Personally I would have suggested Sergeant York for the WW I movie. Picking one which had nothing whatsoever to do with the U.S. seems quite off. Not to say that the movie he picked was a bad one, it is a great film, but the theme of the list is U.S. history.
Trouble with attempting to learn history through movies—even great movies—is that they throw NO light on causes. “Sergeant York” promotes the preposterous notion that WWI had something to do with fighting tyranny. “The Grapes of Wrath” throws NO light on the causes of the Smoot-Hawley-Hoover-Roosevelt-Federal Reserve Depression.