Best War Movie(s)

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

I'm a big fan of these, love Midway and Torra Torra Torra, etc. Alas, my husband has much less interest in the genre. Not sure I could develop a top ten or top three without waffling and agonizing. Love to have others take a stab at it.

[yojimbo]

War movies huh ..

In no particular order :

The Longest Day
Tora Tora Tora
A Bridge to Far
Paths of Glory
Glory
Das Boot
The Enemy Below
Full Metal Jacket
Platoon
It's not a movie but Blackadder goes Forth is class .

[BarnStormer]

My favorite is The Odessa File with Michael Caine

[Ozone]

I've never been a huge war movie fan, so a war movie has to be pretty good for me to like it. I really liked The Big Red One. Platoon wasn't bad. I don't know if it's really considered a "war" movie, but how about Red Dawn.

[Floompy]

By far, my favorite war movie is The Deerhunter! And not far behind, Apocalypse Now. Vietnam is a very interesting war for me. I thought Platoon was good, but was too upset when Johnny Depp was shot. :)

[jayron 32]

Bridge Over the River Kwai always struck me as a great film (if you can keep from saying things like "You'll never find a more wrteched hive of scum and vilainy!")

Full Metal Jacket is quality, but only for the "first act" I dig Lee Ermey.

Apocalypse Now is pretty cool too, but Brando is WAY over the top.

For satire, it doesn't get much better than Dr. Strangelove.

[Crusoe]

A German movie, made in the early 1990s, called Stalingrad. It has the violence of Saving Private Ryan, but with a genuine sense of hopelessness and despair - everyone dies, shot, burned, blown in half or just freezing to death as the Russians encircle the city.

[ReservoirDog]

Ooh! Ooh! I got one!

I like to mention this one to fans of the genre, because it doesn't seem to be that well known.

It's a WWII flick that came out probably about ten years ago, called A Midnight Clear, and I thought it was very good. It has Gary Sinise and Ethan Hawke, and it's about a group of Americans in France in 1944 who come across a group of German soldiers...

I don't want to give anything away... Oh, hang on.. Here you go...

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102443

[vandal]

Braveheart and Three Kings. I don't know if this can be considered "war" movie, but I liked Dead Presidents as well.

[Mr. Cynical]

ReswrvoirDog sez:

It's a WWII flick that came out probably about ten years ago, called A Midnight Clear, and I thought it was very good. It has Gary Sinise and Ethan Hawke, and it's about a group of Americans in France in 1944 who come across a group of German soldiers...


A wonderful movie. I found it to be heart-wrenching.

[Spoke]

Saving Private Ryan has claimed the top spot as best war movie of all time. It is head and shoulders above all others in my book.

Oddly enough, I think Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox is slowly becoming my favorite Viet Nam movie. I watched it again last week on one of the movie channels, and I seem to enjoy it more with each viewing.

I like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, but they both come off as a bit overblown and pretentious.

If Braveheart counts as a war movie, it's on my list too, along with Last of the Mohicans (French and Indian War).

I must also mention Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia.

[Spoke]

Oh no! I left off two Australian masterpieces (those Aussies know how to make war movies):

Gallipoli

Breaker Morant

[bunnymom]

My very favorite one is called "The boys in Company C".Set in boot camp in the Vietnam era.
And my very fav drill seargent,R.Lee Ermey.I love that man!
Here is the IDMB page on it:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077270

[TomH]

In no particular order:

Zulu (Cy Endfield, 1963);

The Hill (Sidney Lumet, ?1962) - arguably not a war movie, but relies on the military setting for its themes;

Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1985)

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Zulu
das Boot
Apocalypse Now
55 Days @ Peking
Longest day/SPR
Khartoum

FMJ stunk

How is U571?

[KarlGauss]

Zulu, yes, of course. But don't forget The Great Escape and Paths of Glory.

In addition to the many fine choices listed in the other posts, I thought Hamburger Hill was also good.

[ricepad]

My personal fave is "The Big Red One", with Lee Marvin and Luke Skywalker...I mean Mark Hamill. 'Course, it has nothing to do with the movie...more because of how I say the title. Most folks say it, "The Big Red ONE", with emphasis on the last word. *I* say it, "The Big RED One", emphasis on the 'red', which drives Mrs. ricepad nuts.

[argyle87]

The greatest war movie ever made will always be Full Metal Jacket. No other film will ever capture the total Vietnam experience like that one. The scenes with the soldiers talking to the war journalist are awesome.

Coming in a painfully close second is Hamburger Hill. That one was a nail-biter, tear-jerker, and stomach-turner.

