Best post-war movie ever.
Another good one, not as much a pure war movie as it is a historical movie with a war happening in the background, is Downfall.
Of course everybody knows the scene where Hitler clears the room and screams at his generals, which was used in memes all over social media about a decade ago, but the movie overall is really good.
I’ll toss in:
Operation Petticoat
The Wackiest Ship In the Army
Father Goose
And in a more serious vein:
Gallipoli
The Odd Angry Shot
The Lighthorsemen
Gettysburg
The Horse Soldiers
Letters From Iwo Jima
Flags of Our Fathers
My dad urged me to watch it on TV one night when I was 20. He said “Once you see it, you’ll never forget it.” He was right!
The same thing happened with my mother and Objective: Burma. Those two movies are among the ones at the top of my list.
Waterloo and (if you can sit through the whole eight hours*) War and Peace, both directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. They must be seen in a cinema, and not on TV.
*If you can’t, then at least watch the Battle of Borodino.
War is a massive complicated confusing endeavor, a good movie by definition can’t be.
Many mentioned above I enjoy, but for the ‘best’.
Guns at Batasi is my pick. Laser focus on a small group of soldiers in the middle of a civil war in Africa.
Shout out to Hart’s War also for keeping the audience on their toes.
A Midnight Clear doesn’t get the love it deserves either.
I’ll pair Gallipoli with Breaker Morant. And add The King of Hearts.
Movies that need to be made:
- Camerone
- von Lettow-Vorbeck
- HMS Mimi and Toutou
One more that has to be considered, The General.
A few years ago, I was chatting with a friend and the subject of Academy Awards to non-professional actors came up. That, of course, led to Harold Russell, who won two Oscars for his performance in The Best Years of Our Lives. My friend posted Russell’s page from findagrave and it turns out he’s buried in a town I travel through fairly often. I had some time there, and searched through the town cemetery until I found his grave. I read up on him a little bit; sounds like an interesting guy.
King of Hearts
It’s been a long time, but Oh, What a Lovely War was a great one.
3 Kings is first class.
I concur here:
I also like :
Saving Private Ryan
55 days at Peking
Zulu
absolutely.
My fave is the director’s cut of Das Boot.
The Deer Hunter. I haven’t served in the military or watched dozens of films. This film blew me away, however.
I read about his contemporary Felix von Luckner (“Der Seeteufel”) when I was in fifth grade. I’d love to see a movie about him and the Seeadler.
Surprised no one has mentioned Lawrence of Arabia yet.
Wow we’re old. Not many 21st century movies.
I’ve seen maybe seven or eight…
Had to look this one up. I first thought it might be Shake Hands with the Devil with James Cagney (1959).
Dunkirk and 1917 were mentioned. Black Hawk Down, Jarhead, Letters from Iwo Jima, Master and Commander, The Last Samurai, and 300 are also good.
If you meant based off of 21st century wars, I’d add:
The Hurt Locker
Zero Dark Thirty
American Sniper
Green Zone
A few not mentioned:
Platoon
Glory
Last of the Mohicans
Possibly pushing the definition of war movie - The Lord of the Flies [original 1963 version].
If that is not allowed, I’ve always liked The Longest Day, and the multi-person perspective it introduced to try to give you a sense of the massively complicated story of what happened.
Since we have a number of 20th century traditional war movies, I wanted to mention Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Not because it’s particularly realistic in most ways, but because it makes the point that for all the hero’s, villains, and plain simple folks caught up in the war, that peace may always be elusive. Anyway, just a personal thought.