Favourite War Films

What are your favourite films about war whether showing combat or simply set during conflicts ?

Here are my favourites :

The Birth of a Nation (1915)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
The Big Parade (1925)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
In Which We Serve (1942)
Sergeant York (1942)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Great Escape (1963)
Patton (1970)
Platoon (1986)
Schindler's List (1993)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)

A few I'm surprised you left out:

TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH: Gregory Peck commands a troop of fliers, finds out running the show is a ticket to an agonizing personal hell.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY: Not a 'war film' per se, but the possibility(and inevitability of Pearl Harbor)hangs over everything here....the dark future to come is never far away.

HELL IS FOR HEROES: Strange almost-masterpiece that ends in the middle of a battle!

BATTLE OF ALGIERS: Pontecorvo's subversive, terrorist treatise plays modern today, if dated by look and the combatants.

APOCALYPSE NOW: Dark visions of combat, Viet Nam, megolamania, psychoses, and survival.

GALLIPOLI: Hello, Mel Gibson!

ED

Rather than start a new thread, I have opted to simply respond here.

I normally don't watch war movies (I've seen River Kwai , Birth of Nation, Sgt. York, Platoon, Patton, couple of others, hardly faves), but usually I wanted to just watch a good Gung Ho movie (which I have seen, but I want to watch one that doesnt have such a rep).

One Veteran's Day, I managed to sit thru Shores of Tripoli, with John Payne and Maureen O'Hara. really hit the spot. Just what I was after.

Then I got Richard Widmark in Halls of Montezuma. I liked how they were both lines from the song, so I recorded them off to a dvd together.

Aint I clever? Yea, right.

Anyway, it went from there. I copied Guadalcanal Diaries for the heck of it too.

Now many years ago, I see a Duke movie where he was on a pacific island or there about and apparently a schoolmaster had been killed and the anglo schoolteacher, an elderly lady, wanted Duke to go after the captain who ordered the headmaster's death.

Duke told her he had a mission.

I often wondered about this movie and only yesterday I finally learned what it was.

Good ol' Back to Bataan, 1945, and the woman in question was two-time Oscar nominee Beulah Bondi, who did a bit more in the film.

Wasn't she just the most unlikliest leading lady for the Duke in a war movie, tho?

Clearly she is now best known as Jimmy Stewart's mom in Wonderful Life (1946).

But I see there is a Bataan movie, with Robert Taylor.

Whether or not they are connected or one the sequel to the other, I don't care.

I've seen a few Taylor movies lately and have gotten a kick out of his tought guy image. "We saved their behinds in the war, they should be greatful."

The mentality is actually what I am after. Reminds me of the carpet-baggers in Gone With the Wind. "They must think they won the war!"

A 1950s movie, The Girls of Pleasure Island, about a father with three teen aged beauties for offspring, and the commanding officer of the troops stationed on the island speak to the father as tho he should be obligated to allow his daughters to keep company with the enlisted men, what with the duty they were performing.

lol!

I get such a kick out of this stuff. Not quite the propaganda I was after, but if it was some way of thinking back then, whether you agree with it or not, I am intrigued to know what exactly was the feeling.

Okay, being a product of Vietnam I have to pick We Were Soldiers Once, the Mel Gibson epic about Colonel Hal Moore's famous battle with his 7th Cav. However, for fun I've watched John Wayne's Green Berets a couple dozen times just to laugh at the propaganda in the film. But darn, if it wasn't what we were fed at the time. "Stop the Commies over there before they come here!" Basically, the same thing that's being said today.

I don't watch many war movies, but I do have a few that I like:
Battleground (1949)
The Great Escape (1963)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

Among my fav war films in no particular order are ,

Paths of Glory,
Bridge On The River Kwai ,
Full Metal Jacket ,( Albeit not GAOH but couldn't not mention)
Sergeant York ,
The flashback scene in The roaring twenties to WWI ,
Cross Of Iron ,
The Longest Day ,
Coming Home ,
Stalag 17 ,
The Young Lions
Apocalypse Now ,
Objective Burma ,
Dive Bomber ,
Ice Cold In Alex ("worth waiting for! "),
The Dambusters,
Dr Strangelove

Next to a good ole western shoot 'em up I like some war films. Among my favorites, and in no particular order are:

A Bridge Too Far
The Eagle Has Landed
Battle Cry
A Walk In The Sun
The Big Red One (Reconstructed Version)
We Were Soldiers
The Fighting Seabees
God Is My Co-Pilot
Air Force
A Wing and A Prayer
Flat Top
Men of the Fighting Lady
Attack
Retreat Hell!
The Steel Helmet
Hamburger Hill
Apocalypse Now!
Kelly's Heroes
Bridge over The River Kwai
Guns of the Navronne
Force 10 From The Navaronne
Wake Island
Letters From Iwo Jima
Flags of Our Fathers
Sands of Iwo Jima
Heaven Knows Mr. Allison
Flying Tigers
Flying Leathernecks
633 Squadron

There are more, but those are movies that I mix in with my westerns when I want to watch a bunch of movies in one day.

I have a lot of war favorites, but for some bizzare reason I can only think of a few.....my brain is like frozen or something.


Stalag 17 (1953)
The Patriot (2000)
The Young Lions (1958)
The Great Escape (1963)
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

I like Bataan (and yes, richardjf, Back to Bataan was the sequel.)

Others that are on my list, in no particular order:

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
A Walk in the Sun
Tora, Tora, Tora
The Longest Day
The Big Parade
All Quiet on the Western Front
To Hell and Back
Destination Tokyo
Stalag 17
In Which We Serve
Run Silent, Run Deep
The Caine Mutiny
From Here to Eternity
The Best Years of Our Lives (all right, not a war movie but deals with the aftermath of war)

Attack! 1956 Directed by Robert Aldrich with Jack Palance , Eddie Albert & Lee Marvin

The Steel Helmet (1951) Directed by Sam Fuller with Gene Evans & Robert Hutton

Hell to Eternity (1960) Directed by Phil Karlson with Jeffery Hunter & David Janssen

The Purple Heart (1944) Directed by Lewis Milestone with Dana Andrews & Richard Conte


Most of my favorites are already listed.

In the early 60's most kids played Army, so there are quite a few that I may have forgotten.


Bill (vallo)

I knew I was forgetting a couple! I can't believe I forgot to put down these two.

I've been away from TGAOH for a while, but plan to get back into the swing of things. My favorite war films are:

The Purple Heart
Battleground
Objective, Burma!
Stalag 17
The Great Escape
The Dirty Dozen
All Quiet on the Western Front
Bridge on the River Kwai

Steve