[panamajack]

Gotta agree that A Midnight Clear is the best.

Though not really a movie, I could fudge and say Branagh did film Henry V, and did a really good job of it. (The score is just awesome.)

Three Kings was the best movie of last year, and a good war movie.

Full Metal Jacket and Paths of Glory are up there too, or maybe I just like Kubrick a lot.

I really really liked All Quiet On The Western Front and Bridge on The River Kwai, too. The Cornelius Ryan book-movies (Bridge Too Far, Longest Day) are great just for the size of the cast (Sean Connery as the young Scottish soldier, even!). And the battle scenes in Kurosawa's Ran(Shakespeare again) are very impressive.


panama jack

______________

"One believes in the coming of war if one does not sufficiently abhor it." - Thomas Mann

[Eve]

I'm glad someone mentioned "All Quiet on the Western Front!" And I agree about "Black Adder Goes Fourth." I have a British friend who says that's the BEST depiction of WWI he's ever seen.

I might add "Hearts of the World" (1918), filmed partially at the Front by D.W. Griffith and starring not one but TWO Gishes, as well as Bobby Harron.

[kiffa]

Lawrence of Arabia - altho I won't consider this a war movie
Saving Pvt Ryan - because I heard that it was too real
CATCH 22 - because life is like that.

[Hello Again]

Kimberly Joy, can you explain your attraction to "Deerhunters?" I really wanted to like it but my reaction when I saw it was just... "so?"

Was I ruined by seeing more hard hitting vietnam war movies (like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket) first?

Why did they spend the first 45 minutes of the movie on the %@!$ wedding when the guy who got crippled basically faded out of the second half?? (Yeah, I know, Oh the humanity...)

help me like this movie, Kimbery joy!

[Saint Zero]

Bridge on the River Kwai (have the soundtrack,even)
The Big Red One
The Longest Day (Dang near every male hollywood star!)

My opinion on Vietnam war movies -- They Suck.

Braveheart is a good movie, just not too historically accurate. :) Saving Private Ryan has a great opening, and then another movie tacked on. Midway I liked.

[ReservoirDog]

Three Kings was the best movie of last year, and a good war movie.

I agree. I can't remember another recent film that was funnier, or sadder, or more thought-provoking, or more just plain fascinating visually.

It's a shame that it was not recognized by the Academy.

[RealityChuck]

By war:

Revolutionary War: The Time of Their Lives No battle scenes, but a charming flick, and much of it DOES take place during the revolution. And there's little real competition.
Civil War: Gettyburg
WWI: Paths of Glory and Oh, What a Lovely War
WWII: Hard to pick one. Maybe Das Boot
Korea: M*A*S*H
Vietnam: Apocolypse Now It's something of a mess, but so was the war.
Gulf War: Three Kings Probably number one on my list of war films.

Crimean War: Charge of the Light Brigade (Errol Flynn version). Historical bunk, but a fun film.
Sepoy Mutiny: Gunga Din More Errol Flynn
Indian Wars: Fort Apache John Wayne as a calvary Lieutenant whose sympathies are with the Indians. Henry Fonda as an utter bastard.
Napoleonic Wars Love and Death
Zulu War: Zulu

[Rodd Hill]

Wings, if only for all the real WWI gear, aircraft, etc., used;

couldn't forget Zulu, with (among other things) the classic portrayal of the British Army Colour-Sergeant by Nigel Green ("Mr. Witt, be quiet now, there's a good gentleman.");

Many bonzer Aussie flicks, such as Gallipolli, Light Horsemen, and of course Breaker Morant;

but there were a glut of really good British war films, mostly in the 1950s, but some earlier:

The Cruel Sea (1953): brilliant adaptation of Monserrat's novel of life on a British corvette;

In Which We Serve (1942): David Lean's great wartime Royal Navy epic, with Noel Coward's finest on-screen moment;

The Wooden Horse (1950): true story of ingenious tunnel escape from German POW camp;

The Colditz Story (1955): true story of escaping from the high-security castle POW camp;

The Dam Busters (1954): true-ish story of RAF raids on the Ruhr dams;

Cockleshell Heroes (1956): kayaking commandos mine German shipping (true story);

Corvette K-225 (1943): a story of a small ship in the Royal Canadian Navy;

Other faves:

Lifeboat (1944): Hitchcock, a bra-less Tallulah Bankhead...what's not to like?;

Stalag 17 (1953): Billy Wilder directs Bill Holden and Otto Preminger in the role he was born to play.

Some good bad war movies:

Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941): One of the worst movies of WWII but hilarious for bad accents and scenery-chewing by Larry Olivier; a U-boat crew runs thousands of miles across Canada (hint: guys, turn left, and there's the USA!)

