Best & Worst Second World War Movies ever made?

Pfc TAZ

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I would agree with most of the ones already listed. My all time fav is "The Longest Day"...I watch it every June 6th.

But, I would add most of John Wayne's movies were good war movies. Sure, he only played one role in all his movies and the supporting acting wasn't great, but they are entertaining. Where would we WWII movie fans be without the Duke!

I have seen some scathing reviews for "The Big Red One" in this thread and I gotta stand up for it. I saw it when it came out, as a kid, and LOVED it. I just bought it a few months ago and watched it again. It's still great! Sure, the Omaha beach stuff loses alot after SPR, but the rest of the movie held up great.
 

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Pfc TAZ said:
I would agree with most of the ones already listed. My all time fav is "The Longest Day"...I watch it every June 6th.

But, I would add most of John Wayne's movies were good war movies. Sure, he only played one role in all his movies and the supporting acting wasn't great, but they are entertaining. Where would we WWII movie fans be without the Duke!

I have seen some scathing reviews for "The Big Red One" in this thread and I gotta stand up for it. I saw it when it came out, as a kid, and LOVED it. I just bought it a few months ago and watched it again. It's still great! Sure, the Omaha beach stuff loses alot after SPR, but the rest of the movie held up great.
I'll second that, TBR1 is a classic movie, one of the first to show a realistic experience of a squad size unit and its individuals during the course of the war, as well as exploring the other side as soldiers doing the same job as the 'good guys'. There were movies before it that have done similar but not outside of Hollywood (i don't think so anyway, id like to be proven wrong if anyone knows of another). When the story has substance you can put up with the other minir innacuracies.
 

Wolfe Tone

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thnorth said:
Oh,yes; don't get me wrong. I am well read in the incompetence that commanded the carnage that surrounded that particular bit of the Anatolian Peninsula way back when. The Light Horse were ordered forward in a desperate attempt to keep the momentum of the offensive going after nearby units took an "operational pause." But while I prefer war flicks with razor-sharp historical accuracy, those films that balance historical fact with just enough human emotion to make all moviegoers shift uncomfortably in their seats, on the verge of fearful tears; they are what defines a good war film.

I don't mean to sound high-minded or pretentious, but I am in the U.S. Army Reserve, and since 2001 have served a year both in Afghanistan and Iraq. While we all push our cardboard men around the hexa-world of ASL, shouting with joy as we roll another pair of "eyes", I implore you as fellow human beings to keep in mind that, while it can be fun, ASL is only, I say again, only a game, played at a safe historical distance from the present-day version of the horrors of war. People say ASL is historically accurate, but believe me when I say that, as a window to the world, it has nothing to do with reality.

My apologies, but that sounded rather morbid, and way off topic. We were talking about cool war flicks. Have you guys ever seen "Battleground"? There's this scene, where this WWII GI is watching this curvatious French girl walk down the stairs, his eyes swinging right-to-left-to-right as her hips negotiated a tight turn, and suddenly...

Respectfully,
Good points TH. But in all the time I have been on this site I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people, indeed if not all, are very aware that gaming is just gaming and that War in reality is totally brutal.

Yet War as entertainment is obviously popular too, hence all these War films. Something in the human psyche wants to see it, usually men. But films like games of course are usually sanitised. Even something mildly brutal like SPR caused a stir. The vast majority of films on War don't show what weapons really to human flesh.

Years ago I worked over in London in a pub as a barman. There was this man used to drink there who had only one arm. Turned out he had it blown off at Dunkirk. The other customers told me that if he was in a pub that had a telly and a war film came on he became agitated and used to ask the barman to change the channel.

Got talking to him once, turned out he was originally from Dublin, but moved to England before the War.
 

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Here are some of the all time best.

1. The Great Escape - The one that starred Steve McQueen, not that other one.

2. Von Ryan's Express - Frank Sanatra stars as a Reserve officer who aids British POW's escape from an Italian POW camp.

3. The Caine Mutany - Stars Humphrey Bogart as a desk jockey who takes command of a DD. The movie is as good as the book IMHO.

4. Mr. Roberts - Stars Henry Fonda as a backwater transport officer who is trying to get transfered to a carrier group.

5. The Gun's of Navarone - Starring Gregory Peck.

6. The Bridge on the River Kwai - what can I say a good movie.

7. A Bridge too Far

8. Tora! Tora! Tora!

9. Saving Private Ryan/The Longest Day

10. Das Boot
 

Dicke Bertha

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Oh, someone mentioned "Die Brücke", "The Bridge". That is a terrible movie, really awful. And one of the best I have ever seen. Sad, really sad.

