NationStates Jolt Archive

what is the best war movie?
saving private ryan or the thin red line?

Do we have to choose from those?

I liked "Cold Mountain"

Platoon, Full Metal Jacket

Apocalypse Now

Do we have to choose from those?

I liked "Cold Mountain"

Jude Law........siiigh :fluffle:

i liked saving prvate ryan :mp5: and enemy at the gates :sniper: :D

braveheart

Top 5:
Come and See.

Come and See.

Come and See.

Come and See.

Full Metal Jacket.

ohh the Patriot with Heath and Mel. and if you watch it in surround sound with a subwoofer....the house will rumble when they shoot the canons.

Top 5:
Come and See.

Come and See.

Come and See.

Come and See.

Full Metal Jacket.
Bull shit I bet you can suck a golf ball through a garden hose!

Jude Law........siiigh :fluffle:


Nicole Kidman, good acting.
Renee Zellweger, good acting.

Would "Kill Bill" count as a war movie?

Dr.Strangelove
Johnny Got His Gun
M*A*S*H

Nicole Kidman, good acting.
Renee Zellweger, good acting.

Would "Kill Bill" count as a war movie?

no

sorry maybe i should have specified the question

ww2
ww1
vietnam (if you must)
any gulf war movies
even pre ww1 stuff
but it must be an actual WAR

Dr.Strangelove

great movie ;)

Dr.Strangelove
Johnny Got His Gun
M*A*S*H

and korea . cant forget MASH can not forget MASH MASH cannot be forgoten

Bull shit I bet you can suck a golf ball through a garden hose!
5'10"? I didn't know they could stack shit that high! You trying to squeeze an extra inch on me, boy?

great movie ;)

DR stranglove is an epic

Do we have to choose from those?

I liked "Cold Mountain"

well yes thats why they are there
cold mountain. not a real war movie hmmm, but if you really want it i suppose ..................

If we're talking about good war-movies, then nothing's better than das Boot (the original 5 hours version).
That's an extraordinary masterpiece by every standard.

5'10"? I didn't know they could stack shit that high! You trying to squeeze an extra inch on me, boy?
Good god texas! I though only steers and queers came from texas! and you dont look like much of a steer to me!

"Pearl harbor"

5'10"? I didn't know they could stack shit that high! You trying to squeeze an extra inch on me, boy?

"DID YOUR PARENTS HAVE ANY CHILDREN THAT LIVED?"


"Sound off like youve got a pair!"

I crack up throughout the entire boot camp scene. Up until Pyle 86's the drill sarg and himself. :eek:

Good god texas! I though only steers and queers came from texas! and you dont look like much of a steer to me!
It looks to me like the best part of you ran down the crack of your mama's ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress!

Platoon.

"Come and See" - Russian; absolutely brilliant
"Das Boot" - then the director went on to do absolute crap
"Paths of Glory" - early Kubrick; the trenches were too clean, though
"Prisoner of the Mountain" - Russian; Russians caught in Chechnya, pretty good (scenes of Russian soldiers selling weapons to local merchants for food and other stuff)
"Kippur" - Israeli, about a medical team during the Yom Kippur War
"Capitaine Conan" - Tavernier; French Army in Romania (?) at the end of the First World War

There's a few I can't remember...

The Thin Red Line is to cinema what McDonalds is to cuisine. It is the SECOND WORST MOVIE ever. (The First going to The Messenger: Joan of Arc). "Castle Keep" with 70s mores and Columbo comes in third.

Here are my top 10 favs, in no real order:

Hamburger Hill
Blackhawk Down
Henry V (1989, Kenneth Branaugh version)
Ran (Kurasawa)
Full Metal Jacket
Patton
Paths of Glory
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, black & white only!!)
Glory
A Bridge Too Far

Blackhawk Down, for modern combat.
Saving Private Ryan, for WW II (or the whole series, Band of Brothers).

All of those seem to capture the sense of "imperfect knowledge".

In real life, things are confusing - you can't tell who is where, and it's about as mixed up as trying to figure out how a play is going at certain moments in soccer, rugby, or US football.

A play may be very orderly at first - you may have a good sense of who is where, and then it's too confusing to follow - and then the play is over and nothing is the way you thought it would be.

Dash and bravery has little to do with it - an ability to keep your head and think simply and quickly has more to do with success.