Captains of the Clouds (1942): Cagney and Alan Hale (pre-skipper) are bush pilots who join the RCAF; classic schmaltz!

The best modern anti-war movies I've seen are

Oh, What a Lovely War (1966), based on Joan Littlewood's stage play, and starring every British actor. Ever. (Does anyone know if this is out on video or DVD yet??)

and weird but wonderful, How I Won the War: Richard Lester directs John Lennon as Trooper Gripweed (thus kicking off the granny glasses look), Michael (pre-"Phantom") Crawford, and almost every British character actor still around. "The British army has always fought the wily Pathan! Stripped mother-naked under the broiling sun..."

[Spoke]

Ah, well, if we're going to break it down war by war:

French and Indian War- Last of the Mohicans
Revolutionary War- Still waiting for a great one. Maybe The Patriot will be good. Why hasn't there been even one great movie about this war?
Texas War for Independence- The Alamo
Civil War- Glory
Indian Wars- Geronimo. Caught this one on cable a few nights ago, and was surprised at how good it was.
Spanish American War- Can't think of any good ones.
WWI- Gallipoli. Captures the waste and stupidity of that war.
WWII- European Theater- Saving Private Ryan
WWII- Pacific Theater- Bridge on the River Kwai
Korea- M*A*S*H (By default. There should be more movies about this war. There's a lot of dramatic material there, from the Pusan Perimeter, to the Inchon Landing, to The Frozen Chosin, to MacArthur vs. Truman. Nobody's made a good drama yet, though.)
Viet Nam- Casualties of War
Grenada- What was that Clint Eastwood movie- Heartbreak Ridge?
The Cold War- The Hunt for Red October
The Gulf War- Haven't seen any of these. Sounds like Three Kings fits the bill, though.
Boer War- Breaker Morant
Zulu War- Zulu

[kinoons]

I cannot believe that no one has said anything about "Patton"! I absolutely loved that movie. I even heard that when General Pattons daughter first saw the movie, with George C Scott adressing the troops infront of the large American flag, She thought for a moment it was actually her father. She said that the movie did a picture perfect depiction of him.

[JosephFinn]

To give two foreign-language classics their due:

Both by Eisenstein:
The Battleship Potemkin
Aleksandr Nevsky (Which, interestingly enough, is shown playing on a screen at the re-education camp in "Red Dawn").

Joseph

[Spoke]

Good save kinoons. Can't believe I forgot about Patton. I would put it at number 2 behind Saving Private Ryan.

Brings up an interesting point, though. Hey, [b]kiffa[/i], why wouldn't you consider Lawrence of Arabia a war movie? Seems to me it falls into the same category as Patton- a war movie which is long on character study and short on actual battle scenes.

[kiffa]

I think that Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best movies which looked not only at a very unique character it also dealt with power. While Jack Hawkins as Allenby was pretty good and Jose Ferrer as the Turkish officer raping the local men was outstanding, no one could possibly beat Claude Raines role as the true politico who knew in ins and outs of how to effectively use power, diplomacy and authority. The complete opposite was brilliantly shown when the Arab tribes men sat around or on the table in Damascus trying to run city govt services - not the skills that one learns romping in the desert.

Yes, I guess you could say that war is about power; but it is only one manifestation of it.

[kinoons]

"Patton" or Saving Ryans Privates, um, tough call. I would personally have to choose "Patton". "Saving Private Ryan" was an excellent movie, but the insite into the personality of General George S. Patton is worth more than the entertainment value of "Saving Private Ryan". Also, there is a lot of historical value to the movie "Patton". All things considered if you laid a copy of each in front of me, and told me I could watch one, I'd watch "Patton"

something I completely missed before, I also love "Last of the Mohicans". Not only is the movie excellent, it has one of the most wonderful soundtracks I've ever heard. I highly recommend picking it up.

[brachyrhynchos]

Since noone has mentioned it, I'll cast a vote for the 1945 movie A Walk in the Sun. It's been a long time since I've seen it, but as I recall, a platoon has to go blow up or capture a bridge someplace in Italy. Not a lot of action, but some of the BEST dialog (Richard Conte is great in this film). This was the movie that made me sit up and take notice of something different in filmdom when I was a kid.

[Ukulele Ike]

Sheeeeesh. To jump on the "No One's Mentioned THIS" bandwagon, I nominate Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937).

Not only the best war movies, but one of the best MOVIES, period.

[Icerigger]

In no particular order:

The Great Escape
Das Boot
The Caine Mutiny
The Cruel Sea
All Quiet on the Western Front

[DRY]

Braveheart is a good movie, just not too historically accurate. :)


Oh, I think that Braveheart is historically accurate, all right.

