Favorite War Movies

[friar1610]

The British documentary about WW1, “They Shall Not Grow Old”. Can’t really call it my favorite as its very hard to watch but certainly is for me, the most memorable and compelling.

 

[REWahoo]

Patton.
George C. Scott's performance was great.

Agreed.

I was in the military in 1970 when the movie was released and saw it at the base movie theater. All movies at the base theater began with the US Flag projected on screen and a recording of the National Anthem. All military personnel were expected to come to attention and salute the flag while the anthem played.

My guess is the projectionist wanted to play a joke on the audience that day and do something a little different. Some may remember "Patton" began with a full-screen picture of the US flag, followed by someone calling "Attention!" then Patton walking up from behind the "stage" on unseen steps to appear in front of the flag to salute while "To the Colors" played. He then told the audience "Be Seated" and gave his “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country” speech.

When the flag appeared the entire theater stood at attention, saluted and spent a confused couple of minutes watching Gen Patton onscreen while "To the Colors", not the National Anthem played and wondering what the heck was happening. Only when he gave the "Be Seated" command did everyone drop their salute and sit. It was actually quite funny.

 

[Alan]

I love and have seen all those listed so far. Being British I also would add to my favorites:

The Cruel Sea
Darkest Hour
The Battle of Britain

Some of my favorites set in wartime include:

Dr Zhivago
Atonement
The English Patient

 

[MC Rider]

Nobody mentioned Star Wars?

 

[mz44]

Agreed.



I was in the military in 1970 when the movie was released and saw it at the base movie theater. All movies at the base theater began with the US Flag projected on screen and a recording of the National Anthem. All military personnel were expected to come to attention and salute the flag while the anthem played.



My guess is the projectionist wanted to play a joke on the audience that day and do something a little different. Some may remember "Patton" began with a full-screen picture of the US flag, followed by someone calling "Attention!" then Patton walking up from behind the "stage" on unseen steps to appear in front of the flag to salute while "To the Colors" played. He then told the audience "Be Seated" and gave his “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country” speech.



When the flag appeared the entire theater stood at attention, saluted and spent a confused couple of minutes watching Gen Patton onscreen while "To the Colors", not the National Anthem played and wondering what the heck was happening. Only when he gave the "Be Seated" command did everyone drop their salute and sit. It was actually quite funny.

Interesting that Patton and M*A*S*H were both released In the same year!

 

[jollystomper]

In no particular order:

Saving Private Ryan (comes to mind quickly since we recently visited Normandy)
Dirty Dozen
Glory
Apocalypse Now
Red Tails
Hacksaw Ridge
The Patriot
Lincoln
Platoon
The Hurt Locker
Hotel Rwanda
Schindler's List

 

[Montecfo]

Deerhunter
Midway (1976 version)

 

[FiveDriver]

Every one of the movies mentioned are great. Every One of Them.

I recently watched on Turner the movie "A Walk in the Sun" with one of my fave actors Dana Andrews and a solid cast. Lewis Milestone (All Quiet) directed, based on a story written by a correspondent in Yank magazine. The platoon is invading Sicily in WW2. The ending raid on the Farm House is chilling.

Another good movie on Turner was "The Dawn Patrol" about British flyboys in WW1. Stars Errol Flynn, David Niven and Basil Rathbone. Great pre-WW2 version of 'The War to End All Wars' Bi-plane dogfights were awesome.

 

[INTJ10]

Every one of the movies mentioned are great. Every One of Them.

I recently watched on Turner the movie "A Walk in the Sun" with one of my fave actors Dana Andrews and a solid cast. Lewis Milestone (All Quiet) directed, based on a story written by a correspondent in Yank magazine. The platoon is invading Sicily in WW2. The ending raid on the Farm House is chilling.

Another good movie on Turner was "The Dawn Patrol" about British flyboys in WW1. Stars Errol Flynn, David Niven and Basil Rathbone. Great pre-WW2 version of 'The War to End All Wars' Bi-plane dogfights were awesome.

For a different perspective and decent stories, Kalashnikov and T-34 were Russian war movies that were pretty good. T-34 was a tank battle movie like Fury without gratuitous violence.

 

[Beldar]

They Were Expendable. PT Boats in the Philippines, an embellished semi-true story; Bulkeley threatened to sue the studio over his portrayal IIRC.

Downfall. Very accurate in the dialogue and uniforms, down to the correct ribbon placement. Plus, the Hitler rant scene is a classic . And true.

_B

 

[bada bing]

I generally like historically accurate war movies. I see a lot of movies I really enjoyed on other people's lists. My short list of absolute favorites though:

Black Hawk Down. I find the scene where Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart volunteer for what ended up as posthumous MoH to be the most moving scene in any war movie, ever. Supposedly an accurate depiction as well.

Gone with the Wind. IMO, it is the overall best movie ever made. "Gone with the Wind" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" together are a crash course to me in emotionally understanding the old (pre-1970) south.

