The Five Best War Movies Ever

[Boonierat]

I saw The Deer Hunter again lately and would definitely include it in my all time top 5, even though theres very few "war scenes" in it, and definitely much better than the other Michael Cimino's nam movie: Casualties of War.

 

[jeff norton]

Here's mine:

1. Band of Brothers
2. Gettysburg
3. Winter War
4. Enemy at the Gates
5. Blackhawk Down

Honorable mention....

Go tell the Spartans

SPR

We Were Soldiers

Patriot

Seven Samurai

 

[Triaxe]

Tough picks,
1. Band of Brothers
2. Bridge on the River Kwai
3. Where Eagles Dare
4. Braveheart
5. Dirty Dozen

Honorable mention, too many to list but the movie Henry V had a great Agincourt battle segement although the dialogue was painful for me to sit through in most the movie.
Last of the Mohicans I thought was a good one for the French and Indian War and a great movie overall.

 

[Igotmilk]

I really liked Richard III.

 

[Triaxe]

Can't get that link to work Milk.

 

[Siberian HEAT]

Watched Paths of Glory this weekend...as it was one of the few movies in this list I hadn't seen. I enjoyed it a lot, and found the suspense of the ending a little disturbing. Not quite how I expected it to end...with the 3 soliders.

Really some things in there to make you get mad at the general staff of the French army (of course that is applicable probably to all armies).

 

[Igotmilk]

Sorry. Maybe these:

 

[Igotmilk]

Also I really liked "The Lost Battalion":

 

[Igotmilk]

One more thing, even though it is fiction and the movie is a snooze fest I think that the Cavalry charge scene in the "Return of the King" just kicks butt. (Heh-Heh, he said "butt". Heh)

 

[riverbravo]

ryan
band of brothers
a bridge to far
cross of iron
apocalypse now/stalingrad

I will give Windtalkers the all time worste war movie ever made.

 

[Yossarian]

I'll throw these little known, obscurish type, but still great war films out:

1. ATTACK! Eddie Albert, Jack Palance, Lee Marvin. 1956. This movie started life as a Broadway play called "Fragile Fox." Was way ahead of its time, and should be seen by every war movie fanatic.

2. PORK CHOP HILL 1959- One of the greats.

3. The VICTORS 1961(?) Really depressing story of the lives of the members of an infantry squad near the end of WW2.

4. A WALK IN THE SUN - 1953 You gotta love a movie that substitutes "Lovin'" for "F**ken" in the early 50's.

5. The STEEL HELMET 1952(?) Gene Evans screams "If you die, I'll kill ya" to his wounded buddy in Korea.

 

[erwin_rommel]

I would give Pearl Harbor or Windtalkers the all time worst war movie. Windtalkers was terribly innacurate and Pearl Harbor was one of the most boring movies I have ever set through.

 

[Lance Williams]

The Five Best War Movies of All Time

First of all, if Band of Brothers were considered a movie and not a miniseries I would vote it number one. He's the list in order...... (1) Saving Private Ryan (2) Zulu (3) We Were Soldiers (4) Gettysburg (5) Breaker Morant...............................Honorable mention Glory......Last of the Mohicans......Master and Commander........Das Boot......Gallipoli......The Light Horsemen......Lawrence of Arabia.....and another miniseries, the Sharpe stories from the BBC via PBS

 

[Lance Williams]

a couple more honorable mentions......Sink the Bismarck......the Battle of Britain. .....the Lost Battallion

 

[Doggie]

Gee nobody even mentioned The Bridges of Toko Ri or Stalag 17, a couple of William Holden's best efforts.

Any list of Movies that Suck would have to include Top Gun, Midway and of course, Pearl Harbor.

 

[erwin_rommel]

can't forget Windtalkers, i didn't think it was physically possible but that movie sucked and blowed at the same time.

 

[Dbar]

Top Five Movies

Here is my top five in no particular order.

