One question inevitably works its way into any serious discussion of pacifism: "What about Hitler?" It’s all well and good to object to a war whose morality is obviously in doubt, but what about one where the ends seem unassailable? Americans as a whole don’t take kindly to principle; a nation of negotiators, we prefer pragmatism to absolutes. (Try arguing from a moral standpoint, like opposing the death penalty not because it’s ineffective or haphazard, but because it’s wrong, and most people simply get confused.) Principles, by definition, are principles only if they stand in the face of the harshest opposition, and there’s been no greater test to the ideals of anti-war Americans than World War II. Rick Tejada-Flores and Judith Ehrlich’s documentary profiles nine men, many of them Quakers or Mennonites, who fought for and won the then-new status of conscientious objector. (In World War I, men who resisted the draft were simply jailed.) Through their stories — including that of retired Haverford College President Stephen G. Cary — and through copious historical documentation, the film recalls the varied ways in which conscientious objectors resisted the war and still struggled to prove their bravery. In some cases, this meant volunteering for potentially deadly medical experiments — former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recalls administering some of the tests — and risky jobs as parachuting "smoke jumpers." The Good War spends too much time proving its subjects’ dedication and not enough explaining its roots; this is one documentary that could have used more talking heads. But there’s no question that this is the right time to remind people that doves can be just as heroic as hawks, and without nearly the same kind of public acclaim.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

(Fri., Jan. 18, 6:30 p.m., $8, German Society of PA, 611 Spring Garden St., 215-627-2332, www.germansociety.org)

If those moral jawbreakers aren’t enough for you, try this fascinatingly thorny documentary on for size. Riefenstahl, sometimes called "Hitler’s handmaiden," is often acknowledged as one of the most gifted and lyrical filmmakers ever to peer through a lens. There’s just one catch: Her best movies are Nazi propaganda. In movies like Triumph of the Will (1934) and The Olympiad (1938), Riefenstahl glorified the fascist ideal, using footage of Nazi rallies and Aryan athletes to create a kind of anti-individualist visual poetry where bodies lose all specificity. Director Ray Müller declines to pillory his subject, instead allowing Riefenstahl to present herself in all her contradictions. The result is often maddening, particularly Riefenstahl’s oft-repeated claims that she was unaware of the use to which her work would be put, and that the movies are solely aesthetic and have no political content. The movie (which will be shown on video) doesn’t strain to provide answers that will never come, but that matters less than its determination to ask the right question and give Riefenstahl as much rope as she desires. Eight bucks gets you the movie as well as "a generous buffet and homemade soups."

Showgirls

(Sat., Jan. 19 and Fri., Jan. 25, 8:15 p.m., $10, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org)

Chumley and Carlota return with another cinematic bitchfest, this time giving the business to Paul Verhoeven’s hilariously sleazy train wreck. (Given the director’s penchant for ribald humor, you have to wonder if he wasn’t in on the joke just a little bit, but I’m not sure that helps.) Watch for the months ahead, too, when the duo will move onto the Prince’s main stage (and into 35mm) with screenings of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Feb. 15-16) and Now, Voyager (Mar. 15). Let’s just hope they’ve learned to curb their tongues by March, or they’re going to have a whole bunch of pissy Bette Davis fans on their hands.

Wet Hot American Summer

Yeah, so it’s wide of the mark by about two decades, but this satire of ’80s summer-camp movies hits home even if you can’t tell Meatballs from Meatballs 4. Despite that much of the cast is drawn from aggressively irritating New York comedy ensembles (The State, the Upright Citizens Brigade, Saturday Night Live) the movie mostly manages to avoid drowning in its own hipness, aided immeasurably by the appealing performances of Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde Pierce, who play a shy, awkward summer camp director and a shy, awkward astronomy professor who spend most of the movie trying to bumble their way into bed with each other. Michael Showalter and David Wain’s script isn’t a particularly noble thing — it’s painfully obvious the movie is mainly a collection of sketches intercut to hide that it’s a collection of sketches — but luckily, most of them are flat-out hilarious. Check Law and Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni as a shellshocked cook who takes advice from a can of vegetables, or Paul Rudd as a horned-out teen whose make-out technique looks like he’s trying to get caramel out of his teeth. Building to a guffaw-inducing climax that hijacks the end of just about every teen movie known to man, Wet Hot is like the rite of passage to which so many teen movies build: sloppy, uncertain, but satisfying and funny as hell.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I’ve said a lot about John Cameron Mitchell’s genderfuck glam-rock extravaganza, not least that it was one of last year’s best movies. But in case you haven’t already seen it, DO IT NOW. The DVD comes with commentary by Mitchell and the movie’s cinematographer, a couple of deleted scenes and an unusually wide-ranging and informative featurette called Whether You Like It or Not: The Story of Hedwig, which goes all the way back to the show’s seven-year-old beginnings, when Mitchell would take the stage as Hedwig at drag nights without first cluing in the audience. (In fact, "featurette" isn’t really the right word, since it’s about as long as the movie itself.) An extra that truly deserves the tag, the documentary is almost as enthralling as the movie itself, more of a companion piece than a mere supplement.

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