The Winds of War / War and Remembrance
These were two made for TV miniseries back in the 80s. Both fairly epic productions based on the Herman Wouk novels of the same name. In my opinion, War and Remembrance was the bigger, more epic story and Winds was more like a prequel, but still good to watch them in chronological order rather than some screwed up Star Wars fashion.
In any event, both series tell the story of two families intertwined by WWII and the lead up to hostilities. Victor "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) is a career Naval officer who has the ear of FDR and gets set to various countries to get the straight scoop for the CinC. He has a lush wife and a couple of sons, one of whom also wants to be career navy and the younger son is more of a free spirit. While stationed abroad, the younger son Byron (Jan Michael Vincent) gets a job working for an American expatriate Jewish author named Aaron Jastrow, and marries his niece Natalie (Ali McGraw). The two series follow these interlinked families through the end of the war, with Winds ending at Pearl Harbor and Remembrance picking up from there. Ali McGraw is replaced by Jane Seymour in the second part, and several other actors change as well due to the fact that they were filmed 6 or 7 years apart.
While there is quite a bit of soap opera at times in this series, there is also a ton of real war footage, historical background, and scenes from all aspects of the conflict. One minute you're watching a conference with FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, the next you're in the middle of a submarine battle, then you're in Hitler's bunker, then you're watching the French resistance, then you're in Stalingrad. I found the whole thing to be fascinating. Especially poignant is how the elder Jastrow is accompanied by his niece Natalie as he at first is too stubborn to leave Europe when he has the chance, and then they are constantly on the run trying to stay out of Nazi captivity. Without spoiling anything, let me just tell you not to expect the "Hollywood Ending."
When I say its an epic production, just realize that the first series, Winds of War, is over 14 hours run time and the second series War and Remembrance is 27 hours long. Despite all that, I was sorry when it ended. I was struck by how good the production value of this series was, even by today's standards. What generally makes any series great is that there is time for far more character development and audience attachment than you can get in any 2 hour movie, which makes it that much more gut-wrenching and revolting when fate finally catches up to these people.
I was able to watch all the episodes for free on regular ol' youtube.