Valkyrie

Valkyrie (2008) is a war thriller directed by Bryan Singer — watch it online on iFILM. Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a Wehrmacht officer who lost an eye and three fingers in Tunisia and came back to Berlin not for a medal but to bury the regime. Produced jointly by United Artists and Germany's Achte Babelsberg Film, the picture reconstructs the real events of July 1944 with an unusually large ensemble cast.

Stauffenberg links up with a network of conspirators inside the German military: General Olbricht (Bill Nighy), Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), Ludwig Beck (Terence Stamp), signals chief Fellgiebel (Eddie Izzard). Operation Valkyrie was the existing emergency plan that the group intended to flip — using the Reserve Army to seize Berlin the moment the explosion went off. Tom Wilkinson plays the calculating General Fromm, and Thomas Kretschmann is the loyalist sent to crush the coup.

Singer frames the story as a countdown, not a character study: the audience already knows July 20th failed, but the film earns its 121 minutes by tightening the screws on every decision Stauffenberg makes. Stream Valkyrie (2008) in full on iFILM.