I thought Saving Private Ryan was the best war movie ever. That was before...

If you want to talk about impact, All Quiet on the Western Front probably takes the cake. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was pretty good too.

drink good whiskey wrote:

Best from different wars:

Revolutionary War - April Morning

Civil War - Glory

WWI - All Quiet on the Western Front

WWII - The Bridge on the River Kwai

Vietnam - Full Metal Jacket

Honorable mentions:

Revolutionary War - The Patriot, The Crossing

Civil War - Red Badge of Courage, Gods and Generals

WWI - A Farewell to Arms, Aces High

WWII - SPR, The Big Red One

Vietnam - Platoon, We Were Soldiers

1st 2/3 of Full Metal Jacket were awesome. Once they left the recruit depot & actually got to Vietnam, it kinda sucked though..

I'll go with Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket - at least for movies made after 1970.

But I'm not sure that at its heart Apocalypse Now is a war movie - much of it is black comedy - not all - but it's not really about war so much as absurdity and incongruity. Like catch 22 is not a war book.

SPR's opening scene is one of the best things ever put to film the rest is fine, but not best of all time category.

Shaving Ryan's Privates

After watching the world's 1st action flic, The Seven Samurai, Hollywood war movies are cheap, boring copies.

in the film industy....this war scene considered one of the greatest of all time

contact..the longest day

this fly over was also considered one of the greatest in the movies......it captured the moment....

"My Way"

It's about the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII, and follows the lives of two elite marathoners throughout the occupation and the war. Amazing race scenes as well as battle scenes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way_

(2011_film)

I really like Empire of the Sun for a non-battlefield perspective/war movie. You really get a sense of the full arc of the war from the chaos of the beginning of the war and the internment of the British to the fall of the Empire and the shock of freedom that followed for the British who were held prisoner. Hope and Glory is another non-battlefield war movie that is pretty excellent.

The Longest Day is a classic and very accurate historically. It is a very mainstream war movie, but is very well done.

I think that Thin Red Line is probably the best war movie in that it is one of the few to really get inside of the hearts and minds of the soldiers. You actually hear a soldier think to himself "oh my god, I just killed a man" with shock and regret after his first battlefield kill. You see dissention in the ranks as the forward command refuses Nick Nolte's character's commands.

drink good whiskey wrote:

WWII - The Bridge on the River Kwai

I agree. In fact, it is one of the better movies of all time.

I also think that Black Hawk Down and A Bridge Too Far deserve a mention somewhere.

I cannot watch Apocalypse Now all the way through without falling asleep

Try Shaving Private Ryan

Anyone ever seen "Too Late The Hero?"

Excellent WWII flic

spaghetti wrote:

"My Way"

It's about the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII, and follows the lives of two elite marathoners throughout the occupation and the war. Amazing race scenes as well as battle scenes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way_

(2011_film)

My Way was sort of corny for Koreans and Chinese from Taiwan. My Dad is Korean. My grandfather and his brothers went to university in Japan, and served in the Japanese Army in China.

Klondike5 wrote:

I thought Private Ryan sucked.

In fact, Spielberg has never made a movie that rose above the level of "good for a Hollywood movie" status.

You want to watch great American movie creators, watch Scorsese, Coppola, the Coen Bros.

plus Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Spielberg is a sentimentalist and lightweight.

Mel Gibson certainly has it in for we English, with the anti-English historical distortions of both Braveheart and The Patriot.

After viewing The Patriot, I was concerned that the Americans whose historical knowledge is limited by what they view in Hollywood movies might actually believe we acted in that fashion during the Revolutionary Wars.

The burning of the church scene was obviously borrowed from the Oradour-sur-Glane massace in France in WW2 by the 2nd SS Panzer.

http://www.redcoat.me.uk/page4.htm

drink good whiskey wrote:

Best from different wars:

Revolutionary War - April Morning

Civil War - Glory

WWI - All Quiet on the Western Front

WWII - The Bridge on the River Kwai

Vietnam - Full Metal Jacket

Honorable mentions:

Revolutionary War - The Patriot, The Crossing

Civil War - Red Badge of Courage, Gods and Generals

WWI - A Farewell to Arms, Aces High

WWII - SPR, The Big Red One

Vietnam - Platoon, We Were Soldiers

Nice list but I would add

Civil War - The Outlaw Josey Wales (technically it's right after the Civil War)

WWI - Gallipoli - innocent adventure meets the realities of war

WWII - Das Boot - perspective from the "bad guys" and Tora Tora Tora for its building intensity and collaboration between Japanese and American film crews

Iraq War - The Hurt Locker

Braveheart is a major date DVD in the gay community next to campus here.

Agree with Tora Tora Tora

If they ever make a movie based on Unbroken, I think it has the potential to get to the top of this list.