A Bridge too Far
Stalingrad
Memphis Belle
Apocalyse Now
Longest Day

 

[11b10]

I LIKE THESE...

Films of war: Second World War


Bataan (1943)
Director: Tay Garnett. A realistic motion picture written in a documentary style about a small band of American soldiers who attempt to destroy a strategic bridge during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1942. 115 min


Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Director: William Wyler. Three returning Second World War veterans face problems as they attempt to pick up the threads of their previous lives. 170 min.


Das Boot (1981)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen. This gripping tale follows the daring patrol of U-96, one of the famed German U-boats known as the "gray wolves". Prowling the North Atlantic, they challenged the British Navy at every turn. Delivers an amazingly accurate account of Germany's elite U-boat crewmen, as it hammers away at the tragic waste of war. 154 min.


Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Director: David Lean. Captured by the Japanese, British soldiers and their ranking officer, Colonel Nicholson are forced to construct a strategic railroad bridge. Despite cruel treatment by the brutal Colonel Saito, Nicholson displays unyielding courage and the bridge becomes a matter of obsessive British pride to him. Meanwhile, the British High Command has instructed a commando team to destroy the vital span. 161 min.


Catch 22 (1970)
Director: Mike Nichols. In this anti-war satirical film about a group of fliers in the Mediterranean during Second World War, all are separately and together nervous, frightened, often profane, sometimes pathetic and almost all a little crazy. 121 min.


Destination Tokyo (1943)
Director: Delmer Daves. Twenty-four hours out of San Francisco, submarine captain Cassidy unseals his top-secret orders and reads two fateful words: Destination Tokyo. This is a powerful and sometimes humorous portrait of American submarine service men during the Second World War. Its also a suspense drama as Japanese Zeros rain death and Cassidy must somehow slip his sub through the mines of Tokyo Bay and then blast his way out to the safety of the open seas. 136 min


Flying Tigers (1942)
Director: David Miller. Based upon the true story of the American pilots known as "The Flying Tigers" who fought the Japanese over China in early Second World War. 101 min.




From Here to Eternity (1953)
Director: Fred Zinnemann. A drama about life in the Army in the days just prior to Second World War. Shows the effect of Army discipline on an individualistic former boxing champion who defies attempts by officers and men to coerce him into joining the company's boxing team. Includes actual documentary film footage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 118 min.




Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges. Film based on the true story of Allied servicemen during Second World War who tunneled their way out of a German prison camp to freedom with nothing but guts, perseverance and ingenuity. 173 min.




Guadalcanal Diary
Director: Lewis Seiler. One of the greatest war movies of all time, the story follows one squad of Marines through the bloody assaults on the Solomon Islands during the opening stages of the war in the South Pacific. From the book by Richard Tregaskis. 93 min.





Patton (1970)
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner The Second World War adventures of the controversial American general, George S. Patton. 171 min.




Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
Director: Robert Wise. The film depicts the realities of submarine warfare during Second World War in the Pacific. Plot centers around two submarine officers who are destined to clash with each other from the first moment they meet. 94 min




Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Director: Allan Dwan. John Wayne, a tough Marine sergeant, takes men and makes them Marines. Film follows a group of Marines from boot camp to the Battle of Iwo Jima. Film contains recreation of the scene on top of Mount Suribachi, the peak immortalized by the famous photograph of the American flag being raised, victorious, by a small group of soldiers. 109 min.




Stalag 17 (1952)
Director: Billy Wilder. During Second World War, a group of G.I.s are thrown together in the notorious German prison camp, Stalag 17. For the most part, they spend their time scheming ways to help each other escape. But when two prisoners are killed in an escape attempt, it becomes obvious that there is a spy among them. 120 min.




The Dam Busters (1954)
Director: Michael Anderson. A Dramatization of an actual operation in Second World War in which low level Bombers from England drop skimming bombs into reservoirs in the Ruhr water system to cause floods destroying much of Germany's industrial base.




