The best older war movie that I've seen was A Bridge Too Far. Star-studded cast, compelling story, great visuals, subtle commentary on the cost of war.
In recent years, my favorite war movie was Black Hawk Down. Not quite a war, but definitely one hell of a military engagement, showcasing the fog of war that is found on nearly every battlefield.
I guess I really enjoy the street-to-street fighting scenes... probably cause I've been a city dweller my whole life.
Actually, now that I think about it, I also really enjoyed Ran (aka Chaos), by Akira Kurosawa. It isn't based on a historical conflict, but it's a convincing depiction of warfare in Tokugawa Era Nippon, though the plot is basically King Lear.
One that I can add to the already extensive list is The Bridge
(Die Brücke). Not your usual war heroics, this is the story of a bunch of teenagers defending an unimportant bridge in smalltown Germany in the last days of WW2. It's gripping stuff.
If you must, but then only the older, black-and-white one please.
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May I also note that "Flix" is already plural? It's derivated from flicks. Please watch your grammar. Thanks.
I loooooove The Thin Red Line. Ken B can eat a dick. It's gorgeous. Great cast, and really impresses with the ethereal nature of war in a beautiful place. Put a bunch of Okies in helmets and send them to a tropical paradise to shoot farmhands from Nagoya. What the hell does that even mean?
I just watched Letters From Iwo Jima last night. Man, we bombed the shit out of that island. Crazy stuff. Watanabe is amazing.
For some intense war action--practically unwatchable, really, go with Come and See.
Stalingrad is an excellent film. Best WWII battle scenes I've seen.
The most fucked up, intense film (war or not) I've ever laid eyes on is a Soviet movie called COME AND SEE (they have it on Netflix). Very, very, very fucked up (i.e. good). It's about a boy in Beyloruss caught up in partisan operations. It functions as Soviet 80s-era propaganda in that it completely sanitizes the "good" side (the partisans), but the visuals and sound design are incredible.
It's sort of like Bunuel's *Andalusian Dog* in color with a genocidal carnival of einsatzgruppen marching through it. Makes *Apocalypse Now* look like *Gomer Pyle*.
Don't care for Generation Kill. HBO executives and their shallow politics. They should not be allowed to make anything set more recently than 1900.
Definately Das Boot. If you can get it, go for the 3 hour (or so) director's cut. Another one from the same studio is a movie called "Stalingrad", it's about some Germans around Stalingrad.
I would also recommend Letters from Iwo Jima but I'd throw Flags of Our Fathers in with that.
Stay away from Pearl Harbor get Tora! Tora! Tora! instead.
When I saw the first post Stalingrad was the first movie that came to mind. Grim. Very grim. I'll second Das Boot and Letters from Iwo Jima. The Band of Brothers TV series is a must-see.
El Alamein is another good foreign war movie. The Lost Battalion is a really good American WWI flick.
The Beast (of War) on Russians in Afghanistan (1988)
The Hill (1965) with Sean Connery (although not really a Warflick, damn good)
Alatriste (2006) Thirty Years War, Viggo Mortensen
Les Indigenes (2006) on Moroccan and Algerian soldiers in WWII
Some of the Kurosawa stuff, like Ran
Wow, good to see that CROSS OF IRON made it on here, that's an awesome picture. Probably Peckinpah's most underrated.
Most of the good ones have been claimed...but I'm gonna add ZULU (Battle of Rourke's Drift- as gamed in VICTORIA CROSS) and BARRY LYNDON (Seven Years War). BARRY LYNDON is grossly underrated both as a Kubrick film and as one of the great films of the 1970s. It's not an out-and-out war picture, but if you've played FRIEDRICH, PRUSSIA'S GLORY, PRUSSIA'S DEFIANT STAND, etc. then it's the same period and you get to see some of the pageantry and tactics.
One of Kubrick's great unrealized projects was a film about the entire life of Napoleon, sort of an "update" of Abel Gance's incredible silent picture NAPOLEON.
Of course, PATHS OF GLORY is the definitive WWI film.
APOCALYPSE NOW is kind of hard to top for me...I'm more interested in the psychological effects of war and the hyperreal/surreal atmosphere than I am about seeing John Wayne running around with an M1 or incredibly detailed and boring crap like in that awful GETTYSBURG TV movie.
Yes, I liked THE THIN RED LINE.
GLORY, that's another good one.
RAN was mentioned, that's one of the great achievments of cinema, bar none.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN is actually quite good if you watch the full-length version.
BIG RED ONE...a little Sam Fuller, anyone?
I really, really wish someone would do a war picture about George Washington...it could cover the French-Indian War and the Revolution and could be totally bad ass in the right hands.
I really, really wish someone would do a war picture about George Washington...it could cover the French-Indian War and the Revolution and could be totally bad ass in the right hands.
Don't care for Generation Kill. HBO executives and their shallow politics. They should not be allowed to make anything set more recently than 1900.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger fan of The Wire (and HBO-produced series and features in general) than me. But this is precisely why I haven't even thought about watching Generation Kill.
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