Top 10 War flicks...
paulnice
924 Posts
Okay, list your top 10 war flicks.No real criteria just as long as war/wartime is essential to the plot in some way (ie: "Killing Fields" dealing with the aftermath of Vietnam & Cambodia/The Khmer Rouge; "The Wild Geese" & "Dogs of War" dealing with mercenaries, etc.).There's a mix here of serious stuff ("Schindler's List"), personal stuff ("Hell In The Pacific") & pure escapsim ("Eastern Condors", which is a rip off of nearly every American War flick made prior to 1987, particularly pillaging "The Dirty Dozen" & again, "The Wild Geese").(no particular order)
RUNNER UPs:Can't find a picture of DAS BOOT
People might cry blasphemy, but I actually think Eleanor Coppala's documentary on the making of Apocolypse Now (which tackles the concept of war on a personal level) is strangely a far more interesting film...
And before someone asks me how I forgot to add Platoon, I saw it again recently and thought it aged horribly. On the other hand I also watched Casualties of War (DePalma, Penn, MJ Fox) again a few weeks back & thought it to be a LOT better then I ever remembered it to be the first time around.
RUNNER UPs:Can't find a picture of DAS BOOT People might cry blasphemy, but I actually think Eleanor Coppala's documentary on the making of Apocolypse Now (which tackles the concept of war on a personal level) is strangely a far more interesting film...And before someone asks me how I forgot to add Platoon, I saw it again recently and thought it aged horribly. On the other hand I also watched Casualties of War (DePalma, Penn, MJ Fox) again a few weeks back & thought it to be a LOT better then I ever remembered it to be the first time around.
Comments
lemme add this. another incredibly beautiful movie
I also liked Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo - The Brotherhood of War
Clown me all you like, but I thought The Pianist was pretty good.
Not a "Movie" per say. But seriously... Band of Brothers is the fucking bomb! My all time fav.
anyone seen the new Malick? heard it was ehhh.
"a must see" -- mandrew
have you seen steel helmet? i think that's what its called. its a sam fuller flick set during the korean war.
dr strangelove?
open city
SPR is a pretty damn good flick. The D-Day 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition is really good. But I just found Band of Brothers was so much better.
That was an overdramatic terd of a movie. Speilberg gets the gasface.
Not me. Love the film! Thought I had it on my list!
i hate on matt damon and tom hanks.
paul/mack, could you guys speak on this movie just a lil bit?
i've always thought sinise is a brilliant actor, but the frank whaley, kevin dillon, ethan hawke, and peter berg combination would prevent me from ever giving that film the time of day.
does the director say "keith gordon"? who's that?
actually yes I hat on this film.
Spielberg's shoulda quit directing/producing in '89.
I enjoyed 'Band of Brothers', even though it wasn't a movie.
WHATS REALLY HOOD
is that Johnny Drama in that first flick?
Like Mack said, great flick.
A deceptively "quiet" war film. A US squadron holes up in an abandon chateau during the dead of winter (WW2).
Don't worry. Good acting.
But most of all GREAT directing. A very assured pace is kept throughout the film, keeping you on pins and needles waiting for an attack to come from the Germans at any moment.
Keith Gordon also directed the overlooked WW2 spy drama "Mother Night" with Nick Nolte.
Check for both films.
Co-sign on this one. This came out around the same time as Saving Private Ryan and a lot of people thought SPR was better, but I never really got into SPR. I far preferred Thin Red Line, and I especially liked the use of silence in the movie to build tension. By contrast, SPR was explosions and blood and guts and total sensory overload. In Thin Red Line when they were in the jungle and it was quiet the silence was almost deafening, to use a cliche. That, and the horribly sappy ending of SPR made me want to puke. Spielberg's turned into such a schlockmeister.
I would definetely put this on my top list. When it comes to submarine war flicks, J??rgen Prochnow & co. is #1 IMO. I saw the film version again recently, and it still carried the same intensity and grit that I remembered. I'd love to revisit the TV episodes in sequence again to get the full experience. Unfortunately Wolfgang Petersen has been far from this level since he went to Hollywood.
THE BATTLE OF ALGEIRS
HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR
LE PETIT SOLDAT
ALL HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
More about the victims than the soldiers, but still...
surprised no one has mentioned this yet
I guess technically this counts as a war movie since it takes place during the Civil War. One of the landmarks of American cinema to be sure. Having a real train crash through the bridge and into the river?
Been watching that film for the last 20 something years and it never grows old. Or any less funny.
eh. more passive Jewish victimhood (see Private Ryan, etc.).
can we get a Warsaw ghetto uprising flick please?