The Thin Red Line is to cinema what McDonalds is to cuisine. It is the SECOND WORST MOVIE ever. (The First going to The Messenger: Joan of Arc). "Castle Keep" with 70s mores and Columbo comes in third.

Here are my top 10 favs, in no real order:

Hamburger Hill
Blackhawk Down
Henry V (1989, Kenneth Branaugh version)
Ran (Kurasawa)
Full Metal Jacket
Patton
Paths of Glory
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, black & white only!!)
Glory
A Bridge Too Far
Argh, I'm appalled I forgot "Ran." The 1930s "All Quiet on the Western Front" was quite good, although the book has been blasted by many historians as grossly inaccurate and the author derided by veterans. (Having had to sit through lectures about all that, I'd rather not go further.) "Glory" is quite good as well. I've yet to see "Blackhawk Down."

Whaaaaaaaat?

No "Kelley's Heroes"?

Full metal Jacket all the way!

Here are my top 10 favs, in no real order:

Hamburger Hill
.
.
.


btw: I was gonna watch Hamburger hill one night but then I realized they were showing the universal soldier (Van Damme... :eek: ) on another channel. That was actually a lot more tolerable than any american propaganda-movie I've seen.

Have to go with Glory as my top choice, with Platoon, Patton, Midway, Tora, Tora, Tora, Gettysburg, Apo. Now, Good Morning Vietnam, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Memphis Belle in the conversation.

Hamburger Hill was scarcely an American propaganda film. A bunch of US soldiers scrambling up a muddy hill day after day being shot to shit and shelled by their own artillery only to end up leaving the area immediately after it had been taken can't really be considered propaganda. If the acting had been better, it would have been a classic.

The graphic-ness of Saving Private Ryan with more humanity than any war movie that I've ever seen. Lee Marving gives the best performance I've ever seen, due to his Marine combat experience in the South Pacific in WWII.

Absolutely beautiful.

Painful, loving, inspiring, and intelligent.

Please see it when it is available.

thing i don't like about saving private ryan that its just the americanes. looks like they won the war thems selves . no british or candians in sight. and thats why i like the longest day.(still no russians :p )

The Sands of Iwo Jima

12 O'Clock High

To Hell and Back

The Young Lions

Stalag 17

The Dirty Dozen

The Blue Max

Midway

Wings

They Were Expendable

and my #1 favorite: Cross of Iron. The coolest war film ever

thing i don't like about saving private ryan that its just the americanes. looks like they won the war thems selves . no british or candians in sight. and thats why i like the longest day.(still no russians :p )

Go figure, it was about American soldiers, in particular a group of Rangers looking for an Airborne GI.

Band of Brothers, not a movie, but a mini-series. It is still better than the rest.

Agree totally...Band of Brothers is excellent.

Band of Brothers, not a movie, but a mini-series. It is still better than the rest.
Nah... it's still too much of a propaganda.

Bridge Too Far! A legend!

Paras rule! :mp5: :mp5: :mp5: :mp5:

thing i don't like about saving private ryan that its just the americanes. looks like they won the war thems selves . no british or candians in sight. and thats why i like the longest day.(still no russians :p )
The worst movie for that was Galipoli with a very young Mel Gibson. About the ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) and the trials and tribulations of the complete and utter cock-up that was the Galipoli campaign of WWI.
The New Zealanders, who had 2,701 killed and 4,880 wounded out of aprox. 10000 troops, were mentioned twice in the movie, both times derogatory.
It was an Ozzie movie btw, in case you hadn't guessed.

Mmmm, Band of Brothers was good. I'd say Full Metal Jacket is my favourite film, with Platoon and Apocalypse Now close behind on Nam. Saving Private Ryan for WWII. There are a lot of interesting films I plan on checking out in this thread, so TAG.

any gulf war movies


I don't think any of those exist.

Saving Private Ryan is probably one of the best war movies I have seen. Followed by Black Hawk Down, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Glory, (the ending battle of that movie was one of the best) Zulu, and Kelly's Heroes.

in order
1.) the longest day
2.) a bridge to far
3.) the bridge on the river kwai
4.) saving private ryan
5.) the thin red line
6.) enemy at the gates
7.)the battle of britain
8.) the colditz sory
9.) desert rats
10.) either patton or 633 squadron

now if we took sereis into consideration
band of brothers and das boot would be in their and deffinatly M*A*S*H

and this is just ww2 and korea

ime not a big nam movie fan but some of its ok

It was a close call with many of them. However, I would have to say that my favorate War movie is "Big Red One."

