Top 10 War Movies of all Time

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 10/31/2017 | J Hines

[w1n1]

What’s your top 10 war movies that would make you binge watch all day? This list ranks the best movies about war, battles, and military conflicts. These films recreate some of the most significant events in world history from a variety of perspectives and with a variety of purposes and intentions. Some top war films attempt to recreate as realistically as possible the events that they depict, either from an omniscient perspective permitted by historical study or from the point of view of the soldiers and civilians involved in the conflict itself. Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, for example, was both praised in its time and heavily criticized for bringing a “you are there” sense of realism – and little outside or cultural perspective – to a recreation of the Battle of Mogadishu. The best war movies of all time differ widely in their handling of the subject matter, but they all strike a chord with viewers now and in the time when they came out.

Some of the greatest war films use war as a backdrop to look at larger issues – such as man’s inhumanity to man or the crippling impact of post-traumatic stress – or just as a meditation on war itself. Still other films like Glory and Band of Brothers examine the personal drama of a few individuals, and mine it for larger insights about the meaning of war and the impact that violence has on individual human lives.

Finally, some war films – particularly those made during the classic Hollywood era – are simply adventure films with war providing a compelling setting and situation. The Great Escape, for example, remains a classic not because of its grand ideas about the nature of war, but because it is a ceaselessly entertaining spectacle. No matter what type of film, there’s no denying that these are certainly the best war movies ever.

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic drama war film set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II. Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat, the film is notable for its graphic and realistic portrayal of war, and for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depict the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944. It follows United States Army Rangers Captain John H. Miller and a squad as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Cl…

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford’s novel The Short-Timers. The film stars Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood, Arliss Howard, Kevyn Major Howard, and Ed O’Ross, and its storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the platoon’s Marines..

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic adventure war film set during the Vietnam War. Produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, and Robert Duvall. The film follows the central character, U.S. Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard, of MACV-SOG, on a mission to kill the renegade and presumed insane U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. The screenplay by John Milius and Coppola..

Platoon

Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first film of a trilogy of Vietnam War films by Stone. Stone wrote the story based upon his experiences as a U.S. infantryman in Vietnam to counter the vision of the war portrayed in John Wayne’s The Green Berets. It was the first Hollywood film to be written and directed by a veteran of the Vietnam War. See the rest of the top 10 war movies of all time list here. What's your favorite?

[doorgunner69]

Platoon and Apocolypse were both phantasm movies, not war.

[doorgunner69]

As was “Hamburger Hill”.

[sparklite2]

First saw Das Boot in a theater with a terrific sound system. The parts where the hull of the sub could be heard crackling under the increased sea pressure sounded like the walls of the theater were getting ready to blow in. It was unnerving.

[buffaloguy]

Flyboys is one of my favorites. It is about the Lafayette Escadrille in early WWI.

[Albion Wilde]

Finally, some war films – particularly those made during the classic Hollywood era – are simply adventure films with war providing a compelling setting and situation. The Great Escape, for example, remains a classic not because of its grand ideas about the nature of war, but because it is a ceaselessly entertaining spectacle.

I totally disagree -- it would be my Number One, because it featured the ingenuity characteristic of the Yanks and Brits in WW2.

[sparklite2]

+1
Patton tops my list.

[dsc]

“that party at the opening of the movie “In Harm’s Way” rang very true for me.”

You didn’t think the music was unrealistically good?

That band was hot!

[BlueLancer]

Along the lines with “On the Beach”, I was always partial to the movie “The Bedford Incident”. But then, again, I was always a sucker for a Richard Widmark movie.

[Albion Wilde]

And that doesn’t even touch the Civil War (Journey to Shiloh, Shenandoah, Gone with the Wind) or the Revolution (The Patriot).

I loved the long Civil War epic, Cold Mountain, which focused on the family members left behind and the fates of war deserters.

[itsahoot]

Then the film was unrealistic

And you would know?

[SoFloFreeper]

The Longest Day
Hacksaw Ridge
Saving Private Ryan

[a little elbow grease]

Top 10 War Movies of all Time/War of The Roses

**********

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

;-)

[forgotten man]

If you thought that Apocalypse Now was fake, you should see Apocalypse Now Redux, with some of the edited parts put back into the movie. Did you know that one of the crewman on the boat had.s sex with one of the Playboy bunnies? The bunnies helicopter ran out of gas and the guys on the boat traded their diesal boat fuel for Playboy bunnies.

[Albion Wilde]

Thank you for your service, Chainmail. And your movie reviews.

[rlmorel]

LOL, perhaps...I was caught up in the appearance...the uniforms, the swimming pool, the lights strung up...the behavior of the people.

I was a sub-teen/teen, and I saw adult behavior that really made me think these weren’t people like my parents...pretty rowdy, fully uniformed (and un-uniformed) people of all ranks and both sexes being thrown into swimming pools, etc.

Except they WERE like my parents...I just never saw them caught up in it all.

[morphing libertarian]

<y father was in world war two. He was not accuser, but his Sgt and lt were. Now tell me how you know my dad was lying.

[apocalypto]

Gods and Generals

[apocalypto]

Gods and Generals

[rlmorel]

OMG. I admit, I did like the way that whole scene got out of hand with the guys hanging on the skid, one losing his pants...

[doorgunner69]

200 post with far too many goofball films like Apocolyps and platoon,

Not one mention I saw of "Big Red One" with Lee Marvin. Had goofy moments, but overall pretty good.

Really liked the terror they got across on the D-Day beach landing and being frozen with fear.