Just thought we would get the war film discussion going, with our top 10 war films of all-time list...(in no particular order) A couple of lesser known films we would recommend would be The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Great Raid (2005). Your comments and suggestions are encouraged and appreciated! Make sure to vote in our Best war film of all time poll or comment in our War Films Forum Thread


Apocalypse Now (1979)
Vietnam, 1969. Burnt out Special Forces officer Captain Willard is sent into the jungle with top-secret orders to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz who has set up his own army within the jungle. As Willard descends into the jungle, he is slowly over taken by the jungle's mesmerizing powers and battles the insanity which surrounds him. His boat crew succumbs to drugs and is slowly killed off one by one. As Willard continues his journey he becomes more and more like the man he was sent to kill.
Written by Michael Arndt

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden (Jack Hawkins) and an American, Shears (William Holden), to blow up the bridge.
Written by alfiehitchie



Das Boot (1981)
It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy English shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served.
Written by Anthony Hughes



Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Opening with the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion under Cpt. Miller fight ashore to secure a beachhead. Amidst the fighting, two brothers are killed in action. Earlier in New Guinea, a third brother is KIA. Their mother, Mrs. Ryan, is to receive all three of the grave telegrams on the same day. The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, is given an opportunity to alleviate some of her grief when he learns of a fourth brother, Private James Ryan, and decides to send out 8 men (Cpt. Miller and select members from 2nd Rangers) to find him and bring him back home to his mother...
Written by J.Zelman

The Great Escape (1963)
Based on a true story, a group of allied escape artist type prisoners of war are all put in an 'escape proof' camp. Their leader decides to try to take out several hundred all at once. The first half of the film is played for comedy as the prisoners mostly outwit their jailers to dig the escape tunnel. The second half is high adventure as they use boats and trains and planes to get out of occupied Europe.
Written by John Vogel

 


Full Metal Jacket (1987)
A two-segment story that follows young men from the start of recruit training in the Marine Corps to the lethal cauldron known as Vietnam. The first segment follows Joker, Pyle and others as they progress through the hell of USMC boot-camp at the hands of the colorful, foul-mouthed Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second begins in Vietnam, near Hue, at the time of the Tet Offensive. Joker, along with Animal Mother, Rafterman and others, face threats such as ambush, booby traps, and Viet Cong snipers as they move through the city.
Written by Derek O'Cain

The Deer Hunter (1978)
Michael, Nick, and Steven are three buddies from the steel mill town of Clairton, Penn.They are like schoolmates, hanging out in a local bar and enjoying weekends of deer-hunting. Michael and Nick are also both in love with Linda, who seems to juggle both of the men. But their placid life is soon to be changed after they are enlisted in the airborne infantry of Vietnam. So they all celebrate a goodbye at Steven's wedding and they leave to Vietnam, where they are captured by the enemy and forced to play a game of Russian Roulette. They escape and return home, but their lives are forever changed. Nick stays in Vietnam, Michael returns to Linda, and Steven is handicapped after losing a leg in the war.
Written by Jasper Yangchareon

 

Platoon (1986)
Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two commanding officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes (Tom Berenger) and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin (Willem Dafoe). A line is drawn between the two officers and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon.
Written by Jeremy Thomson

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
1943. With the battle of Stalingrad turning the war against them, the Germans are attempting to bully neutral Turkey into joining the Axis; to this end they have trapped 2,000 British soldiers on Kiros, an island in the Aegean, with only one sea route for evacuation, a sea route commanded by two gigantic German antiship batteries deployed in a massive cliffside bunker on the island of Navarone. Immune to air attack and too much for Allied battleships to suppress, the British muster Keith Mallory, a commando officer who has been working on occupied Crete for nearly two years and who is an expert mountaineer, to ferry a team of British commandos to the only area of Navarone that is not monitored by the Germans, a 400-foot cliff. Greek resistance is to meet the team inland and guide them around German patrols to the area of the German guns. However, the commanding officer of the British team suffers grave injury in the climb and Mallory must take control of the mission, despite clashes with explosives expert John Anthony Miller, who upon the arrival of the night of the raid finds his equipment has been sabotaged, thus exposing a traitor in the team's ranks.
Written by Michael Daly



The Great Raid (2005)
Set in the Philippines in 1945 towards the end of WWII, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci and Captain Robert Prince, the 6th Ranger Battalion undertake a daring rescue mission against all odds. Traveling thirty miles behind enemy lines, they intend to liberate over 500 American Soldiers from the notorious Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp in the most audacious rescue ever.
Written by themusicman999

 


Black Hawk Down (2001)
Action/war drama based on the best-selling book detailing a near-disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord which lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between the Rangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen which led to the destruction of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, and the heroic efforts by various Rangers to get to them, centering on Sgt. Eversmann, commanding one Ranger unit named Chalk Four, leading Rangers to the first black hawk crash site, to Warrant Officer Durant who was only survivor of the second black hawk crash site and whom was captured, to Col. McKnight who leads a rescue convoy for the Rangers only to get lost within the hostile city, to Sgt. Sanderson desperately trying to get to the first crash site, to Staff Sgt. Yurek who leads two fellow Rangers, Nelson and Twombly to meet with up their squad, Chalk Four, at the first crash site, to many others involved who where either killed or survived.
Written by Matthew Patay




Honorable Mention
Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) - well done but not a film I would see again and again..
Enemy at the Gates (2001) - Good Film, almost made my "Top 10"

Other Popular War Films
Sergeant York (1941)
The Pianist (2002)
Stalag 17 (1953)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Downfall (2005)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
The Longest Day (1962)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Flags of our Fathers (2006)
The African Queen (1951)
Braveheart (1995)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)


War Films you can skip...
M*A*S*H' (1970) - having nightmares of bad tv re-runs and a worse movie
Patton (1970) - yawn
Three Kings (1999) - Ice Cube, Marky Mark, and Clooney in a war film?
Schindler's List (1993) - well done but too damn dark and depressing