In the tradition of "1941" and "One Million Years B.C.", that is. I'll grudgingly admit that it's more historically accurate than those two.

But not by much.

However, it is a really good movie. If you count it as a war movie (tenuous, but hey, we're all entitled to an opinion) then it's one of my favorites.

Others include:
Midway
Tora Tora Tora
Hunt for Red October
The Caine Mutiny (How can you not love the trial scene where Humphrey Bogart loses it:

(rattling steel ball bearings in hand)
"I proved..with geometric logic...that a duplicate key to the icebox DID exist!"

Great stuff.

[billehunt]

Lawrence of Arabia - My favorite movie, war or other. Amazing script, acting, photography, directing, everything. Named my current company "Akaba" from that movie. "Akabas over there, Ali. It's only a matter of going."
Patton - Another great character study. "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
Saving Private Ryan - Those last two I consider more character studies than war movies. This has got to be the best war movie made. Really brings home the whole randomness of war.
Zulu - Dramatic stuff here.

Dr. Strangelove is also one of my favorites, but I can't classify that as a war movie.

[casdave]

The one with Kirk Douglas in it as a French WWI officer in the trenches was one of the best and one of Douglas's best too.

[stuyguy]

Battleground.

No huge stars, no overripe performances, no did-he-really-say-that? dialogue, and no Technicolor.

Just the best friggin' war movie ever made.




casdave: You're thinking Paths of Glory. Admittedly a great one, but it's got three of the four flaws listed above.

[HomeSlice]

Zulu
The Longest Day
Hunt for the Red October
Stripes :D

[Buddy Holly]

Saving Private Ryan: One of the greatest movies of all time, period. An important and relevant depiction of the World War II.
Three Kings: One of the most underrated and underappreciated films in recent memory, it was a tragedy this was overlooked by the academy at Oscar time.
Apocalypse Now: A visually and aurrally stunning modern adaptation of Heart of Darkness, this is not to be missed.
Dr. Strangelove: One of the funniest movies of all time, it's Kubrick at his best.
Paths of Glory: A much lesser known Kubrick film, but still excellent.
Also: various films by Akira Kurosawa depict samarai warfare brilliantly, and are worth enduring the subtitles.

[Kipper]

I'm suprised that no one has mentioned the Dino de Laurentius versin of Waterloo. If you can get throught the first half there are some terrific sweeping scenes using the Russian Army as extras.

I think the moment that Braveheart disapointed me was when they had the Battle of Stirling Bridge with no bridge!

[Sledman]

What about “Siege of Firebase Gloria” – If for no other reason than the line “Get back! Get the f--- back!”

Patton --- Too bad those terrible Police Academy movies ruined the soundtrack.

To Hell and Back -- Audie Murphy…say no more.

Glory!

Midway

I could go on and on.

These strike me off the top though.

[soulsling]

Bridge to far
Big Red One

[Crunchy Frog]

I have to agree with most of them mentioned here:

Lawrence of Arabia
Das Boot
Patton
Platoon
Saving Private Ryan
The Great Escape
Glory

And if you want satire?
How about the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup?

[Slithy Tove]

IIRC, the US military uses/ once used Twelve O-clock High as a training film in its leadership classes. That must bestow some sort of distinction to a war film.

[Sophocles]

I gotta say that one movie no-one else seems to have mentioned would be The Battle of Britain. Larry Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, the guy who played Goldfinger (here as Goering) and a whole slew of others, not to mention the entire Spanish Air force standing in for the Luftwaffe.
What is it about big war movies and Shakespeare that gets all the big names lining up?

[Guy Incognito]

"Bridge Over The River Kwai", "Platoon", and "Full Metal Jacket".

Might I also suggest "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"? I know, I know--spaghetti western, but it did skate around the edges of the Civil War.

[Henry]

Has anyone else seen Soldier of Orange? Great Dutch film about WWII.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

Thanks for helping me build a great "must see" list. I just rented A Midnight Clear. Arrrrrrrgh, depressing but very good.

[jamshid]

Whoa. Patton is exceptional, but I'm sure you've seen it, Cranky.

The movie I'd recommend that no one else has is, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence." Really moving.

[jb_farley]

oh you guys, you forgot one of my favorites:

Kelly's Heroes

[matt]

Danielinthewolvesden said:


How is U571?


Haven't seen it. All I can say is, don't make films about how the USA captured an ENIGMA machine, broke the encryption and shortened the war, and we won't make films about how the British invented the atomic bomb and dropped it on Japan.