How can you not have Midway on there? CHARLETON HESTON DIES IN IT DAMMIT!

And if you take a series in to account, you have to include Black Sheep Squadron.

btw: I was gonna watch Hamburger hill one night but then I realized they were showing the universal soldier (Van Damme... :eek: ) on another channel. That was actually a lot more tolerable than any american propaganda-movie I've seen.

The Green Berets was propoganda... Hamburger Hill??? :confused:

How can you not have Midway on there? CHARLETON HESTON DIES IN IT DAMMIT!

And if you take a series in to account, you have to include Black Sheep Squadron.

So? He dies in Beneath the Planet of the Apes too... ;)

Disagree. BSS was a pile of poo. CBS cancelled it because the vets from the unit wrote a letter begging them to, as it was so inaccurate.

The dirty dozen. Has to be.

Does the Band of Brothers count? I know its a mini-series but htey are amazing. If not Id say either Hamburger, Saving Privae Ryan or We were Soldiers

Gods and Generals was pretty good too.

Argh, I'm appalled I forgot "Ran." The 1930s "All Quiet on the Western Front" was quite good, although the book has been blasted by many historians as grossly inaccurate and the author derided by veterans. (Having had to sit through lectures about all that, I'd rather not go further.) "Glory" is quite good as well. I've yet to see "Blackhawk Down."

Ran is just Japanese "King Lear", btw. It's still a great film. I'm so happy its on DVD now in the US.

Does Kurosawa's best known masterpiece "The Seven Samurai" count?
If not then i'd go thin red line.

All quiet on the western front was a pretty good war movie. Now I havn't seen all the war movies listed there.. but I just recently bought the thin red line.. I'm looking forward to that.. saving private ryan is also a very good movie.
But .. seriously, I would not consider Cold Mountain a war movie.. it was more a romance than a war movie...The Last Samurai or Lord Of The Rings was more war movie than that. :headbang:

BTW. Do you know if there is a movie to the book "A Farewell to Arms" by Hemingway? I'd love to see that.

There are two war movies that are not propaganda for some axegrinder:

1 ) The Big Red One - about the stuff that really happens in war, because nobody at any level of the chain of command ever has the whole picture.

2 ) Kelly's Heroes - about stuff that could happen (and probably does to some degree) in war, because everyone knows nobody has the whole picture and figures you have a good reason for the strange thing you're doing.

M*A*S*H was a comedy set in a war zone. If anyone had really done that stuff, that openly, they'd be arrested during the opening credits.

I was kind of kidding about Kelly's Heroes.

But Three Kings should make the list.

I just plain love war movies. Give me a weekend and a case of beer and I'd be in heaven.

Wasn't there a series on cable that followed a platoon in Vietnam?

I enjoyed "Das Boot" it was the first time I watched a foreign made film in its original language with subtitles.

Second foreign one was " The Rose", I think that's the title. It's about a student uprising against Hitler and the brutal way it was put down.

I just plain love war movies. Give me a weekend and a case of beer and I'd be in heaven.

Wasn't there a series on cable that followed a platoon in Vietnam?

I enjoyed "Das Boot" it was the first time I watched a foreign made film in its original language with subtitles.

Second foreign one was " The Rose", I think that's the title. It's about a student uprising against Hitler and the brutal way it was put down.

"Tour of Duty" was on CBS in the 80s. Do you mean that?

"Tour of Duty" was on CBS in the 80s. Do you mean that?
yep. That's it.

I was in the military in the 80s and don't remember it being on but I didn't get to watch TV. I must've been watching it in sindication on some cable channel.

War movies is such a broad category, I'm going to have to list my favourite of each subgroup:

POW movie: The Grand Illusion
WW2 Movie (European theatre): Kelly's Heros
WW2 Movie (Pacific theatre): Tora! Tora! Tora!
WW1 Movie: All Quiet on the Western Front
Vietnam Movie: Apocalypse Now
Modern War Movie: Saviour

I'm a film nut, what can I say. If you haven't seen all of these films you should rent them, especially Saviour it's more relevenat today than when it was made.

the post before me basically read my mind. weird. i hate when that happens. also- i like the documentaries better, for obvious reasons.

