Favorite war movie.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-01-02 12:05am

These are my top war film choices:

#1 Black Hawk Down - THIS was the face of war and also showed the bravery of our soldiers without making them jingoisitic spouting robots like we see in some war films or the WORSE warfilm cliche...the coward, the hero, the wise ass, etc. EVERY fucking war film seems to need these stereotypes, this film showed REAL people under real stress and very HUMAN reactions.)

#2 Patton - This stirred the heart and boy was it awesome to see George C. Scott, in my mind he will always and forever BE Patton

#3 Full Metal Jacket - Need anything be said about this movie, particularly the Paris Island scenes were so AWESOME. The character of Joker and best of all Drill Sargeant Hartmann...Sir, Yes Sir!!!

#4 Braveheart - They can never take our frredom...historical inaccuracies be damned this was one awesome film and it never fails to bring a tear to my eye in the end when he sees her at the torture block. It had everything, war and romance wihtou making it too contrived. Was anyone else scared when they saw Mel in full blue faced splendor with that fucking scowl on his face??

#5 Band of Brothers - Particualrly the early stuff, VERY well done and once again displayed soldiers as human beings not some walking talking cliches.

#6 We were soldiers - This movie was amazing and a recent discovery by me, fearing another jingoistic war film (particulalry endemic in Vietnam flicks) I avoided this in the theatre and only recently rented it on DVD and was blown away. VERY well done and not a cliche in sight (well except for the bad ass sargeant major that has been in every war since WWII but that is one cliche I've always enjoyed. If you haven't seen it give it a shot.

Honorable mention: Glory, Battle of the Bulge, Saving Private Ryan

Dishonorable mention: Pearl Harbor (The goggles do nothing...) Enemy at the Gates (all the movement and drammatic tension of passing a kidney stone) Bridge over the River Kwai (Ok, I realize this is considered a classic but it BORED THE SHIT out of me...this a war film should not do)

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-02 12:07am

I hate Bridge Over the River Kwai for its portrayal of the British collaborating with the Japanese. In reality they actively sabotaged the work while doing it as slowly as possibul. They did the same when they got used to work on a dry dock and load ships in Saigon and Singapore.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-01-02 12:09am

Sea Skimmer wrote:I hate Bridge Over the River Kwai for its portrayal of the British collaborating with the Japanese. In reality they actively sabotaged the work while doing it as slowly as possibul. They did the same when they got used to work on a dry dock and load ships in Saigon and Singapore.

What you didn't cotton onto the fact that they were building it at a slower rate than usual. They had to build it at a reasonable speed because they had to keep the men happy/active while also not getting killed by the Japanese for slacking.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-02 12:11am

I liked most of the ones mentioned, although I could do without the schmaltzy "look at what a wonderful guy he is" Catholic recruitment film which dominates the first half of "We were Soldiers" (not to mention the seemingly innumerable "pump the audience for tears" scenes with the death letters arriving on base).

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-01-02 12:16am

Darth Wong wrote:I liked most of the ones mentioned, although I could do without the schmaltzy "look at what a wonderful guy he is" Catholic recruitment film which dominates the first half of "We were Soldiers" (not to mention the seemingly innumerable "pump the audience for tears" scenes with the death letters arriving on base).

I agree that some of it came off that way but its based on a true story and the Colonel that Gibson plays was there on the set every day to make sure that it was as accurate a sit could be for a movie AND we also have to remember this was back in the 60's, EARLY 60's so this attitude was far more prevalent then than now. Alot of these boys WANTED to give their lives for their country. It was a sad mix of innocence and ignorance.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-02 12:45am

Stalingrad rules them all, followed closely by Cross of Iron.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-01-02 01:38am

Full Metal Jacket and Glory

I like Three Kings but that is more of an anti-war movie.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2003-01-02 11:23am

I like most of the movies here, but I vote for The Longest Day. Also, Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone, and Force 10 From Navarone were good ones.

