Greatest War Movies

no votes for Patton?  You gotta be kidding, it's better than 95% of the crap on this list, George C. Scott rocks (though the real Patton was a raving a****le)--  Dirty Dozen, Bridge on the River Kwai, Platoon ?  P-U.   I prefer the older movies from the 40s & 50s, What Price Glory, Run Silent Run Deep, stuff like that








Edited by Atavachron - October 03 2010 at 18:59

manofmystery wrote: Other - Gettysburg

Good call - excellent movie Proof positive you don't need visceral blood & guts to convey the real horror of a (civil) war. More American dead in 3 days than in the whole of the Vietnam War 100 years later...

Honorable mentions - Saving Private Ryan is superb, as is Apocalypse now; Flags Of Our Fathers/Letters From Iwo Jima, both beautifully & sensitively done, Thin Red Line had excellent cinematography.

Another which was not mentioned - Enemy At The Gates: reviled by many, but one of my personal favorites, but if I had to pick one, it would have to be Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down... not a single wasted minute in the whole movie, brilliantly done, a real movie.

Edited by Jim Garten - October 04 2010 at 03:04

Avatar   A vietnam war movie in outer space

Alexander The Great?

+++splutter+++

Jim Garten wrote: Alexander The Great? +++splutter+++

Snow Dog wrote: Jim Garten wrote: Alexander The Great? +++splutter+++ Is it that bad?

When the release date is put back again & again; when the final print is withdrawn and re-edited/cut; when even the director (Oliver Stone, of all people) apologises for the final version...

...despite the above I watched it.



Yes, Ian, it is that bad; in fact, it's worse than that - it's risibly appalling (yet curiously compulsive viewing... a bit like a slow motion car crash)

TheProgtologist wrote: Platoon,without question.I have never seen a movie more accurately portray what war is really like.   Honorable mentions go to Saving Private Ryan,Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima,Full Metal Jacket,The Thin Red Line,Black Hawk Down and The Hurt Locker.   Never could understand all the praise for Apocalypse Now.It's tedius to watch and is almost a cartoon-like portrayal of war.

I voted "other". I'm suprised that Where Eagles Dare hasn't been mentioned even if it's a bit dated. I mean you get to see Clint Eastwood kill half the Wermacht. OK the helicopter is an anachronism but the whole movie is so far fetched with tons of plot oversights and technical errors that it's almost hilarious. especially when they push the Nazi staff car over the ravine and it blows up for no reason. Alistar Mclean wrote the book  in just under three weeks and he also wrote the screenplay  At the time when it was released it was critisized by war veterans for glorifying war.

Apocalypse Now is ot really a war movie in my opinion but an excellent film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart Of Darkness which is set in the Belgian Congo in the late 1800s. If you have read the book yoyu will see that Francis Ford Coppalla did a good job updating and setting it during the Vietnam war. We read the book in CEGEP  and our English teacher even recommended for us to go and see it.

Other: "Die Brücke" ("The Bridge") by Bernhard Wicki (1959). It shows the madness of war best. During the last days of WW2 seven boys of the Hitler youth are being called in to defend a meaningless bridge. At first they are enthusiastic, but as one after the other dies their enthusiasm starts waning.
Here a link to the IMDB-entry.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052654/
Here is the final scene:



Edited by BaldFriede - October 04 2010 at 12:12

although not quite a war movie, i vote for "Stalag 17" with William Holden