Your Top Five War Movies

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darius

500+ Posts
So many great ones to choose from, but I think mine would be:
1. The Longest Day
2. Patton
3. Schindler's List
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. Platoon

(and I'm excluding fictitious wars, so no Star Wars or Lord of The Rings)
 
Such a hard list to narrow down. In no particular order (and I'm probably missing something):

1. Saving Private Ryan (except for the "bookends")
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. Dr. Strangelove
4. Apocalypse Now (esp. the "Redux" version)
5. Patton
Honorable Mention:

"Paths of Glory" for what may be the best battle scene cinematography and direction; it's not in my top 5 because the acting is so stilted.

"Breaker Morant" ("Shoot straight you ********")

"Platoon"
 
Full Metal Jacket
Dr. Strangelove
Zulu
Midway (some mediocre subplots, but great sense of carrier warfare in the Pacific)
Das Boot

If you could include miniseries, I'd move Band of Brothers and Generation Kill into the 3 and 4 positions respectively.

If you include post war films, I'd put Best Years of Our Lives somewhere around 2 or 3 as well.

If you include Samurai films, I might put Seven Samurai at 1a.

I think we've had threads about this before, but it's good to revisit them. I hadn't seen Generation Kill until a few months ago. Brilliance. The football game at the end, which I didn't get at first and thought was anti-climax, raised the piece to a literary level. Sort of like the Marines singing Mickey Mouse at the end of Full Metal Jacket.
 
1. Patton



2. Saving private Ryan
2(a) Valkyrie
3. Blackhawk Down
3(a) We Were Soldiers
4. The Big Red One
5. Bridge over River Kwai
5(a)Full Metal Jacket
5(b) Platoon



What?
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1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Dirty Dozen
2. Catch 22
4. Full Metal Jacket
4. Platoon
6. The Bridge On The River Kwai
7. The Great Escape












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Thread hi-jack alert!

Best War Movies not about WWII or Vietnam:

Glory (Civil War)

The Patriot (Revolutionary War)

M*A*S*H (Korean War)

War Games (Cold War)

Master and Commander - Far Side of the World (Napoleanic Wars)
 
1. Beau Geste
2. Patton
3. The Longest Day
4. Tora! Tora! Tora!
5. Schindler's List
 
If Casablanca is considered a war movie (and it was even released during WW II), I would have to re-think my list.

MirrOlure, my top five NOT from WW II or Vietnam, in no order, would be: All Quiet on The Western Front, M*A*S*H, Black Hawk Down, Gallipoli, and The Patriot.
 
1. Stalag 17
2. Bridge Over the River Kwai
3. Saving Private Ryan
4. Das Boot
5. Sargeant York

Also loved The Guns of Navarone

I loved Band of Brothers but that was a series.
 
The posting was about war movies, which include fictitious movies; the only limitation was that it couldn't be a fantasy-type movie (e.g. Star Wars).
Dr. Strangelove is fundamentally about war, and also includes a great balltle scene form Kubrick, who was a master at creating realistic balltle scenes -- see Paths of Glory, the scenes in Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket. The filming looks like the war footage you see in documentaries
 
ehh, Platoon. That film hasn't aged well. I don't think it holds up.

I always really liked Hamburger Hill.

A relative of mine who was in Vietnam said it was one of the more realistic portrayals he has seen.
 
1) Dr. Strangelove
2) The Bridge over the River Kwai
3) Kelly's Heroes
4) Spartacus
5) The Outlaw Josey Wales
Also: Das Boot, Patton, The Longest Day, The Great Escape, Catch 22, MASH, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
 
I can't believe I forgot the Deer Hunter.

Full Metal Jacket
Dr. Strangelove
The Deerhunter
Blackhawk Down
Zulu
 
This list will not have aged well, but for sheer exhiliration the first time I watched them as a kid growing up in the late 60s and early 70s s I'll rank the movies as follows

1. Sink the Bismark
2. 300 Spartans
3. Midway
4. The Longest Day
5. Patton

The art form has advanced since these were made and the 300 Spartans is too unsophisticated for adult viewing. But my kid LOVED it when he was 8.
 
Full Metal Jacket
Apocalypse Now
The Deerhunter
Saving Private Ryan
Letters From Iowa Jima
Heartbreak Ridge
The Hurt Locker
 
I guess I just don't think of Dr. Strangelove as a war movie, but a comedy that happens to be set in the Cold War. I left Kelly's Heroes off my list for the same reason even though it's one of my all-time favorites. Plus, I wouldn't consider any Cold War movie a "war movie" - Charlie Wilson's War comes to mind.

Crockett - I think Patton & The Longest Day have aged very well in my opinion. Sink the Bismarck, well, hasn't. I can definitely understand liking it as a kid but I was very disappointed when I saw it in college. The acting was mediocre and the subplots were groan-inducing, then you add in the ahistorical details of the events and the Good German/Bad Nazi command combo and ....

Anyway, seemed like there was a lack of good naval and air movies on most people's lists, but then I realized it was pretty hard to think of any good air combat movies. Memphis Belle is the only one I could come up with and I think it's just good enough to make the list.

Paths of Glory could have made the list had the acting not been so stilted. It was a very good way to present an anti-war film with a bit of history that most people don't know about, and that comes from a refreshingly different angle than "War is bad, so let's watch people die and the survivors get depressed."

1. Das Boot
2. The Great Escape
3. Sergeant York
4. Gettysburg
5. Memphis Belle

HM: Bridge on the River Kwai. Hated to leave this one off the list.
 
1. Saving Private Ryan
2. Blackhawk Down
3. Platoon
4. Zulu
5. The Good, the bad, and the ugly

I did read where the movie that comes out today in fact (The Hurt Locker) is supposed to be the best movie about the war in Iraq.
 
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