The Best War Movies Ever Made

Freepers who know their war flicks | June 25, 2002 | wimpycat

[wimpycat]

As a companion to http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/705904/posts' The Worst War Movies Ever Made thread, I offer you the best war movies ever made, and I wanted to get mine in first. Here's my list, in no particular order.

1. Battleground (love James Whitmore in this!)

2. Full Metal Jacket (love the DI, R. Lee Ermey. "Hard core, man! F***ing Hard core!")

3. Glory (even though it's not quite historically accurate and it's about Yankees, it's a very moving film, IMHO. Great musical score, too.)

4. The Boys in Company C (same DI as in Full Metal Jacket. Made very soon after Vietnam, but it's still pretty good.)

5. Tora! Tora! Tora! (forget Pearl Harbor, the movie, this is the definitive Pearl Harbor movie)

6. Das Boot (definitely one of the all time great war films--great camera work, great sound effects, it makes you feel claustrophobic. Best viewed on DVD with SurroundSound system. Make sure you watch it in German, with the subtitles, not dubbed! Awesome!)

[buffyt]

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT was made in 1940. Got it at the local rental place. Ann Sheridan, George Raft, and Humphrey Bogart.

[wimpycat]

I have to sign off now! Carry on!

I must say, you guys have some good taste in war movies! Most of you, anyway.

[mc5cents]

B-36's? LOL!!

[Tribune7]

1. Longest Day

2. Zulu

3. Patton 4. The Train

5. Band of Brothers (mini-series) 6. Attack

7. Kelly's Heroes

8. Midway

9. A whole lot of 'em

[Paulus Invictus]

"Full Metal Jacket" was written by a guy that was in my Bro's Marine unit, and he knew his stuff re combat as he saw a lot of it in Okinawa, Korea and Nam

Can you believe that the Feds put him in jail for months once for having hundreds of overdue library books (they claimed, but he said he had bought them all at library auctions). He died recently. Sad! He was a good Marine!

[Reagan Man]

>>>Well, I'd put In Harm's Way in the first tier.

One of my all time favorites. What I call a very watchable movie.

A Walk in the Sun is on TCM every now and then. American battalion attacks a Nazi hideout in WWII. Great cast! Bataan and Back to Bataan were pretty good war movies too.

[Young Werther]

I remember my first flight in a Buff. I hummed the music from "Strategic Air Command"!

[PJ-Comix]

The Alamo

I'm a John Wayne fan but that movie really stunk. I once taped a piece of Alamo dialogue that was so horrible that it was laughable. I wish I could find it. And Frankie Avalon as a frontiersman? You gotta be kidding!

[crazykatz]

Freedom and a trip to British island colonies where they WERE SOLD AS SLAVES as a reward...also, MANY hundreds of these "freed" blacks died as a result of the Brits giving them blankets....dirty/soiled with smallpox.

Yep, the Brits real heroes to slaves! HA!

[dirtbiker]

Havent seen "Schlinder's List". But "Stalag-17" is a good one too!

[Hoosier Patriot]

Six turning and four burning!

[PJ-Comix]

Pearl Harbor.

Ignore the fact that Ben Aflect is in it.

I did and it still stinks.

[gcruse]

Yeah, I just loved that scene with the sailorless
Japanese boats floating thru that studio bathtub.

I know, I know.  I was thinking of the part
where Kirk Douglas slaps what's-his-name
the PR guy.  Loved it.

[mc5cents]

Pearl Harbor.
Ignore the fact that Ben Aflect is in it.
I did and it still stinks.

Yea, computer generated Jap Zero's just dosen't cut it with me either. :-))

[RonDog]

Patton
Braveheart
The Sands of Iwo Jima
Twelve O'Clock High
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Midway
Tora! Tora! Tora!
From Here to Eternity
The Great Escape
Run Silent, Run Deep
The Charge of the Light Brigade
MacArthur
Lawrence of Arabia
Sergeant York

See also, http://www.geocities.com/warmoviedatabase/index.html

[Eagle Eye]

Gardens of Stone

Uncommon Valor

Aloha Bobby and Rose

okok, so the last one isn't much of a war movie, I still like the soundtrack

[Hoosier Patriot]

Did your arm go numb like Jimmy's did in his final flight in the flick? {;-)

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the 'ol B-52. What a workhorse.

[mlibertarianj]

In the same vein as Braveheart, I would also say "Spartacus"
is a great movie, with great actors in it. The best set up for battle when the Roman Army marches toward the slave Army.
But the one scene that kind've chokes me up is when the Romans demand the defeated slaves, to identify Spartacus, and the individual slaves begin to yell "I'M SPARTACUS!"

[PJ-Comix]

LOVE IS A MANY SPENDORED THING with William Holden and Jennifer Jones.

In real life, Holden and Jones HATED each other so they did some good acting to convince us otherwise. Also this doesn't count as a war movie.

[John H K]

to blacks serving in the continental army

Umm...this was one of the few things the movie got RIGHT. Actually, the movie was inaccurate in that there weren't ENOUGH blacks. And actually, the one in the movie wasn't a Continental, anyway...just Marion's Militia; there SHOULD have been tons of them in the Continental troops depicted. It is true that there were plenty who fought for the British, as well. But at that point in the war, Congress's money was so worthless, and the war had dragged on so long, it was difficult to get enough whites for the Continental Army. br>

I know people are suspicious this was some sort of feel-good Hollywood PC fabrication or exaggeration, but at that point in the war, 1/6th of the Continental Army was black.<