The Thin Red Line (1998)
Director: Terrence Malick. A powerful presentation of the Second World War battle between the Japanese and the American military forces for control of the strategic island of Guadalcanal. Based on the novel by James Jones




Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy. A classic Second World War thriller - the true life story of the first American air raids on Japan. Spencer Tracy plays Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, the tough and inspiring mastermind of the historic crew of the "Ruptured Duck," commanded by Captain Ted Lawson. Lawson's daydreams of the bride he left behind are intertwined with the nightmarish terrors of a tense Pacific crossing, thunderous bombings, and the fate of his men on their painful odyssey through mainland China. 139 min.




Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
Director: R. Fleischer, et al. A meticulous dramatic recreation of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to it from both the Japanese and American points of view. 144 min.




Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Director: Henry King. During Second World War, the commander of an Eighth Air Force bomber group in England drives his men to the point of breaking until he himself cracks under the strain. 132 min.





Sources: UC Berkeley Moffitt Library list of War and War-era movies, and the Internet Movie Database


Hollywood Home

 

[11b10]

The Day After (1983)
Director: Nicholas Mayer. Starring: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, John Lithgow. Audiences are briefly introduced to a representative cross-section of American life, including a doctor (Jason Robards), a young bride-to-be (Lori Lethin), a graduate student (Steve Guttenberg), and an academic (John Lithgow), before the Bomb hits nearby Kansas City. The ensuing destruction is utterly horrific, but a few manage to survive to struggle vainly with rising radiation levels and the slow, inevitable collapse of society.



Dr.Strangelove: or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963)
Director: Stanley Kubrick. Black comedy about a group of war-eager military men who plan a nuclear apocalypse.





Fail Safe (1964)
Director: Sydney Lumet. Starring: Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Ed Binns, Fritz Weaver, Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman. Fail Safe, made within a year of Strangelove and at the height of cold war atomic anxiety, posits a similar nightmare scenario. A U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered toward Moscow, ready to drop its load. The U.S. president (Henry Fonda) and various military and congressional leaders must then scramble to deal with the disaster. The movie enters unexpected territory in its final minutes; conditioned for feel-good endings, viewers are still genuinely shocked by the plot turns in the final reels. The climax comes as a sobering slap in the face, intriguingly staged by Lumet.



On the Beach (1959)
Director: Stanley Kramer. Radioactive fallout from a nuclear war has wiped out the entire northern hemisphere. With fallout expected momentarily, the Australians review their lives, establish new relationships and prepare for their tragic demise. 135 min.




Red Dawn (1984)
Director: John Milius. Starring: Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Darren Dalton, Jennifer Grey A fantasy about a Soviet takeover of the United States and a band of ragtag adolescents who metamorphose into freedom fighters.





Strategic Air Command (1955)
Director: Anthony Mann. Starring: James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan. Piloting a nuclear-armed bomber becomes just another suburban occupation in this flag-waving propagandist film from the coldest era of the cold war. Jimmy Stewart is a baseball star once an ace WWII bomber pilot. The Strategic Air Command, then and now America's main nuclear strike force, inexplicably finds itself short-staffed and recalls the aging Stewart to active duty.

 

[11b10]

The Bridges at Toko-ri (1954)
Director: Mark Robson. Starring: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss, Charles McGraw, Keiko Awaji. The masterful story of a war-weary World War II veteran who must leave his family to fight again, this time in the Korean War. 103 min.



M*A*S*H (1970)
Director: Robert Altman. Highlights the outrageous antics of three skilled young surgeons drafted from civilian life and assigned to a unit of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. 117 min.




Pork Chop Hill (1959)
Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn, George Peppard, James Edwards, Bob Steele, Woody Strode, George Shibata. A stark screen re-enactment of the U.S. Army King Company's valiant, high-casualty offensive to capture and hold strategically important Pork Chop Hill during the Korean War. 98 min.