Reply With QuoteTora Tora Tora
All Quiet on the Western Front
Das Boot
Black Hawk Down
All worth a watch IMO
Putting together an amazon order and want to beef up the DVD collection a bit. I have long had an interest in history, especially WW2. What are the great war films (doesnt't have to be WW2)?
The first film I added was 'Letters from Iwo Jima'. A masterful film (I cannot believe the difference between that and Eastwood's other part of that collection: the woeful Flags of our Fathers). Alongside the brilliant Das Boot, one of those rare films that made me empathise with the 'enemy'.
I already have some great films about the Vietnam War: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket.
I also have Stalingrad and Downfall in my collection.
Tora Tora Tora
All Quiet on the Western Front
Das Boot
Black Hawk Down
All worth a watch IMO
Thin Red Line
War films are not usually my thing but I would recommend:
Band of Brothers. (Six disc box set).
Enemy at the gate.
Saving Private Ryan, Battle of Britain, The Great Escape, The Colditz Story. The list is endless.
A bridge too far.
The cruel sea.
Go tell the Spartans.
Oh, what a lovely war.
Best wishes,
Bob
Surely. In which we serve
Come and See.
Ice Cold in Alex - one of my favourite movies and has a likeable German spy ;)
City of life & death - about 'the rape of Nanjing' is also excellent (but harrowing).
z
Das Boat the full version
Saving private Ryan
Hell is for heros
Murphys war
Enemy at the gates
No mans land
Platoon
Black hawk down
Stalingrad. (Excellent German film)
9th Company (excellent Russian film)
We were soldiers
Patton
The longest day
Morning Departure 40s sub film. John mills
Downfall
Run silent run deep
Missed any out .??
I'll add Cross of Iron to the list. I remember seeing it in the eighties, and it didn't make an impression. However, when I see it today I love it. In the end, there are no "enemy" no "our side", just a bunch of sorry b*stards in a world of sh*t ...
Not exactly a 'shoot em up' but Ivan's Childhood is worth a look.
and of course there is Zulu.
I watch a lot of films and had a preoccupation with early-mid 20th century history when I was in my teens.
Some good films already mentioned.
For me, though, one of (if not "the") finest war film is...
Paths of Glory (1957)
I would also argue that it's Stanley Kubrick's best film.
It tells the story of some French soldiers in WWI who, after refusing to press on with an impossible attack, are then persecuted by their superiors in an effort to make an example of them.
It's a deeply thought provoking meditation on the futility of war and the lack of humanity and compassion with which mankind can treat even those on their own side during conflict.
Last edited by CamCG; 30th January 2013 at 11:02.
Seen all the above and can recommend most, especially Stalingrad. I would also recommend "The Pacific" box set.
Schindler's List of course.
I think it is probably the finest film ever made.
So clever my foot fell off.
Most of my faves are listed above, Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Black Hawk down, make sure you look at Band of Brothers and The Pacafic (both 10 part TV shows).
A few others not mentioned (some a little leftfield):
War Horse (recommended)
Braveheart (recommended)
The Hurt Locker (recommended)
300
Pearl Harbour
Act of Valor (recommended)
Green Zone
Red Tails
The Last Samurai (recommended)
Rambo
Valkyrie
Fly Boys
U-571
Zulu
I could go on...
The Cruel Sea
The Man Who Never Was
The Enemy Below
Saving Private Ryan
Ice Cold In AleX
Tora Tora Tora
Patton
Das Boot - Not the shortened version though
And most of the above....
Black Hawk Down (one of my favorite films)
Buffalo Soldiers
Born on the fourth of July
Three Kings
The Pianist
The Kingdom (2007) is also an interesting take on the war movie - especially the clash/commanalities of ideologies - worth a watch.
About a team of U.S. government agents sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.
z
Not just excellent war films, but amongst some of the best films ever made. With the exception of Saving Private Ryan ;)Originally Posted by pluseditor
Yep loads of classics there. Ice Cold in Alex, Das Boot, Zulu...etc etc.
i was trying to think of one not mentioned yet. How about. Saviour with Dennis Quaid.
I'm glad someone else has mentioned that.
One of the most intense films I've ever seen. Makes most other war films seem almost gutless, yes even Schindlers List and Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket etc etc. Being in Russian and quite long though, I'm not surprised most people haven't seen it.
We'll agree to disagree of SPR then, but I think it brings home the horrors of war quite starkly. Not that I have ever experienced them fortunately.
Excellent choice!!
For B&W I'd go ...
Went the Day Well?
Colditz Story
The Wooden Horse
Ice Cold in Alex
Dambusters
Five Graves to Cario
Sea of Sand
Ill Met by Moonlight
Paths of Glory
Operation Amsterdam
Battle of River Plate
The Desert Fox
The Desert Rats
The Hill
Dunkirk
The wodden Horse
Or just about anything by Pressburger and Powell etc etc etc
Moving into classic movies in colour ...
The Great Escape
Battle of Britain
Tora Tora Tora
Young Winston
Lawence of Arabia
Cockleshell Heros
633 Squadron
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Bridge Over the River Kwai
The Boys from Brazil
The Heros of Telemark
Colditz (the TV series)
Into more modern stuff ...
