Best War Movie?

[ukcanuck]

Full metal jacket is one of my favourite movies of all time, the smack talk is hilarious "Get! The! fuck! off! my! obstacle! Pile! get! the! fuck! down!


Two that should be included is the Battle of Britain, just saw a remastered restored version and the footage is amazing.
K19 widow-maker is a good too

If we include Gladiator then we got to include 300, LOTR, and others for battle scenes...


Did anyone mention mention westerns with Indian wars focus, or that other Mel Gibson film, the Patriot?

[ukcanuck]

I love a good war movie - so I was wondering about everyone else's favourites...

The well-knowns:

"Saving Private Ryan" (loved it, the first 20 minutes changed my perception of film making)
"Three Kings" (set in dessert storm, did not really like this one)
"Apocalypse Now" (a psychotic thriller set in a war torn jungle I hadn't read the book Heart of Darkness when i saw it or would have been put out by the nerve of copying it)
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" (need a whistling gif)
"Platoon" (here's a movie I will have to watch again its been so long it will be like I haven't seen it before)
"The Deer Hunter" (can I have my four hours back?)
"The Hurt Locker" (good one loved the scene in the supermarket where the guy cant decide on what brnd of breakfast cereal to pick...I have been in that moment myself)
"Black Hawk Down" (do you get the feeling that they all get what they deserve? but don't want to say so?)
"Das Boot" (not enough navy movies, what about Midway, the one about the encryption code machine "enigma," K19 widow - maker etc )
"Schindler's List" best of a bunch like this
"Casablanca" (more of a spy film than a straight war film)

Or, what about:

"Letters from Iwo Jima"
"The Patriot"
"Life is Beautiful"
"The Dirty Dozen"
"Kelly's Heroes"
"The Great Escape"
"M.A.S.H."
"The Thin Red Line"
"Good Morning Vietnam"
"Glory"
"Zulu"
"Gallipoli"
"Full Metal Jacket"
"Jarhead"
"Cross of Iron"
"Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo"
"Tora! Tora! Tora!
"Henry V"

The little knowns:

"The Dam Busters" - the development of the bouncing bomb in World War II
"The Rough Riders" - The Spanish-American War, including the assault on a heavily defended San Juan Hill.
"84 Charlie Mopic" - shot in first person, this is a riveting portrayal of a patrol in the Vietnam War. Because of the camerawork, you are basically in the film!

I've seen most, but not all, of these - does anyone have any other recommendations?

S_C

[Per]

If Schindler's List qualifies as a war movie, then I guess so does the Pianist, which is a movie I highly recommend.

Another movie I do not see mentioned here is Killing Fields, which I loved. I think in part that flick so overwhelmed me was that I had no expectations whatsoever. I was in a film club back then that showed two movies a week, and five or six of them every season would be movies that were not yet released in Sweden, and we'd have to fill out a questionnaire about it afterwards, which was the condition the film companies had for letting us see them in advance. So, it's a Tuesday night, and I have nothing to do. "Hmmm... let's see what they're showing at the film club... Killing Fields? American movie about the war in Cambodia? Sounds like a total B-flick. Oh well, I have nothing else to do, might as well head down..." That movie ended up with three Oscars, iirc, and since I expected nothing, hadn't heard about it, it just blew me away...

I also want to recommend the Tin Drum, which is a truly epic movie, based on Günter Grass's novel by the same name.
It may be too sexually explicit for Ontario and Oklahoma , but it's a great movie, as proven by the awards it has won.

Das Boot has already been mentioned, but other good German war movies would be Stalingrad, Lili Marleen and of course Downfall. The latter not least so that everyone will find out where the "Hitler having an angry fit" clip that is used on a regular base all over the internet with new inventive subtitles to describe his reaction to playoff failure, odd trades etc, originates from.

The Finns have a great tradition of making war movies that are raw and shy away from cliches and glorification.
Truly recommend you to check some of them out:

Tuntematon Sotilas, 1955 (The Unknown Soldier)
Tuntematon Sotilas, remake 1985 (The Unknown Soldier)
Talvisota, 1989 (The Winter War)
Rukajärven Tie, 1999 (Ambush)
Framom Främsta Linjen, 2004 (Beyond the Front Line)

War movies are not a strong suite of the Swedish film industry though, which is rather logical considering that our last war was fought against Napoleon, but one title I could possibly suggest would be Good Evening, Mr Wallenberg, featuring Stellan Skarsgård (Alex's father) as the diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Jews in Budapest and then disappeared in Soviet captivity.

Really gruesome war movie: the Soviet film Come and See about a Ukrainian boy in the midst of WWII...

And Catch 22 just for laughs!

Hmm... can't see anyone mentioning Inglourious Basterds... How come?

