Excellent! My kind of thread! Apparrently the consideration for whats a war movie is pretty broad in the minds of many. Like id consider a Movie like Schindler's List a drama set during a war, but ah well.
The ones everyone has mentioned here are great: Especially 'Glory','Platoon', 'All Quiet...' and 'Bridge Over the River Kwai'. Oh and 'Band of Brothers' is a expensive but essential one to include. A couple that i'd add are:
'The Thin Red Line' if nothing else than for the visuals and the depiction of battle scenes. Alot of people hated it, i know, but it was a much more emotive film.
I know people are sick of hearing it, but i love 'A Bridge Too Far' and 'Lawrence of Arabia'. If you get a chance, check out either one.
'Zulu' is also a great though its a real oldie, but its pretty stirring in its own right.
'Troy' was excellent for the scale and sight of Ancient Battles, but not much else, but maybe im alone on that. It horribly mangled that story though
Along the Dr Strangelove lines is 'Catch 22': just kind of a farsical look at things in war, and eventhough ive never read it, i loved the movie
'The Dirty Dozen' and 'The Devils Brigade' are somewhat unrealistic, but great none the less for the special forces lover, and for the classic prison break stories 'Von Ryan's express' and 'The Great Escape' are both tremendous
For general specific ones, 'Patton' cannot be beat: its just an excellent war film that looks at the mans flaws and genius. 'MacArthur' is every bit as good, i think. Much more focus on early-Cold War geo politics and the man's vanity. Id love to see more British films of this general's genre, but i dont know that many more
ive never seen 'Battle of Britain' or 'Gallipoli' but ive heard theyre both excellent.
Id love to see some of the Napoleonic Era battles brought to the silver screen. The kind of things they can do now are astounding, and the recreation of massive battlefields or whole armadas would be astounding to see on screen. Ive always loved the idea of making a movie about 1805 which looks at both the last day of Nelson and the greatest victory of Napoleon and has like a dual character focus, but that might suck. More non-western ones would be excellent, too, like more from the Soviet or Asian perspectives on war
Anyone for worst war movies theyve yet seen? I nominate 'Battle of the Bulge' with Telly Savalis and Henry Fonda. I know they couldnt help it, but the climactic battle scene is so obviously done with small R/C model tanks that you cant help but literally laugh at the sight of it.
