Best War Films?

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Black Hawk Down just pisses me off and makes me want to kill people.

I think the best war movie is the Generation Kill mini-series. You can learn a lot about the military, it has plenty of action, a great cast of characters, and its extremely funny.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Pffff, where to start?

Saving Private Ryan
The longest day
The guns of Navarone
Force 10 from Navarone
Kelly's heroes
Schindlers List
The pianist
Stalingrad
Enemy at the gates
Cross of Iron
A bridge to far
Bridge over the river Kwai
Pearl Harbour (for the shot of the Japanese plane dropping that bom)
Flags of our fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Inglourious Bastards (or however you spell it)
Where the eagles dare
The Untergang
Valkyrie
The great Escape
Soldaat van Oranje (Yeah, dutch ww2 movie)
Zwartboek (also dutch)
Escape from Sobibor
The thin red line
Das boot

And I am sure I'm forgetting some great movies, but I don't have a list or something

Please say you did mean WW2 movies only, else I really have to open the registers...

No keep going. List the modern war movies. I need to add to my friends Netflix movies list

 

[Deadlock Radium]

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Spoiler: Here's the trailers

You are the second person excluding myself I've seen ever that thinks that The Wind That Shakes The Barley is a good movie. The fact is that it is a GREAT movie. All of my class was "meh" after seeing it in an English class, after I saw it that time, I went online and bought that movie.

So, yeah, The Wind That Shakes The Barley is a very good choice.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

I recently watched Letters From Iwo Jima which was great. Is there any more great war/military films? I've seen Black Hawk down and Saving Private Ryan. What about Enemy at the gates?

Oh. You have to pick up The HBO Mini Series "Generation Kill" It's about the war in Iraq. I loved it. It's a Good Choice.

I loved every bit of generation kill, ray was hilarious throughout the whole thing.

OT: The miniseries "pacific" was pretty powerful, and Saints and Soldiers is very unheard of, but is a great film.

 

[deckai]

Anybody else really liked All Quiet on the Western Front? Especially the ending,

Spoiler

in how trivial his death is?

Do you mean the 1930 version or the 1979 version? I only watched the 1930 version, but i guess the message stays the same. A very good movie and definitely the best WWI movie i know.

(just saw that a remake is planned for 2012)

 

[Burningsok]

Saving Private Ryan, my absolute favorite.

 

[teebeeohh]

full metal jacket, i am a kubrick fanboy (meaning i also love dr strangelove)
i also liked jarhead. and platoon. and i hate american WW2 movies, most of them focus too much on how awesome the us army is and forget that war is shit (unless used as a reason to shoot people in video games)

 

[Death_Korps_Kommissar]

There was one I saw about the french Foreign legion I think during WWII. But I can't, for the life of me, remember what it's called.

 

[Doclector]

Starship Troopers.
Nobody said it had to be a real war...

TBH, it does copy "proper" war films in many ways. Over-optimistic recruits heading patrioticly into slaughter, demonisation of the enemy (though, it would be hard to humanise them...), friends dying heroic, but ultimately pointless deaths, as well as commenting on war in general, especially the propaganda of war.

Personally, my favourite war movie is full metal jacket. It's the only one I can think of which blames the training just as much as combat itself for the troops' mental states.

It also removes any sort of myths regarding soldiers in movies. A soldier is neither an unstoppable hero, or a broken shell. More often than not, especially considering the draft, he's just another man caught in the madness of a conflict he struggles to understand, just trying to survive.

 

[The Afrodactyl]

My favourites are Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Apocalypse Now and We Were Soldiers.

Napalm is fucking scary.

 

[commandersqwigly]

the hurt locker was a really good take on the iraq war. I really wish there were more movies about the iraq war, i think its a really interesting war.

 

[Nueemann]

Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick is a GENIUS!)
Downfall (Better known as Der Untergang. Source of the "Hitler Freaking out over Something on YouTube" videos.
Green Zone (Some people may not like it, but I did.)
Valkyrie

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Star Wars, *snicker*.

But seriously, I don't really watch to many war films.

 

[Tartarga]

There was a WW2 movie which I don't remember the name of, it had John Wayne in it which should narrow it down. John Wayne was the captain of a battleship that was in pursuit of a German submarine. Its a really good movie, I assure you.

Edit: Forget to mention Flags of Our Fathers. You should watch it if you haven't seen it, it focuses on the soldiers who put up the flag on Iwo Jima.

 

[capin Rob]

Saving Private Ryan and Glory were both very sad, moving and amazing to watch.

Loved Saving ng Pvt. Ryan... But what is Glory? I don't think I've seen it

 

[Jamash]

Does Bullet in the Head count?

It's set during the Vietnam war, but it's not really a war movie. Other than a POW camp and some raids and things the war doesn't come into play much, it's just a country in turmoil.

That said, it's an amazing movie. Really moving, even though the subtitles were a little fuzzy, although that could have been the TV I was watching it on.

I'd say so, because even if you take "war" out of the equation, you're still left with Bullet in the Head being one of the best films.

 

[HK_01]

Enemy At The Gates isn't that great. It's too drama-y.

I think the best war films I've ever seen have been Assembly, a Chinese war film, with possibly the best battle scenes ever, Tae-Guki: The Brotherhood of War, A Korean film about the Korean war, Days of Glory, a French/Morrocan film about Arab recruits during the second world war, Cross of Iron, a 70's West German film starring James Coburn about the Russian front in WW2, directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wind That Shakes The Barley, an Irish film about the Irish War of Independence.

All of those are great.

Spoiler: Here's the trailers

The Wind That Shakes The Barley reminded me of Lord of the Rings for some reason.

What about Enemy at the gates?

.... Hollywoodized crap...

As for me, 9th Pota

Don't get me wrong, that movie is good, but not one of the best war movies ever.