[Cookie La Rue]

There are a lot of good movies but nobody mentioned "Where Eagles Dare" with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood so far.

One of my favorites 25 years ago. Not just playing in WW2 but also an very exciting spy story.

[Per]

Forgot about Miracle at St Anna, by Spike Lee, which is quite a good movie.

Lots of unexpected twists, and quite funny at times, gruesome and shocking at times.
Well done through and through, imho.

Wouldn't be Spike Lee if he didn't have a race issue element in it, but not disturbing at all.
Actually, the story of a group of Buffalo soldiers in Tuscany is rather refreshing, since both the type of soldiers and the setting is not what we usually get.

I also love that the Italians speak Italian, the Germans German, etc, which is rare in American movies. This also causes misunderstandings etc which are part of the plot, plus it makes it far more realistic. And the Americans learn to communicate with the locals through their Puertorican member, since Spanish and Italian are fairly similar.

I hate movies where Germans speak English with a German accent, Russians speak English with a Russian accent, etc. Makes me want to scream at them; since you're so bad at English, why don't you speak your native tongue instead between youselves, which would make so much more sense to begin with? Apparently Spike Lee is on the same page as I.

Highly recommend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcKPi5DyGWs

[svts]

Sorry if already mentioned:

Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron
A Bridge Too Far
The Longest Day
Catch-22
Battle of the Bulge
Vakyrie

[Eddy Punch Clock]

I've seen most, but not all, of these - does anyone have any other recommendations?
S_C

I recommend that if you haven't seen Black Hawk Down yet don't bother wasting your time.

[Southern_Canuck]

Holy shit! Those are a lot of suggestions...

To add some more, here is a best/worst war movie list from the NY Daily News (by critic Joe Neumaier)

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/galleries/the_top_15_best__worst_war_movies/the_top_15_best__worst_war_movies.html

Best:
"Apocalypse Now" (1979)
The phantasmagoria and trippiness of war, told with mystery and mist-enshrouded madness. Forget about Brando's size — it's the size of the movie here that counts.
"Saving Private Ryan" (1998)
Steven Spielberg's drama of identity and comradeship gets better and feels more classic with age. Trim away its unnecessary book-ending sequence, and it's as taut and tense as any war film ever made.
"Pork Chop Hill" (1959)
The Korean War, so often second tier in Hollywood, gets the focus here in a drama about one of the major battles of that short conflict. Gregory Peck is the lieutenant whose leadership is ideal. It's directed by Lewis Milestone, almost three decades after he tackled the Great War in 'All Quiet on the Western Front.'
"Paths of Glory" (1957)
Stanley Kubrick's drama about soldiers in World War I put on trial for refusing to take part in a suicide attack. An early scene of commanding officer Kirk Douglas walking through the trenches is like a short tour through Hell.
"Full Metal Jacket" (1987)
Kubrick's other film on this list is notable for its split approach; The training of soldiers, and some of their experiences in Vietnam. One of the many reasons it works so well is because, having seen them be conditioned to violence, we instinctively flinch as the camera catches them, helpless, in the midst of so much of it.
"Letters From Iwo Jima" (2006)
Clint Eastwood's far more accomplished companion film to the same year's 'Flags of Our Fathers' examines the Japanese war from the side of the enemy. Thoughtful, decent and beautifully acted, it doesn't matter whether this film is about the Allies or the Axis - it's about men in battle.
"The Hurt Locker" (2009)
Trip-wires, booby-traps, unfriendlies, exhaustion — Kathryn Bigelow's dissection of modern warfare is set in Iraq, but it's also about what war has become: Both external and internal, with explosions and tension that take victims in portions.
"Platoon" (1986)
Operatic and mythic, Oliver Stone's Oscar-winner seems split between youth and experience because that's how his protagonist — a version of himself — saw Vietnam. The schizophrenia in the movie is never explicit, but everything here has two sides.
"Sergeant York" (1941)
Famously noble and iconically heroic, Gary Cooper's title soldier has become World War I shorthand for the metamorphosis of war — here, its American outskirts to pacifist to sharpshooter to war hero.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1940)
Erich Maria Remarque's plaintive cry for Germany's lost youth in the First World War is grippingly filmed by director Lewis Milestone, in the first military epics of the sound era.

