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During the first half of the 20th century, many navies constructed or planned to build battlecruisers: large capital ships with greater speed but less armor than dreadnought battleships. The first battlecruisers, the Invincible class, were championed by the British First Sea Lord John Fisher and appeared in 1908, two years after the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought. In the same year, Germany responded with its own battlecruiser, SMS Von der Tann. Over the next decade, Britain and Germany built an additional twelve and six battlecruisers, respectively. Other nations joined them: HMAS Australia entered service for the Royal Australian Navy in 1913, Japan constructed four ships of the Kongō class from 1911 through 1915, and in late 1912 Russia laid down the four Borodino-class battlecruisers, though they were never completed. Two countries considered acquiring battlecruisers in this time, but chose not to: France looked at several battlecruiser design studies in 1913 and 1914, and the United States ordered six Lexington-class battlecruisers in 1916 that were never built.

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The Kaiserliche Marine, the navy of the German Empire, built a series of battlecruisers in the first half of the 20th century. The battlecruiser type was an outgrowth of older armored cruiser designs; they were intended to scout for the main battle fleet and attack the reconnaissance forces of opposing fleets. Kaiser Wilhelm II insisted that the new battlecruisers be able to fight in the line of battle with battleships to counter Germany's numerical inferiority.

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The Imperial Japanese Navy (大日本帝国海軍) built four battlecruisers, with plans for an additional four, during the first decades of the 20th century. The battlecruiser was an outgrowth of the armoured cruiser concept, which had proved highly successful against the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. In the aftermath, the Japanese immediately turned their focus to the two remaining rivals for imperial dominance in the Pacific Ocean: Britain and the United States. Japanese naval planners calculated that in any conflict with the U.S. Navy, Japan would need a fleet at least 70 percent as strong as the United States' in order to emerge victorious. To that end, the concept of the Eight-Eight fleet was developed, where eight battleships and eight battlecruisers would form a cohesive battle line. Similar to the German Imperial Navy and in contrast to the Royal Navy, the Japanese envisioned and designed battlecruisers that could operate alongside more heavily armoured battleships to counter numerical superiority.

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The battlecruiser was the brainchild of Admiral Sir John ("Jacky") Fisher, the man who had sponsored the construction of the world's first "all big gun" warship, HMS Dreadnought. He visualised a new breed of warship with the armament of a battleship, but faster, lighter, and less heavily armoured. The first three battlecruisers, the Invincible class, were laid down while Dreadnought was being built in 1906.

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After the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russian Naval General Staff decided that it needed a squadron of fast "armored cruisers" that could use their speed to maneuver into position to engage the head of the enemy's battle line, much as Admiral Tōgō had done during the Battle of Tsushima against the Russian fleet. This concept was very different from the primary roles for the battlecruiser envisioned by the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German High Seas Fleet, which consisted of scouting for the main battle fleet and attacking enemy reconnaissance forces. The Royal Navy came to the same conclusion and developed the Queen Elizabeth-class fast battleships that could force battle on an enemy fleet and had enough protection to attack any type of ship. However, World War I and the Russian Civil War interrupted the construction of the Russian Borodino-class ships and all were scrapped.

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Sunken battlecruisers are large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century that were either destroyed in battle, scuttled, or destroyed in a weapon test. They were similar in size and cost to a battleship, and typically carried the same kind of heavy guns, but battlecruisers generally carried less armor and were faster. The first battlecruisers were developed in the United Kingdom in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armored cruiser, at the same time the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armored cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, their opponents became ships of their own type, not slower, weaker vessels.

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This is a list of battlecruisers of World War II. A battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and carried similar armament to battleships, but they generally carried less armour to obtain faster speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.