Favorite War Movies

[MuirWannabe]

Eye of the Needle
The Eagle Has Landed

 

[SnowballCamper]

No mentions yet of Hamburger Hill... It's definitely in the top ten for me. Also, The Thin Red Line

 

[scfr]

There are so many good ones that have been mentioned. One that hasn't been mentioned yet is The Best Years of our Lives, a classic 1946 movie about 3 American WW2 veterans returning home and trying to adjust to life back in the US.

 

[DrRoy]

I can't believe that I forgot "Sahara" with Humphrey Bogart.

 

[Ronstar]

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/

Yes - it's a great exhibit. I can't remember when the last time I was there, but I wanted to go through the sub again and it was closed for maintenance or something.

It would have been great to watch them move it into the museum:

The U-505 arrived in Chicago on June 26, 1954, only to face another major hurdle: an 800-foot overland trip from Lake Michigan to the Museum. The task required extensive planning to cross Lake Shore Drive (now DuSable Lake Shore Drive) without destroying the pavement and tying up traffic. Engineers designed an elaborate rail and roller system to move the heavy sub out of the water and over the land. The city closed Lake Shore Drive the night of September 2, 1954 to allow the sub to cross. It took another week for the sub to complete its journey from the road to the Museum.

On September 25, 1954, the U-505 was dedicated as a war memorial and a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. In 1989, the sub was also designated as a National Historic Landmark. The U-505 is the only Type IX-C U-boat in existence today.

 

[GhostofTomJoad]

Yes, you're all ringing my bells.
I just recently re-discovered "In Harm's Way." John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal.

Also:
Battleground (1949). Van Johnson.
Twelve O'Clock High (late '40s or early '50s.). Gregory Peck.
Gettysburg. 1993. Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, Tom Berringer.
Gods & Generals. Robert Duval, Stephen Lang.

 

[UtahSkier]

Command Decision with Clark Gable, who flew bombing missions over Germany It's dry, but explores an interesting concept. Catch it on TCM.

 

[steelyman]

Some fine movies named in this thread.

I recently was able to transfer a VHS set of a PBS series: Liberty! The American Revolution to DVD. I hadn’t seen it since it was released in the late ‘90s.

Despite spending a good portion of my formative years where much happened (Princeton, New Jersey) I realized that I knew very little about that war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty!

 

[Yoheadden]

Some that I haven’t seen mentioned:
Dunkirk
Windtalkers
Master and Commander
Taking Chance - with Kevin Bacon
A Few Good Men
Flyboys
A Soldiers Story
The Lost Battalion
Act of Valor
There is also a sub movie where we go in Russian waters under the ice, end up encountering, then saving some of their crew members and have to rely on them to navigate our sub through mined openings in the ice underwater. The name escapes me ATM

This is a stretch, but The Last Castle with Robert Redford is very good. He does play a General.

 

[CarbonaNotGlue]

Lots of good picks here but I don’t think anyone has mentioned John Frankenheimer’s “The Train” yet. Outstanding acting by Burt Lancaster and non cgi, authentic WW2 European steam engines. Definitely makes my top 10 list.

 

[Koogie]

The first 10 minutes or so of Gladiator take place on the Northern Front of the Roman Empire.

Funny how that area keeps being a battleground over the millenia.

 

[Alan]

Now watching We Were Soldiers that was mentioned earlier and it reminded me of an excellent war movie, and the movie that brought Mel Gibson to the attention of the acting world. I think it is was of his best ever performances and won him the Australian Film Industry best actor award

Galipoli, 1981, is the story of 2 young Australian men from Western Australia who signed up as soldiers in WWI

 

[Gumby]

And who can forget Peter O'Toole, and that fine young Cockney, Michael Caine, in "Zulu Dawn" and "Zulu", respectively, which tell the stories of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War.

 

[Alan]

And who can forget Peter O'Toole, and that fine young Cockney, Michael Caine, in "Zulu Dawn" and "Zulu", respectively, which tell the stories of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War.

More VCs (11) were awarded in that battle of Rorke’s Drift than in any other battle and some years ago we were in Wales at Caernarforn Castle and visited the museum there of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and many of those VCs were on display, donated by the family members of the soldiers who fought at Rorke’s Drift. The scene in the movie when they sang “Land of My Fathers “ was particularly moving.

 

[obsessed]

I'll throw a few of my faves out there:

- Glory
- 1917
- Paths of Glory
- Saving Private Ryan
- Schindler's List
- Band of Brothers & The Pacific (series but with movie studio budgets)
- Dunkirk
- Great Escape
- Tora Tora Tora!
- JoJo Rabbit
- Full Metal Jacket

 

[qwerty3656]

Let's not forget the bloodiest movie ever - Hot Shots Part Deux!

 

[Yoheadden]

This is the submarine movie that I couldn’t think of before.

Greyhound with Tom Hanks is another good one.

 

[RunningBum]

How could I forget The Great Escape! Definitely makes my list.

 

[jimbee]

A lot of great movies listed in this thread. I would like to add "The Guns of Navarone".

 

[Romer]

Lots of great movies here and many are my favorites. Maybe I missed them, but I would add

The Devils Brigade
Von Ryans Express

I like PT109 but admit its more a story about JFK then lots of action

 

[frayne]

I saw the movie Patton sometime in 1970 while on a firebase while I was serving as an infantry squad leader with the 1st Air Cav. in Viet Nam. It was required viewing by order of the company C.O. Oh the irony, fighting in a war zone and watching a war movie. I actually enjoyed the movie and G.C. Scott nailed the part. I loved the opening scene when he says something along the lines of making the other SOB die for his country, and it resonated at that point in time immensely. Not one much for war movies but I did watch Private Ryan and the D.Day opening scene was so intense, I had to go out into the theatre lobby until things settled down. Nothing heightens the senses or gets the adrenaline flowing like hot lead heading your way.

 

[gromit]

In addition to scripted movies, a lot of World War 2 documentaries exist. Pluto TVs Military channel and History channel show a lot of old documentaries of actual war footage. The Smithsonian channel also shows just a few on occasion. Last week, I watched a bit of one episode of "The Pacific War, In Color", I think on the Smithsonian channel. At one point, it showed troops in New Guinea and Bob Hope did a show for a crowd of 7,000. My dad, who's gone now, was in New Guinea then and I wonder if he might've actually been in the crowd of soldiers that the film showed watching Bob Hope's show. I was wowed.

 

[YB88]

The mini-series "Winds of War" some years ago --- sort of "soap opera for guys".


There are some great war movies not made in the U.S., apart from Das Boot. I've seen both German and Russian made films titled "Stalingrad" --- interesting to see those from those perspectives.



A German TV series titled 'Deutschland 83' was quite good, cold war stuff, close enough to the time I served in the Army in Germany to be pretty interesting for me in that way.



'Ran' by Akira Kurasawa.


'Kesairi', a small band of Sikhs against the Afghan army at the end of the 19th century.


Kind of sad that so many favorite movies are war movies --- I enjoy them (the good ones anyway), but another part of me thinks that we would be better off not glorifying such horror.

 

[ncbill]

Appointment in Tokyo...1945 documentary about the Pacific campaign.

Lots of captured film footage.

And apparently the word "Japanese" no longer existed in 1945...it's always "Jap" in the above.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I love war movies and have seen most of the movies that were mentioned. My grandfather was in WW 1 battles but never talked about it. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and after he died wished I had asked him some questions. I wondered how he survived but like to joke that because he was only five feet tall no one could see him).