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.
War movies huh …
In no particular order :
[ul]
[li]The Longest Day[/li][li]Tora Tora Tora[/li][li]A Bridge to Far[/li][li]Paths of Glory[/li][li]Glory[/li][li]Das Boot[/li][li]The Enemy Below[/li][li]Full Metal Jacket[/li][li]Platoon[/li][li]It’s not a movie but Blackadder goes Forth is class .[/li][/ul]
My favorite is The Odessa File with Michael Caine
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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…
Braveheart and Three Kings. I don’t know if this can be considered “war” movie, but I liked Dead Presidents as well.
ReswrvoirDog sez:
A wonderful movie. I found it to be heart-wrenching.
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.
Oh no! I left off two Australian masterpieces (those Aussies know how to make war movies):
**Gallipoli
Breaker Morant**
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
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)
Zulu
das Boot
Apocalypse Now
55 Days @ Peking
Longest day/SPR
Khartoum
FMJ stunk
How is U571?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.