EDIT: Oh yeah, there was a good one called The Big Red One, I think. It was a good one. It had Lee Marvin and Mark Hamil in it. I'd like to watch any movie with Mark Hamil in it, because movies with him in it are very rare. And there were lots of moving scenes involving their discovery of the Holocaust that I never forgot after only watching it once. I was always disappointed that Hamil never really did anything with his acting career.

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2003-01-02 12:29pm

Have any of you ever seen "Charge of the Light Brigade?" It was a movie done in the seventies that never got much push from the studio. Very well done movie that described the action that resulted in Lord Cardigan's ill-advised cavalry charge on the Crimean peninsula. The movie ended with the command staff bickering with each other trying to deflect blame for the disaster onto somebody else.

MASH was a pretty solid war movie, although not the standard fare for war movies.

As far as brutal war movies go, Hamburger Hill and Saving Ryan's Privates certainly win awards. Tigerland isn't too bad either.

My personal favorite though is Gettysburg. Just a sprawling marathon of the movie that comes the closest to capturing the scale of Civil War combat.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-01-02 12:35pm

Das Boot

Nothing says war more than sitting near a convoy, waiting for the escorts to tire and stop depth carching you, with the pinging of the ASDIC.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-01-02 01:01pm

I'll say it again

Das Boot (In German with English Subs)

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-01-02 03:28pm

U-571 and Pearl Harbour. I mean, the Americans really did capture the Enigma, the Hornet had an angled flight deck, you always drop torpedoes ON the ship, and the Dolittle raid was the biggest victory of the war.

Right?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-01-02 03:53pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:I'll say it again

Das Boot (In German with English Subs)

Nothing induced narcolepsy in me like this movie. I swear I tried to watch this twice and I NEVER sleep during a movie and both times it was my snores mixed with deoth charges going off that awoke me.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2003-01-02 04:04pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:U-571 and Pearl Harbour. I mean, the Americans really did capture the Enigma, the Hornet had an angled flight deck, you always drop torpedoes ON the ship, and the Dolittle raid was the biggest victory of the war.

Right?

[rant]Actually the brits captured the type IX U-110 and the Enigma, while U-571 was a type VII (as shown in the film) that was later lost with all hands in the war. There were numerous things just wrong with U-571 IMHO such as one-man fighters in the middle of the Atlantic, this dumb scene were the american engineer fixes the engines in a few minutes what the crew couldn't do in several days, Bon Jovi disappearing without explanation, every crewman keeping a subgun in his bunk, and of course the american crew magically overcoming the obstacle of sending the correct boat id-code with the signal lamp which they would not have known and without which they would never have been granted the permission to come aboard the boat. The american soldiers are pertey flat and generic characters, while the german soldiers aren't characters, they're one-dimensional propaganda props.
I mean, they could have made a movie about either the true history of how the Enigma was captured by brave british sailors from U-110 or about the story of the real U-571, or about how U-510 was captured by the americans (it is on display in Chicago) any of these movies would have been fine.
But instead they made this.[/rant]

The movie isn't an especially bad one and it's fun to watch, but it's nowhere near the experience which is, for example, das Boot, Glory, or saving private Ryan.

EDIT: drat I forgot Platoon.

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-01-02 04:11pm

In no particular order:

Glory
Saving Private Ryan
Black Hawk Down
Full Metal Jacket
Three Kings
We Were Soldiers

Dishonorable Mention: The Thin Red Line. Boring as shit, and too surreal.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-02 04:56pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:U-571 and Pearl Harbour. I mean, the Americans really did capture the Enigma, the Hornet had an angled flight deck, you always drop torpedoes ON the ship, and the Dolittle raid was the biggest victory of the war.

Right?

The idea of doing a historically accurate U-571 got pitched by the writer/director to several British studios. All the ones he went to rejected the idea. Mastow then rewrote it to what we saw and took it to hollywood.