For Stalingrad movies, I recall seeing a German film from the fifties, "wollt ihr wie Hunde sterben" or something. About a German liason officer to the Rumanian army north or south of the 6th Army, he ends up dead inside the city. A bit pathetic but good, very sympathetic of the Rumanians, less so of the Germans.
 
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There was a simular thread on the old ACG forum. Here are my picks. I only include movies I have seen personally......

I would put Band of Brothers at the top of the list IF it was a movie, but it's a mini series.....

The Best WW II Movies

-Saving Private Ryan
-The Longest Day
-A Bridge Too Far
-Battleground
-The Great Escape
-Das Boot
-Stalag 17
-The Battle of Britain
-Empire of the Sun
-Schindler's List
-The Bridge on the River Kwai
-Mr. Roberts
-Kelly's Heroes
-Sahara
-The Big Red One
-The Sands of Iwo Jima
-The Enemy Below
-633 Squadron
-30 Seconds Over Tokyo
-Patton
-A Walk in the Sun
-Dark Blue World
-The Devil's Brigade
-Sink the Bismarck
-Where Eagle's Dare
-Tobruk
-Tora! Tora! Tora!
-Guadacanal Diary
-12 O'Clock High
-The Guns of Navaronne
-The Dirty Dozen
-Run Silent, Run Deep
-To Hell and Back
-The Dambusters
-The Desert Fox
-PT-109
-Hell in the Pacific
-In Harm's Way
-The Flying Tigers
-Catch-22
-The Heroes of Telemark
-Hell is For Heroes
-Memphis Belle
-Operation Crossbow
-Attack!
-Wings of Eagles
-None But the Brave
-The Halls of Montezuma
-Tuskegee Airmen
-The Bridge at Remagen
-Anzio
-Cockleshell Heroes

The Worst WW II Movies- A safe rule of thumb is anything with Nicholas Cage......

-Windtalkers
-Captain Corelli's Mandolin
-Pearl Harbor
-Enemy at the Gate's (though battle scenes are good)
-Midway
-U-571
-The Thin Red Line
-Battle of the Bulge
-Castle Keep
-Von Ryan's Express
 
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chrisvalla

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Just because you had to be on something to make sense of Castle Keep is no reason to relegate it to the bottom of the heap. :nuts:

Thankfully I have the priviledge of never having seen some on the loser lists (and no desire to).
 

michammer

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Lance Williams said:
There was a simular thread on the old ACG forum. Here are my picks. I only include movies I have seen personally......

I would put Band of Brothers at the top of the list IF it was a movie, but it's a mini series.....

The Best WW II Movies

-Saving Private Ryan
-The Longest Day
-A Bridge Too Far
-Battleground
-The Great Escape
-Das Boot
-Stalag 17
-The Battle of Britain
-Empire of the Sun
-Schindler's List
-The Bridge on the River Kwai
-Mr. Roberts
-Kelly's Heroes
-Sahara
-The Big Red One
-The Sands of Iwo Jima
-633 Squadron
-30 Seconds Over Tokyo
-Patton
-A Walk in the Sun
-Dark Blue World
-The Devil's Brigade
-Sink the Bismarck
-Where Eagle's Dare
-Tobruk
-Tora! Tora! Tora!
-Guadacanal Diary
-12 O'Clock High
-The Guns of Navaronne
-The Dirty Dozen
-To Hell and Back
-The Dambusters
-The Desert Fox
-The Flying Tigers
-Catch-22
-The Heroes of Telemark
-Hell is For Heroes
-Memphis Belle
-None But the Brave
-The Halls of Montezuma
-The Bridge at Remagen
-Anzio
-Cockleshell Heroes

The Worst WW II Movies- A safe rule of thumb is anything with Nicholas Cage......

-Windtalkers
-Captain Corelli's Mandolin
-Pearl Harbor
-Enemy at the Gate's (though battle scenes are good)
-Midway
-U-571
-The Thin Red Line
-Battle of the Bulge
-Castle Keep
-Von Ryan's Express
I agree with virtually all of your choices. I did enjoy Battle of the Bulge and the ORIGINAL black and white version of the Thin Red Line, but the newer version was garbage.

I agree with you comment about Cage - all his movies, not just his WWII movies, are utter #@$*!
 

Richa333

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Lance, you don't like ol' blue eyes in Von Ryan's Express??? heh heh just foolin' ya. Yeah we did have something like this in a thread over in the ACG (buried in the old FFZ?). But this is fun anyhoo!