The Red Baron (forget the reviews, it's a very enjoyable movie)
Saving Private Ryan
Stalingrad (if you can get past the total inaccuracy of the whole thing)
Das Boot (full version)
Downfall
Fist of the Reich (Max Schelling story)
The Counterfeiters
Band of Brothers (forget Pacific - same story, different Island)
Iron Sky (Nazis on the dark side of the moon come back to invade earth - an amazing satire!!)
Warhorse
The Pianist
The list is endless, but personally I love 40's / 50's B&W flag wavers
Last edited by Mr Stoat; 30th January 2013 at 10:31.
Its not that I think it is a bad film, just I don't think it is up there with offerings like Ice Cold in Alex... and that maybe the production could have been scaled back a bit to let the characters tell the story.
Ten years ago I had a gentleman in his 80's come along to speak to a group of film studies students. He was missing several fingers, a leg, and still carried visible scars.
He was one of only two cameramen who went up the beaches with the first wave at Normandy. He was not armed with a gun, but rather with a film camera and his remit (probably the most dangerous possible) was to get close and capture as much of the action as possible.
The students asked him if any film had ever portrayed the invasion and battles realistically.
He replied that none ever had. Except one. The first forty-five minutes of "Saving Private Ryan".
If that isn't a tribute to the director and the film I don't know what is.
So clever my foot fell off.
Kokoda
Aussies and japs in Pap New Guinea
Excellent film
The only film ever to make me duck at the cinema, awesome film Nick Nolte's finest.
Has the Bridges of Toko Ri been mentioned and Empire of the sun?
Off the beaten track, but I recently watched 'Days of Glory', a fantastic film about Moroccan troops fighting in France in World War 2.
Surprised no one's mentioned The Deer Hunter.
I don't know if it's been mentioned in a previous post but Stalingrad ( by the makers of Das Boot) is a fantastic film!
Saints and soldiers is also worth a mention, not too bad.
This thread reminds me that I should attempt to watch Lebanon again. We sat down to watch it a couple of years ago but SWMBO couldn't bear the, rather graphic, violence. I think it's the only film I have ever downloaded from Itunes. There are some other good recommendations here; keep it up.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483831/
Further to my earlier post and the many fine suggestions from others above, how about some Cold War films to provide a counterbalance to all the battlefield action?
I would strongly suggest these John Le Carre TV dramas:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)
Smiley's People (1982) - The sequel to 'T.T.S.S.'
(Okay, so not cinema releases; but if you see them as "6 hour films" they could be included).
(Oh, and please don't bother with the recent film of 'T.T.S.S.' - it may have some good qualities, but compared to the TV drama with Sir Alec Guinness it is very lacking).
(Re TV series vs. film see: http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...or-Soldier-Spy and http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...or-Soldier-Spy).
Some other Cold War suggestions could include:
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) - A great performance from Richard Burton, but I'm not sure that the film has aged that well
The Lives of Others (2006) - Spying in East Germany post WWII; in my opinion, the best film made in the first decade of the 21st century
The Breach (2007) - A very understated yet highly tense film about spying inside the USA
This!
Also The Red and the White.
Another slightly leftfield film I quite liked is "In Darkness" - a recent film - about Jews hiding out in occupied Lvov.
I'm particularly interested in the Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, etc viewpoints of WWII - which are less well documented in film than the British and especially American takes on what happened.
N
If you don't mind books, I would heartily recommend Anthony Price's Dr David Audley/Colonel Jack Butler series. I think that they are wonderful.
Best wishes,
Bob
Back from the time when he actually wrote his own books, and was at the top of his game, I can wholeheartedly recommend "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy for a truly gripping account of WW3.
So clever my foot fell off.
no love for "Where Eagles Dare" ?
"BROADSWORD CALLING DANNY BOY!"
If you'd like to go back a touch further than WW1/WW2 then I'd recommend "Arn : The Knight Templar" and it's hard not to like "Kingdom of Heaven" as an action movie.
For a bit of WW1 spy action I like "Riddle of the Sands" thought the book is far better than the movie.
Casualties of War - Michael J Fox in a thought provoking role (for once).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097027/
z
Glory is an excellent movie and Das Boot is one of my top 5 movies.
Went the Day Well
Bat21 (for the Gene Hackman fans).
It's Vietnam and about 20 years since i saw it as a teenager, but i remember '84 charlie mopic' being very good.
Brighty
Bit of a left field one but Island on bird street is very good.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119389/
Alex is an 11-year old boy who, during WWII, hides in the Jewish ghetto from Nazis after all the relatives have been sent to the concentration camp. The movie portrays the ghetto through his eyes.
Well worth looking out for.
Love that film, but it's a fun action thriller that doesn't really give you a meaningful perspective of the war of course.
There are so many .. when I was a kid there seemed to be a WW2 film on TV at least three nights a week. Was surprised to see the WW2 genre make a comeback in the '90s with Windtalkers, U-57 or whatever it was, Pearl Harbor and the rest.
I never saw the film version of Das Boot but the TV miniseries it was edited down from was intense and haunting. Brilliant.
I like Battle of the Bulge, A Bridge Too Far, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Battle of Britain.
Escape to victory? ;0D
Brighty
I thought this was fine until the final shoot 'em up when it emerges that the entire team have incredible combat skills, a bit unlikely. 'Three Kings' is more honest fun!
It's such a pity the BBC didn't make 'The Honourable Schoolboy' at the same time; but the exotic locations made it too expensive. It would make a fantastic film now!
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