American forces did capture a U-boat and get its Enigma gear, but that was in 1944. The ending tiles of the movie do credit U-571 as being taken by the British. The only real problem with the movie was the name U-571 and the historical problems that causes. Ignore it and its fine.

People attack the underwater combat between WW2 subs, ignoring the fact that such a battle did occur with similar results in the Atlantic and there was also at least one case in the pacific, though neither boat hit the other.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2003-01-02 06:40pm

Dishonorable Mention: The Thin Red Line. Boring as shit, and too surreal.

It was a bit odd, but I'll never forget the line "I got me one! I got me a Jap!" ... "I killed a man... that's the worst you can do - worse 'n rape."

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-01-02 06:44pm

Dishonorable Mention: The Thin Red Line. Boring as shit, and too surreal.

And it had nothing to do with a Thin Red Line.

I mean WTF were the Redcoats?

There were no Brits at ALL in the movie. I want my money back.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-01-02 06:45pm

In no particular order.

Glory
The Longest Day
The Enemy Below
Gettysburg
Patton
The Great Escape(Not really war, but...)

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-02 06:54pm

Ted wrote:
Dishonorable Mention: The Thin Red Line. Boring as shit, and too surreal.
And it had nothing to do with a Thin Red Line.

I mean WTF were the Redcoats?

There were no Brits at ALL in the movie. I want my money back.

Read the book, then shut up.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-01-02 07:00pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Ted wrote:
Dishonorable Mention: The Thin Red Line. Boring as shit, and too surreal.
And it had nothing to do with a Thin Red Line.
I mean WTF were the Redcoats?
There were no Brits at ALL in the movie. I want my money back.
Read the book, then shut up.

I was being sarcastic, fool.

Drewcifer · Post by **Drewcifer** » 2003-01-02 07:35pm

Glory was always a favorite of mine. That whole scene on the beach, especially when MB slaps his horse away, moves me to my core.

For the Apocalypse Now fans out there (myself included), rent Hearts of Darkness: The making of Apocalypse Now. An amazing documentary that reveals there was as much madness going on behind the scenes as was on screen. Like Dennis Hopper, who was the exact same off-camera as he was on. And the scene with Martin Sheen in the hotel room at the beginning wasn't really acting; he was having a nervous break down after too much wine, but they filmed the scene anyway. He wasn't supposed to actually punch the mirror, all that blood is real.

And much much more. Very interesting.

I loved Kelly's Hero's as well. Too, although it isn't a war movie (or even a good movie) I loved the Strangelove reference in Armageddon, when Steve Buscemi (sp?) got on top of the bomb. And then the line after that:
"GET OFF...THE NUCLEAR...DEVICE"

Necro99 · Post by **Necro99** » 2003-01-02 08:01pm

All Quiet On The Western Front and Paths of Glory

Apocalypse Now
Das Boot
Memphis Belle
Midway
Enemy at the Gates
Why we Fight : The Russian Front
Battle of Britain
The Day After
Full Metal Jacket
Hamburger Hill
Platoon
Platoon Leader
Saving Private Ryan (the First 20 minutes)

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-01-02 08:03pm

For Honorable Mention:

Anything with Lee Marvin in it.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2003-01-03 04:16am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:U-571 and Pearl Harbour. I mean, the Americans really did capture the Enigma, the Hornet had an angled flight deck, you always drop torpedoes ON the ship, and the Dolittle raid was the biggest victory of the war.

Right?
The idea of doing a historically accurate U-571 got pitched by the writer/director to several British studios. All the ones he went to rejected the idea. Mastow then rewrote it to what we saw and took it to hollywood.

American forces did capture a U-boat and get its Enigma gear, but that was in 1944. The ending tiles of the movie do credit U-571 as being taken by the British. The only real problem with the movie was the name U-571 and the historical problems that causes. Ignore it and its fine.

People attack the underwater combat between WW2 subs, ignoring the fact that such a battle did occur with similar results in the Atlantic and there was also at least one case in the pacific, though neither boat hit the other.

they rejected it? I didn't know that.