BEST WW II movies:
--Saving Private Ryan (saw it once & it affected me so strongly I haven't been able to see it since)
--Das Boot (I love this movie - original or Director's cut)
--The Dirty Dozen & --Cockleshell Heroes (great character studies)
--Patton (see my icon!)

Also loved "Battle For Britain" & "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" for the same reason: MAN, those flight sequences with just the radio voice-over!!! OhMy, what heroes the RAF pilots were...

WORST WW II movies:
--Castle Keep (ok character study but not realistic)
--Can't remember name of movie: deliberately blanking it out of my memory: totally hokey plot, set in South Pacific with some pilots, one of the leads rapes the other lead's wife (who 'of course' suicides) then regrets it so much he does some kind of ding-dong suicide mission against the IJN...horrid, just horrid!

Nicholas Cage: hee hee! good one, Lance! The trailers looked SO incredibly bad that I've never bothered to waste my money on 'em...
 

michammer

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Richa333 --Can't remember name of movie: deliberately blanking it out of my memory: totally hokey plot said:
Is it "In Harm's Way" with the Duke and Kirk Douglas?
 

The Doctor

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There was one good scene in the recent version of "The Thin Red Line". There was a decent shot of F-4Fs and P-39s at Henderson Field. Otherwise it was almost un-watchable.

"Windtalkers" wasn't so bad if you just watched the battle scenes. Yeah, it was way over the top, but I think it's watchable.

I think my favorite WWII movie is "Kelly's Heros". Up until "Saving Pvt. Ryan" it was probably one of the best WWII movies as far as technically correct equiptment. They even had decent Tiger tanks (I know they were T-34 chasis). Most WWII movies simply slapped black crosses on M-47 and M-48s and used Chafee's for Shermans. I think "ABTF" gets high marks in this area too. For the Pacific Theater, "Tora Tora Tora" is tough to beat. One problem...they went to great lengths to "build" Zeros, Vals & Kates; why didn't they do a better job on the P-40s? Slapping a couple of nose-guns on P-40Es or Ns, just didn't cut it. I know that there is only about 1, non-flying early model P-40 in existence; but everything else was done so well.

For the worst WWII movie, I hate to do this, but I have to pick a John Wayne movie. "In Harm's Way" is historically awful; although somewhat enjoyable, in a trashy way.
 

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Richa333 said:
--Can't remember name of movie: deliberately blanking it out of my memory: totally hokey plot, set in South Pacific with some pilots, one of the leads rapes the other lead's wife (who 'of course' suicides) then regrets it so much he does some kind of ding-dong suicide mission against the IJN...horrid, just horrid!
That would be In Harm's Way with John Wayne.
 

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Best:
1. The Thin Red Line (Its artistic, intelligent, great actors, and an awesome soundtrack!)
2. Band of Brothers

Worst:
1. Pearl Harbor
2. Windtalkers (refused to see it, because of the director and Nick Cage)
3. Saving Private Ryan
 

Kaki

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Best: The Unknown Soldier
Stalingrad
The Winter War
Apocalypse Now
Band of Brothers

Worst: Anything on the WWII Stories -box by Brentwood home video :kotz:
 

RichardS

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Best War Movies

Best (Not in any order)
Battleground
Go For Broke
Tora Tora Tora
Sea Chase
Der Brucke
Den Stern von Afrika
The Winter War/Talvisota
A Bridge to Far
Sink the Bismarck
Battle of Britain
633 Squadron
Das Boot
The Longest Day
The Malta Story
Soldier of Orange
Zulu
Gettysburg
Glory
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Rio Grande
Fort Apache
Henry Vth
Battleship Potemkin
Paths of Glory
Battle of the Bulge - Beer & Pretzel movie only. Great song though in Panzer Leid

Just to name a few. Worst have already been listed in detail.
 

Patrocles

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AnewNewbie said:
There hasn't been anything posted in here for a while,so I thought I'd ask everyone for their opinions on what they reckon is the best and worst.

The best for me:Cross of Iron & the first 30 mins of SPR

The worst:Windtalkers(utter rubbish) followed by U-571(tries to change history)

What do you fellas(& fellesses)reckon?
My favorites (that made a big impression on me):
Come and See
Cross of Iron


Least Favorites:
Battle of the Bulge
 

Leatherneck

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Best Movie:

The Great Escape
Band of Brothers
Flying Leathernecks (John Wayne :))
Battle of Great Britian
Battle of Midway
Flying Tigers
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Twelve O'Clock High
To Hell and Back
Hellcats of the Navy
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
The War Lover (Steve McQueen :))
Saving Private Ryan
Tuskegee Airmen
Where Eagles Dare

Worst Movie:

Windtalkers
Memphis Belle
Pearl Harbor
 
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