Worst:
"Pearl Harbour" (2001)
Michael Bay's attempt at serious, epic, 'Doctor Zhivago'-style love and war drama. Emphasis on the word 'attempt.'
"Midway" (1976)
Stodgy and gray, this Charlton Heston-Henry Fonda-Robert Mitchum drama about the turning of the tide in the Pacific is old-fashioned to a fault.
"Hamburger Hill" (1987)
One of the '80s war-film footnotes, John Irvin's Vietnam flick is notable mainly for a performance by the young Don Cheadle.
"A Bridge Too Far" (1977)
The '70s did disaster films really well. Yet even under those wide parameters, Richard Attenborough's massive undertaking is bloated.
"Heartbreak Ridge" (1986)
Clint Eastwood's mid-career military effort lacks punch and drive, and Eastwood's persona, oddly, is too distracting for a military movie. Its scenes of Marine Clint's domestic life clicks, though.
"Battle of the Bulge" (1965)
Another Fonda vehicle, here as a Lieutenant colonel hoping to have his men ready to invade Germany in 1944 — then Hitler takes Antwerp. History Channel documentaries have more punch than this dry exercise.
"Inchon" (1981)
Let's not talk about the absurd romantic subplot involving Jacqueline Bisset and Ben Gazzara. Let's just say Laurence Olivier as General MacArthur going to Korea is 'SNL'-quality parody. Only its serious.
"To Hell and Back" (1955)
Audie Murphy plays himself in this drama about Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of World War II. Note that's not 'actor,' that's 'soldier.' Based on the autobiography by — you guessed it — Audie Murphy.
"The Green Berets" (1968)
Okay, it has a great theme song. but the rest of this knee-jerk John Wayne vehicle is reactionary against what was happening in America instead of what was happening overseas.
"The Longest Day" (1962)
The story of D-Day, though the title says it all.

S_C

[Southern_Canuck]

I've seen most, but not all, of these - does anyone have any other recommendations?
S_C

I recommend that if you haven't seen Black Hawk Down yet don't bother wasting your time.

Yeah, I saw it - it was just OK.

Of the suggestions, the one I'd like to see first is "Enemy at the Gates", I think...

S_C

[Arachnid]

Ah jeez yah glee dweebs...seriously? Your pics are getting a little soft...are we to include Good Morning, Vietnam, and The Sound of Music too?

I like most of those suggested and add a couple off the beaten path...

The 9th Company -a newer Russian film about Afghanistan. Maybe not the best war movie ever made but a different perspective we are not use to.

The Human Condition No Greater Love -a Japanese trilogy film of incredible power. Again, another perspective from our own. Hard to believe but the Japs hated themselves for their Imperial ways...

Apocalypse Now Redux rest proudly on my shelf as does Full Metal Jacket...The Great Escape and The Eagle Has Landed... awesome shyte...loved Eastwood's double take on the Pacific... leave the TV shows for the TV thread

[Benjo]

Of the suggestions, the one I'd like to see first is "Enemy at the Gates", I think...

S_C

Excellent choice, but you can always count on Hollywood to add a love interest

[the Dogsalmon]

12 O'Clock High (My personal favourite movie)
Battle of Britain
Das Boot (Directors cut)
The Pacific (Sledge's book is great. Very graphic and a definite top 5 personal favourite.)
Band of Brothers
The Blue Max
Saving Private Ryan
A Bridge Too Far
Battle of the Bulge
The Longest Day
The Great Escape
Tora Tora Tora


And my personal favourite book..."A Thousand Shall Fall".

[SKYO]

Tonnes of good movies already said, however here are a few I liked:

The Hunt for Red October
Patton
Crimson Tide

[Per]

Perhaps the best war novel I have ever read. Even a notch above Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Seconded. FWTBT is one of my favorite books, but All Quiet is a monster.

If you like these books, which you of course should, they're masterpieces, you may also like Der Zug war pünktlich by Heinrich Böll. I think it may be called The Train Was On Time in English.

Edit: Yup, seems it is:
http://www.amazon.ca/Train-Was-Time-Hei ... 04&sr=8-16

Another edit: come to think of it, The Unknown Soldier was a huge hit as a book too, by Väinö Linna. One of the true masterpieces of Finnish literature, albeit heavily under fire when first published, as it exposed the Finnish soldiers as real humans with real human weaknesses, and thus was considered unpatriotic by many. Amazon.ca only has one used copy of it, which they demand CAD 153.60 for so I link to the US site instead:
http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Vaino-Lin ... 082&sr=8-1

Now this is a book you all ought to read!

The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon Sotilas), first published in 1954, was author Väinö Linna's (1920-1992) first major novel and, whilst almost unknown in the English-speaking world, is, in Scandinavia, widely recognized as among the greatest novels of the twentieth century. In Finland, a country with just over five million people, it has sold over 450,000 copies (it is Finland's all-time best-selling novel), been translated into 17 languages, filmed twice and is a classic of Finnish literature. ... Linna's lack of greater renown probably reflects the obscurity of the language he happened to write in: Finnish.

[Meds]

Surprised no one has mentioned U-571.

Also liked The Thirteenth Day (cold war flick).