1FF's Favourite War Films of All Time

[Craig]

"It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it." Robert E. Lee

Joint 10th.

Glory (1989)

Set during the American civil war this epic stars Matthew Broderick as Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a prominent Boston abolitionist, and one of the first all-black combat regiments, the 54th Massachusetts as they go through training and eventually battle together. Among their number are Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington (who won an Oscar for his portrayal of escaped slave Tripp).


Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Japanese animation from Studio Ghibli telling the story of siblings Seita and Setsuko as they struggle to survive the final months of World War II in Kobe.

 

[Craig]

"We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realise that we know where it lives...inside ourselves." Albert Camus

Joint 9th

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Directed by Ken Loach and set against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, two brothers fight a guerrilla war against British forces.


Downfall (2004)

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Japanese animation from Studio Ghibli telling the story of siblings Seita and Setsuko as they struggle to survive the final months of World War II in Kobe.

Spoiler: mine

Originally released in a double bill with My Neighbour Totoro, which is something I can never quite wrap my head around. A war film with a child's eye view, and as poignant as that implies, a genuinely devastating and crushing picture. A lot more than just a misery-fest slog though - it's a sensitive and psychologically nuanced portrait of a brutal situation, harrowing without depending on slices of Spielbergy manipulation. There's no tidy moral to it, no reassuring lesson we can take home afterwards. Not a pleasant thing to watch at all really, but worthwhile.

 

[Craig]

"A rational army would run away." Baron de Montesquieu

8th

Paths of Glory (1957)

After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them

 

[Dirk]

"A rational army would run away." Baron de Montesquieu

8th

Paths of Glory (1957)

Had this movie at #9 on my list. So nearly spot on!

 

[SALTIRE]

My #1 that, with Grave Of The Fireflies my #2 (no jokes Steven ).

 

[Craig]

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won." Arthur Wellesley

7th

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

 

[Craig]

"All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." Voltaire

Joint 6th

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Platoon (1986)

A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

 

[Craig]

"The terrorist is the one with the small bomb." Brendan Behan

5th

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Paths of Glory (1957)

After refusing to attack an enemy position, a general accuses the soldiers of cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them

Spoiler: mine

A polemic - cruelty as a product of bureaucracy, the obliviousness of fatuous institution, men helpless before implacable Kafka-esque edifices. Kirk Douglas is great and it's the first fully formed example of Kubrick's visual style. The shots of the trenches are stunning (inc one very famous tracking shot) and juxtaposed w/ icy sequences set in a marbled chateau. Tighter and leaner than his later pictures though, shorter and more straightforward, and better for it, given the subject matter. Miles better than FMJ too.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

"
The Battle of Algiers (1966)

In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.

Spoiler: MINE

It has been hard to avoid writing "WHICH SEEMS PARTICULARLY PERTINENT GIVEN RECENT EVENTS" type cliches for every film on my list, but this is the one which actually warrants them. 50 years old but about guerilla war in an urban environment, radicalisation, torture, and the crimes and atrocities committed by both the resistance and an occupying force who consider themselves civilised. Indebted to neorealism and shot in a pseudo documentary style to great effect - this is immediate, blunt and unsentimental in the best/worst possible way. That a half a century old movie still feels so relevant is a great testament to Pontecorvo and the other folks who made it, but also very fucken depressing. Famously screened at the Pentagon circa the start of the last Iraq invasion, so ---> INSERT JOKE HERE.

 

[Craig]

"In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons." Herodotus

Joint 4th

The Great Escape (1963)

Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

"The terrorist is the one with the small bomb." Brendan Behan

5th

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.

My number one fave movie ever.

 

[iesty wfc]

thin red line above saving private ryan??? interesting! i personally enjoyed both films, but as they came out at around the same time SPR got a lot more coverage

 

[SALTIRE]

Private Ryan is overated. Sure the beachfront scenes are astonishing, but the rest of the film is pretty standard stuff.

The Battle of Algiers is a superb film btw and reading what happened to France after that war was incredibly fascinating. And as Carel said, it still is a film that's relevant today. The cafe scene is a hard watch when you remember the Paris attacks a couple of years back. The folly of Empire.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.

