Excellent movie. I love Ken Loach’s politics, and many scenes in the movie stick very closely to Orwell’s descriptions, especially the debates over collectivism. Loach also did The Wind that Shakes the Barley, about the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s.
Other Spanish Civil War movies include Libertarias (sometimes marketed as Juegos de Guerra) and For Whom the Bell Tolls. And while it’s not a war movie, per se, Pan’s Labyrinth is set during the war and its fantasy is based, in considerable measure, on war-time fears and attitudes.
Technically inter-Crusades, taking place in 1184 between the Second and Third Crusades, in the Crusader Kingdoms.
I was coming into the thread to mention Breaker Morant, actually.
There’s also that “Attila” miniseries with Gerard Butler that covers the Hunnic invasion of Rome in the 5th Century, with Powers Boothe as Flavius Aetius.
Here’s a good list of movies that probably cover any war you might choose:
Movie from 1987 about the war in Nicaragua. No, not the Contra War, the war from the 1850s. Alex Cox deliberately added anachronisms like helicopters, Time magazine, and cars to draw comparisons to the then-current conflict there.
Guns at Batasi is about an English Battalion stationed in a fictional African nation at the moment of it’s independence and the military turmoil that involves. Originally a book called The Siege of Battersea by Robert Holles, the author spent a career in the military, fought in Korea, and grew up under the stern eye of his father a sergeant major.
While it is fictitious, the movie is fantastic and probably presents a more accurate portrayal of military service than many other war movies.
Red Cliff, based on the Battle of Red Cliffs. Which is probably the biggest naval battle you’ve never heard of, and a candidate for the biggest one in history. (Although Cape Ecnomus is also in with a shout for those crowns. There’s no movie featuring that one, though, as far as I know.)
The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 is also a candidate, depending on how you define “biggest.” It had more deaths than these three put together.
No-one’s listed a movie about this war, i don’t think, although i’ll bet that some have been made in Japan, given the (rather surprising, to many people at the time) Japanese victory.