Catch 22

Catch 22

i have only read the book and dint think it was very good, it was ok. how was the film?

dr. strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

full metal jakett

platoon

Tie between "We Were Soldiers" and "The Patriot"

Lots of good suggestions. All Quiet on the Western Front was a classic. In terms of what most of us think of when we say War Movie I'd say that Saving Private Ryan and Platoon are the two best. I also want to throw Gettysburg and Glory out there.

But my favorite war movie, and the one I think is by far the best, though some people may not consider it a "war movie" due to the lack of battle scenes, is Casablanca.

Lots of good suggestions. All Quiet on the Western Front was a classic. In terms of what most of us think of when we say War Movie I'd say that Saving Private Ryan and Platoon are the two best. I also want to throw Gettysburg and Glory out there.

But my favorite war movie, and the one I think is by far the best, though some people may not consider it a "war movie" due to the lack of battle scenes, is Casablanca.

you must remembert this, a kiss is still a kiss. the fundamental things of lovers.........................
hmmm casablanca never heard of it .LOL :D

All quiet on the western front was a pretty good war movie. Now I havn't seen all the war movies listed there.. but I just recently bought the thin red line.. I'm looking forward to that.. saving private ryan is also a very good movie.
But .. seriously, I would not consider Cold Mountain a war movie.. it was more a romance than a war movie...The Last Samurai or Lord Of The Rings was more war movie than that. :headbang:

BTW. Do you know if there is a movie to the book "A Farewell to Arms" by Hemingway? I'd love to see that.

it was also a crap romance movie (cold mountain)

Since Enemy at the Gates is a load of poop. I choose Stalingrad: an unknown film, german-made, about this WW2 event that actually is realistic.

How can i forget Patton? Movie about the best yet flamboyant and rude general of the States.

Also yesterday i watched Ike: a countdown to D-Day which was also very good.

A friend who landed on the beaches at Normandy said that Saving Private Ryan was the most realistic war movie he had ever seen. I think thats in the top 5 of best war movies.
Braveheart and the Patriot were great for us Mel Gibson fans.

Ran is just Japanese "King Lear", btw. It's still a great film. I'm so happy its on DVD now in the US.
And "Throne of Blood" is Kurosawa's "Macbeth", and brilliant in its own right. (On DVD in the Criterion Collection.) It's more what Kurosawa did with the battle scenes that was amazing. Either music or the sound of battle, similar to "Alexander Nevsky" by Eisenstein, another great war movie, by which Kurosawa was probably influenced.

braveheart

*Spins in grave*
Oh, wait I'm not dead yet.

I vote for The Thin Red Line.

Since Enemy at the Gates is a load of poop. I choose Stalingrad: an unknown film, german-made, about this WW2 event that actually is realistic.
"Stalingrad" was good, but I only managed to see the North American release. Like "Das Boot," there was supposedly a longer release for German audiences. There were some things that detracted from "Stalingrad," but it certainly was better than "Enemy at the Gates." (Bob Hoskins makes a great Khruschev, though.)

POW movie: The Grand Illusion

"Grand Illusion" is a great film. "Stalag 17" isn't bad either for a WWII POW flick.

"The Tin Drum" is interesting as a German homefront piece, and "The Chekhist" (I think it's called) is interesting. The latter takes place during the Russian Civil War.

Das Boot. Though Stalingrad was good. Has anybody seen the six hour Das Boot mini-series?

There are two war movies I've seen that were not propaganda by some axegrinder:

1 ) The Big Red One - A straightforward depiction of the stuff that really happens in war, because nobody at any level of the chain of command has the whole picture;

2 ) Kelly's Heroes - A caper flick about stuff that could happen in war (and probably has done), because everybody is keenly aware that nobody has the whole picture, so they better not interrupt the peculiar thing you seem to be doing.

BTW--

M*A*S*H is a great comedy, set in a war zone. It cannot be called a war movie by anyone not prepared to define Hamlet as a ghost story.

*Spins in grave*
Oh, wait I'm not dead yet.

I vote for The Thin Red Line.

My head just exploded.

What on God's Green Earth do you see in that... thing???