Lawrence of Arabia. A fascinating story and character. O'Toole's best.

Schindler's List. If "Gone with the Wind" isn't the best movie ever made, then "Schindler's List" is. Liam Neeson has had an up-n-down career, but this was his best.

 

[Gumby]

...
Schindler's List. If "Gone with the Wind" isn't the best movie ever made, then "Schindler's List" is. Liam Neeson has had an up-n-down career, but this was his best.

I thought the best performance in that film was Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth. Absolutely chilling.

 

[NW-Bound]

I don't see "The Longest Day" being mentioned. For those who do not know, this 1962 movie was about the Normandy D-Day.

"April 9th" is a movie I watched recently. It was based on a true story of a Danish infantry company going out to the front on bicycle to stop the invading German troops with tanks.

"The Forgotten Battle" is also a recent movie. It was about a WW II battle on the island of Walcheren in the Netherlands.

I have watched most of the movies mentioned, and this thread gave me some ideas. For example, I am reminded of "The Legend of the Fall", which I meant to watch but keep forgetting.

A more recent war movie--"1917"--made such an impact on DH and me that this thread lured me from lurking

Glad to know you are still lurking.

 

[Aerides]

Two more I thought of, British WWII spy movies:

Imitation Game (Benedict Cumberbatch)
Operation Mincement (Colin Firth, Matthew Goode, Matthew MacFayden)

 

[MuirWannabe]

The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming

The Beguiled

The Godfather (well, Michael was a war hero)

 

[Dean56]

You guys pretty much summed up my list. A couple more submarine movies - The Hunt for Red October and U571

I was in Chicago and I went to see the movie U-571 with friends back in 2000. The next day, we went to the Museum of Science & Industry to see the captured German submarine U-505 that is on display. You can walk thru the sub and see it from stem to stern. They even have an Enigma machine on display.

https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/exhibits/u-505-submarine/

 

[camfused]

In Harm's Way

Another thread should be started for war books, in which I could recommend many (my thing).

 

[gamboolman]

The Pacific Series
and while not a Movie, the 1974 BBC, World At War Documentary Series is excellent

 

[ncbill]

King Rat

 

[MuirWannabe]

I also always liked Fail Safe. Henry Fonda does a great acting job and it features a young JR Ewing.

 

[ERD50]

War affects everyone in society, not just the guys shooting at each on the front lines. I think movies that explore those expanded effects are as worth seeing as the more traditional ones with lots of bullets, explosions and feats of heroism.

In that vein, I'll add "The Monuments Men":

from IMDB:

An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from German thieves and return them to their owners.

So it takes place in the war, but it's not directly about the war so much. Not great, IMO, but pretty good.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177771/

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

If you like Peter O'Toole, here are two of his movies.

Murphy's War is about a British sailor's determined effort to seek revenge on a German U-Boat that sank his ship. The movie was based on a 1969 novel.

Rogue Male is about a British who attempted to assassinate Hitler, but failed. It was based on a novel written in 1939, which was on the eve of WW II.

 

[Gumby]

In that vein, I'll add "The Monuments Men":

from IMDB:

So it takes place in the war, but it's not directly about the war so much. Not great, IMO, but pretty good.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177771/

-ERD50

I have read many books about the Nazi art looting during WWII, including the book on which the movie "The Monuments Men" was based. I listed them in a post several years ago. I saw this movie at the cinema and enjoyed it.

Edit to add: I went back to look at my post from 2019. Here is my list of books

The Lost Museum: the Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art by Hector Feliciano
The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance by Henning Koch
The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas
The Monuments Men and Saving Italy both by Robert M. Edsel

Also

Probably the foundation book to read is the Rape of Europa by Nicholas, which covers all aspects of the looting, preservation and recovery of Europe's art treasures, immediately before, during and after the war. In The Lost Museum, Feliciano builds on the earlier work of Nicholas. He had access to various records that she didn't have, and the cooperation of some of the families that were victims, and so can give a fuller account. The Book Thieves is mostly focused on books and libraries and especially on the destruction of Hebrew and Yiddish works as a cultural genocide to accompany the physical genocide of the Jewish people. And here I must correct myself - Henning Koch was the translator; Anders Rydell is the author. The two Edsel works are entertaining (Monuments Men was made into a movie), but narrower in focus, concentrating primarily on the work of the US and British military officers tasked with preventing the wanton destruction of important cultural assets during the Western allies' invasion of Italy and France.

 

[RunningBum]

Enemy at the Gates
Saving Private Ryan
The Deer Hunter
Casablanca

A lesser known title I liked is The Hanoi Hilton

Band of Brothers and Ken Burns' Vietnam if they count

 

[Gumby]

In Harm's Way

Another thread should be started for war books, in which I could recommend many (my thing).

There was a thread for that very thing. It was specifically about WWII, but it is a start. Here is the link:https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/book-suggestions-for-wwii-buff-101192.html