1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Five favorite war movies

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Dick Whitman, Mar 11, 2012.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The Coen Brothers thread was really good, so let's try another category: War movies.

    You don't have to use the same criteria as I did, but I tried to pick movies wherein war (or preparation for war) was central to the setting. So I didn't include movies like "The Deer Hunter," "Schindler's List," "Forrest Gump," "Grace is Gone," and "Born on the Fourth of July," though you certainly should feel free to if your criteria differs.

    My five favorite:

    1. Full Metal Jacket
    2. Blackhawk Down
    3. Apocalypse Now
    4. Saving Private Ryan
    5. Inglorious Bastards

    HM: Platoon; Glory; Letters From Iwo Jima/Flags of Our Fathers; The Hurt Locker; Patton, etc., etc.
     
  2. SellOut

    SellOut Member

    Since we're doing it by "favorite" and not exactly "best" and we broaden the meaning of "war" I submit the following.

    1. The Great Escape
    2. The Hunt for Red October (Cold War)
    3. Full Metal Jacket
    4. Three Kings
    5. Casablanca
     
  3. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    Not in any order...

    Many Wars Ago - 1970 Italian film about Italy squaring off against Austria in the mountains in WWI. Contains the most absurd scene in any war film I have witnessed.
    Winter War - About the Finnish-Soviet war from 1939. The special effects are incredible (wouldn't be surprised if they were using live rounds).
    Glory - Only Civil War film that is worth a damn.
    Fires Were Started - Docu-drama about firefighters in London during the Blitz.
    All Quiet On The Western Front - The 1930 best picture winner.
     
  4. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Uncategorized greatness ...
    Duck You Sucker (aka Fistful Of Dynamite, a criminally underrated Leone film. At times serious, at other times not, for half of it, it's a bank-robbery film, but ultimately it's an allegory about war, revolution, individual responsibility, etc. )

    Adventure or fantasy-based war movies (in no order) ...
    Casablanca
    The Bridge On The River Kwai (only very loosely fact-based, works more as an adventure movie)
    Lawrence Of Arabia (see above)
    The Great Escape (see above)
    Where Eagles Dare

    "Serious" war movies (in no order) ...
    Paths Of Glory
    Das Boot
    Apocalypse Now Redux
    Gallipoli
    All Quiet On The Western Front (amazing how well that movie holds up more than 80 years after it was made)

    Honorable mention: Platoon, Hell Is For Heroes, Seven Days In May (if you want to count the possibility of war as a war film) and Alexander Nevsky (by far, the best propaganda movie ever made)

    War movies I want to see, but never have ...
    Cross Of Iron (Sam Peckinpah war film? Sign me up!)
    Johnny Get Your Gun
    A Bullet For The General
    Breaker Morant (currently on the DVR, but haven't watched it yet)
    The Longest Day (I've never had the time to sit all the way through it. I've tried once or twice)
    too many others to mention I've probably never heard of ...

    War movie I thought was awesome when I was 14, but haven't seen since ...
    Zulu Dawn. HBO used to show that movie on a seemingly endless loop with Beast Master. The last 20 minutes or so are a wholesale slaughter of the colonial British army. Sweet.

    War movie ending that blew my mind when I was 14 ...
    Bataan (Robert Taylor digs graves of his comrades, sits in a machine gun nest, and awaits certain doom as an overwhelming number of Japanese move in ... roll credits as he begins firing off what are undoubtedly his last rounds. Propaganda, but pretty bad-ass propaganda)

    War movies I thought were awesome when I was 14, but that actually suck ...
    Red Dawn (though it gets major so-bad, its good and unintentionally hilarity points)
    Force 10 From Navarone (really not good at all)
     
  5. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    1. Saving Private Ryan
    2. Glory
    3. Blackhawk Down
    4. Platoon
    5. Patton

    HM: Paths of Glory, Hurt Locker, The Last Samurai
     
  6. Captain_Kirk

    Captain_Kirk Well-Known Member

    1. The Deer Hunter
    2. Platoon
    3. Glory
    4. Apocalypse Now
    5. Tora, Tora, Tora
     
  7. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I'll exclude the same kinds of movies Dick Whitman excluded, though The Deer Hunter would otherwise top my list.

    1. Apocalypse Now — One of my 10 favorite movies ever.
    2. Casablanca — I consider this a war film. And an awesome film.
    3. Saving Private Ryan — The opening scene is the best war scene ever.
    4. Full Metal Jacket — For such a funny movie, it's terribly traumatic. For such a traumatic movie, it's wonderfully funny.
    5. Platoon — Gritty. So gritty.
     
  8. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    1. Glory
    2. Saving Private Ryan
    3. The Deer Hunter
    4. Gallipoli
    5. Good Morning, Vietnam

    * Casablanca would be No. 1, but I don't really consider it a war movie, though it's set during the war.

    ** They're not one among my five favorites, but since no one has mentioned them, I'll throw out M*A*S*H and The Dirty Dozen.

    *** Full Metal Jacket is a great half-movie. The basic training stuff is phenomenal, but it really runs off the rails once they get to Vietnam.
     
  9. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    As far as FMJ goes, I think some of you are discounting the last 20 minutes a little too much. I agree that the middle hour doesn't quite measure up, but I think that once the sniper scene begins, it's great again.

    Someone mentioned the humor in it, and now that I think about it, I wonder how much the film was an influence on the Coen Brothers as they matured. Or Kubrick in general.
     
  10. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    Platoon
    Gettysburg
    Full Metal Jacket
    The Great Escape
    Fort Apache

    HM: Apocalypse Now; Patton; Tora, Tora, Tora; Dirty Dozen.
     
  11. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    No particular order because they all excel at different things.

    - The Longest Day - the best of those patriotic WWII movies.
    - Platoon - Though the Elias/Barnes plot was overblown, it paved the way for war movies where everyone wasn't a hero, death was ugly and even the best soldiers knew fear.
    - Three Kings - Did a great job of examining modern war, the media and the politics of it.
    - Das Boot - Amazing movie. Maybe the first to succeed in getting the audience to admire the "enemy."
    - Blackhawk Down - I can't remember a single character's name but I can hear those bullets whizzing past like I watched it yesterday.
     
  12. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    The Great Escape
    Kelly's Heroes
    The Eagle has Landed
    Where Eagles Dare
    Saving Private Ryan
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page