Spoiler: mine

Supersized ensemble piece - the actors who had their performances chopped down to cameos or excised completely would make for an all star cast in any other movie. Malick is one of the greatest filmers of landscape in the history of the medium, and that's what stays with me for this one - to a fault perhaps... I'm sometimes left with the impression that he was monomaniacally obsessed with every blade of grass being positioned and coloured just so, and rather less so with the characters who were about to be slaughtered whilst tramping over them...

It is elliptical, poetic, occasionally difficult to follow on a narrative level, but Malick was interested in atmosphere, tone, place, theme, a kind of emotional truth that supersedes conventional chronology and storytelling, and assessed on those terms I think this is a masterpiece. I'm a sucker for everything he had done apart from Badlands, and aware of it, so when others argue that this is pretentious and indulgent, or subject matter buried under an avalanche of artistic hubris (criticisms more often levelled at his later stuff, tbf) I'm not particularly inclined to argue. How much this has to say about war is a fair question to ask too - from this one onwards Malick's films seem to be about everything, lenses to address the grandest and greatest of philosophical and existential questions, all at the same time. But I don't find that pretentious; I think he is earnest, his films soul bearing and naked. He might not always stick the landing, but I’m very glad that I get to see him try.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

If I may be indulged a rather off-topic question (sorry, Craig), why are you less keen on Badlands?

 

[SaMcRo]

1. Hacksaw Ridge
2. Glory
3. The Thin Red Line
4. Brotherhood (Korean)
5. Platoon

 

[Craig]

"War is the only game in which both sides lose." Walter Scott

3rd

The Deer Hunter (1978)

The impact of the Vietnam war on a group of friends from a small Pennsylvania town.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

If I may be indulged a rather off-topic question (sorry, Craig), why are you less keen on Badlands?

I think Days of Heaven onwards is where he finds his style... the sense of something symphonic or tone poem-ish taking precedence over conventional narrative, associative montages stitched together by narration and music, the use of jump cuts, different takes of the same scenes etc. They're films to luxuriate in, to be washed over and borne along by...

Obviously Badlands contains the seeds of a lot of that, but it seems also to cleave quite closely to that strain of New Hollywood film-making that was more self-consciously idiosyncratic and angular. It is not an enormous stretch to re-imagine it with Jack Nicholson as the lead. There's an irony to it that is completely absent in the rest of his films.

I don't _dislike_ it, but I like it quite a lot less.

 

[Craig]

"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." Robert Wilson Lynd

2nd

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanising effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

 

[Craig]

"War is over, if you want it" John Lennon

1st

Apocalypse Now (1979)

During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Well done Creg. Crap top 2 tho.

 

[SALTIRE]

My top 20:

1 Paths Of Glory
2 Grave Of The Fireflies
3 The Cruel Sea
4 The Battle Of Algiers
5 Fail Safe (1964)
6 All Quiet On The Western Front
7 Das Boot
8 Zulu
9 Come And See
10 In Which We Serve
11 Lebanon
12 The Last of the Mohicans
13 Kajaki
14 Regeneration
15 Lawrence Of Arabia
16 Letters From Iwo Jima
17 Battle Of Britain
18 Apocalypse Now
19 The Deer Hunter
20 Starship Troopers

Others considered:

Dr Strangeglove
MASH
Stalingrad
Waterloo
Enemy At The Gates
The Killing Fields
Braveheart
The Great Dictator
Good
The Pianist
The Thin Red Line
The Bridge On The River Kwai
Twenty-Four Eyes
Full Metal Jacket
Hotel Rwanda
Master & Commander
Cromwell
The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel
Ran
The Lives of Others
Downfall
Catch-22
Lifeboat
The Caine Mutiny (1954)
The Man Who Never Was
The Great Escape
Schindlers List
The Colditz Story
Stalingrad
Ice Cold In Alex
The Dambusters
Saving Pvt. Ryan

 

[ZianfrancoGoal]

liked for Dr. strange glove