It never ended. The love angle was contrived and hokey. The environmental angle was stupid, and George Clooney's appearance was as wrenching as John Wayne in Roman Centurian garb at the end of The Greatest Story Ever Told...

Just to add onto what I already have:
The Pianist
Schindler's List

Dont know if those would be considered war movies but they are during a war.

I love MASH I own six seasons of it and can't wait for the seventh this summer. I also liked Band of Brothers and We Were Soldiers was pretty good.

Of the listed movies I said Saving Private Ryan.
Enamy At The Gates was a good film from a cinematic viewpoint but I can't watch that movie very often because it really bugs me listening to "Russian" soldiers talking with a lame english accent. At least make the english in that movie sound Russian.

The Dirty Dozen
Rocks
Does anyone know the British movie with 1/2v a dozen convict last chancers in the dessert?WW2

I would have to go with Glory, A Bridge too Far, and Patton. Maybe The Last Samurai too, but that might not properly count as a war movie.

The Dirty Dozen
Rocks
Does anyone know the British movie with 1/2v a dozen convict last chancers in the dessert?WW2
"The Wall" or "The Hill" (Has Sean Connery in it as a sergeant)

"Glory" is so good on so many levels, definitely the best Civil War movie ever made and one of my picks for top 10 war movies (and I am a big war movie fan).

"Glory"
"Saving Private Ryan"
"The Longest Day"
"Twelve O'Clock High"
"Dambusters"
"The Cruel Sea"
"Lawrence of Arabia"
"Das Boot"
"Tora, Tora, Tora"
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (the 1930s version)

But "Band of Brothers" is the best of all, but as it was a series, it wasn't technically a feature film.

others of note
the Russian version of "War and Peace" (Borodino is amazing and so is the retreat from Moscow)
"Hell in the Pacific" (Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin... just a great one)
"Kellys Heros" (lots of fun, but also some excellent and realistic action)
"Where Eagles Dare" (lots of fun, Alister McClean story)
"Cross of Iron" (Russian Front, gritty action)
"Major Dundee" (best cavalry fight ever filmed)
"Waterloo" (amazing spectacle)
"Horatio Hornblower" (2 of the Forester books in one film)
"When Trumpets Fade" (World War II Huertgen Forest)
"Hamburger Hill" (Vietnam)
"We were Soldiers" (just damned good, Vietnam)
"Go Tell the Spartans" (only decent Vietnam movie made during the Vietnam era)
"Pork Chop Hill" (Korean War on the ground, very Cold War in attitude)
"Bridges of Toko Ri" (one of the best aviation movies ever made)
"Battle of Britian" (great flying but so so acting)
"Stalingrad" (the German point of view, although VERY depressing)
"Enemy at the Gates" (as previously discussed)


if you can find these...both were television miniseries or made for TV movies
"A Piece of Cake" (RAF from 1939 - 1940, saw it on PBS Masterpiece Theater years ago and have been looking for it since)
"Sharpes Rifles" (and all of the sequels, a BBC series and damned good book series)

like I said, I like war movies

"The Wall" or "The Hill" (Has Sean Connery in it as a sergeant)
Maybe if he did have a major part
They all die at the end
after trying to destroy a fuel dump-Maybe Tabrouk

Maybe if he did have a major part
They all die at the end
after trying to destroy a fuel dump-Maybe Tabrouk
I'm thinking of a completely different movie, then. Sorry.

i have only read the book and dint think it was very good, it was ok. how was the film?
In truth it wasn't that good. I just threw it in cause no-one had mentioned it yet. Still worth watching though - of course I bought a copy for $6RMB which is less than 40p, or 0.50Euros. So to say I didn't feel short-changed is a tad asinine.
I felt the movie catch-22 tried to hard to be funny and ludicrous at times, yet failed to show the ridiculousness of war anywhere near as good as Full Metal Jacket. That's one of my favourite war movies, behind Come and See* and ahead of Apocalypse Now.
I'd also put in a mention for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as an excellent war movie. It certainly shows an ugly and pointless side to war.
Finally let e just say that Cross of Iron is a cool movie.

*which I notice with great sadness no-one else has mentioned. Please do yourself a favour and get your hands on a copy. It's one of the most disturbing and compelling movies you're likely to watch. You'll also see where Spielberg ripped off all his great directing ideas he 'had' for Saving Private Ryan.