masterpiece, but its true calling is the show-stopping final chapter. In traditional Tarantino fashion, it subverts, distorts, and rewards your expectations. It's still a bingo!
Nazi Suffer Factor: 700/10. Between the Basterds, the Bear Jew, the recruitment a pissed off rogue Nazi to the Basterds' rank, and Shoshanna crashing the Nation's Pride premiere, there's no end to the carnage Tarantino unleashes. They even kill Hitler! Had Tarantino had stuck with the originally scripted idea of Hitler getting blown out of his seat by a bomb under it, sending him into the fire behind the screen, this would be a seven thousand out of ten.
DANGER 5 (TV series, 2012-15; created by Dario Russo and David Ashby)
One of the most unique series of the decade, this demented mashup of Inglourious Basterds and Team America resets World War II to the 1960s. A mod squad of commandos are ordered by Colonel Chestbridge, a human-sized eagle, to "as always, kill Hitler!" Der Fuhrer cooks up casino scams, kaiju monsters, and resurrected dinosaurs to win the war, but the team has other plans. The show gets even better in the second season, inexplicably set in the 1980s. Hitler returns with a vengeance with ninjas, cocaine cartels, zombies, naive high schoolers, and the Soviet Union on his side. He even develops chainsaw hands and uses a shark as a weapon. Brace yourself for the Back to the Future Part II series finale, a Back to the Future Part II homage, that is, if that sequel was David Lynch directing a Troma movie. Take that, Stranger Things!
Nazi Suffer Factor: 8/10. While the show is near perfect and its Nazi assaults prime, Hitler just can't die soon enough. But his clumsy escapes are never not funny.
GREEN ROOM (2016, dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
One of the most relevant genre films of the last 25 years, Green Room isn't just a potent allegory but arguably the best Die Hard ripoff ever made. A punk band witnesses a murder while performing at a neo-Nazi bar in rural Oregon. Hell breaks loose. That's your movie. Directed with gruesome, claustrophobic precision, the breathless pacing and unglamorous villains cement its keep. Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Alia Shawkat give empathetic performances as the reluctant heroes, but it's Patrick Stewart who gives the performance of a lifetime. Stewart's ubiquity as Picard and Professor X has made it hard to remember he's played villains before. However, he never played anyone this cruel or emotionless. Sometimes, the key to playing a good villain is having a reason to feel for him. Stewart, however, is so good at evil that you're waiting for him to earn his death.
Nazi Suffer Factor: 9/10. It's not a 10 because some awful things happen to the heroes, but the graphic headshots, a disembowelment, and the "You were so scary at night" bit in the climax bring the pain.
THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR (2016, dir. James DeMonaco)
The first movie is a godawful home invasion movie. The second one is an amusing update of C-list Italian dystopian sci-fi movies. The third try on the franchise is the charm. After his Ultimate Punisher origin story, Frank Grillo returns from Anarchy to protect Not Hillary Clinton (Elizabeth Mitchell) from psycho teenyboppers, literal Nazi Secret Service mercenaries, and a cult of old white politicians (led by Raymond J. Barry) that get their kicks watching executions on stage. Meanwhile, hapless shopkeeper Mykelti Williamson loses his Purge insurance (yes, that is a thing) and soon enough, shrimp ain't the only thing Bubba gives a shit about. About as subtle as most Twitter accounts, The Purge: Election Year is Death Wish 3 for blue states.
Nazi Suffer Factor: 10/10. Forget a basket, an industrial storage unit of deplorables gets taken out here.
