I totally forgot about The Killing Fields, Nesrie. That is in my “Ring of Honor”. Fantastic film! Great everything (Themes, Script, Cast, Performances, Cinematography). The Fall of Phnom Penh, the French Embassy sequences, the Labor Camp… Great Film. I’ll have to check out Eye in the Sky.
I will have to watch/listen to that tomorrow, but thank you! I’ll watch him in pretty much anything.
I just wish there was a region one DVD of Return to Treasure Island.
If I had a fifth option, probably would have put in one of the movies based on the more modern conflicts. Black Hawk Down is towards the top but the perspective and the actors in Eye in the Sky, and the… horror of it, tough one.
I have a love hate relationship with movies based on war, or war films. I also struggle with War Movies vs like movies that involve the military and just military conflict. Tough list. In a year my list would probably change.
So do I. That is why I put the “War Films” in quotes in the thread title. It conceivably encompasses so much, and means different things to different people.
In my particular Rorschach Blot test, “adventure films” (like my handle “Navaronegun” namesake) didn’t even make it on the charts. Because, in my mind, that movie and others like are just adventure films, it being set in WW2.
But how does that even belong in a conversation with, The Killing Fields? Or The Thin Red Line.
In my brain, The Guns of Navarone (and Where Eagles Dare, etc.) were “Rorschach-ed” out. They are great films! Suspense/Adventure/Thriller classics. But I don’t view them as “War Films”.
I dunno, interesting…
See, Where Eagles Dare clearly is a war film, to my mind. And only narrowly missed my cut. It is far more classically a war film than, say, Schindler’s List which I did pick.
Now not that I’m going to call it great, but would Pearl Harbor be a war film in your judgement? Because if your namesake is an adventure film, would you classify that as a love story that happens to be set in a war?
Because it seems that you are personally defining war movie like Bruce defines wargame, which is fascinating to me. Like you said, Rorschach Test of a person’s take.
For me war movie is one where the presence and progress of a war is material to the story told. Hence Master and Commander fits, if only loosely. But some of my favorite war movies tend to take place outside the theater of combat, because they tell interesting and different stories than the latest retelling of the 101’st airborne’s exploits.
Oh, I think they are all “War Films” (say Eagles Dare and Paths of Glory or even >Shudder<
Pearl Harbor). But I think that term has a VERY wide berth. The Rorschach-ing happened when I gave myself the arbitrary rules (@ChristienMurawski…) of picking my “Top Four”. Does that make sense.
Personally I think those are adventure films. But they are also War Films. But they didn’t make my Top Four list. They didn’t even orbit. Breaker Morant did…
Indeed. My oddball is Spartacus which is a lot more sanitized, romantic and kind of like a play compared to the other but there was something about it. I watched it was a kid and it stuck with me all these years.
I saw Platoon as a young person and before the The Killing Field but the seen with the kid, The Killing Field horrified me, and it covered a conflict I don’t see very often.
Kind of and kind of not, right? Its Kubrick, so even while making a quintessential Hollywood “Sword and Sandals” '50s epic, made it a film about systematized exploitation and a a violent reaction to it by the exploited. And crimes by those revolutionaries. And the State. And they all get crucified at the end. No one wins…except Crassus. Who was winning at the beginning. Pretty powerful stuff.
My god, I just sounded like @tomchick Lemme go moon over a Sarah Palin photo… :)
Here’s one that is a movie I love, is about war, but by its nature is not about a specific war, rather the way they are exploited and profited on.
In my opinion the best role Nicholas Cage has ever done.
Well…I tried to like it, Craig. I tried.
Funny story, after my transport out of Kandahar City (going home) was delayed by an attack there, I was waiting for Helicopter service to start up again. So I was sitting at Aviation with my all my worldly possessions hanging loose for H O U R S. And I saw that film in a waiting area (the Warrant Officer had a decent TV and a DVD player and kept 'em playing). And I still thought, “He can’t act, man”.
He actually does pretty well in the USS Indianapolis movie. Don’t get me wrong; It’s not a good movie at all, but he’s really not the reason it kind of stinks. Even a good, horrifying story couldn’t save that train wreck of a movie.
- Patton
- Red Cliff (full version)
- The Dirty Dozen
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms (tv series - I know, I know, sorry!)
- A Midnight Clear
- Joyeux Noel
- Cross Of Iron
- Gallipoli
War movies should never make war look fun.
If Schindler’s List is a war movie than it would be a that top of my list.
Otherwise
- Das Boot
- Gallipoli
- Saving Private Ryan
- The Deer Hunter (I’m surprised it has been listed yet.)
But I’d say there are least 20 movies I’ve seen in this thread that are very close to this list.
It’s been mentioned in a couple of posts at least, including my top four which is very similar to yours.
- Das Boot
- Schindler’s List
- The Deer Hunter
- Grave of the Fireflies
Apocalypse Now
Saving Private Ryan
Thin Red Line
Troy
Great great great movie, although off-genre maybe?
Produced by one Chris Roberts. I own the 2-disc special edition DVD.
Just to add my two cents:
- Saving Private Ryan
- Blackhawk Down
- Patton
- Laurence of Arabia
Glory and The Hurt Locker are both pretty close to #4.
And if we’re adding TV series, Band of Brothers would probably be my #1.
Some honorable mentions that I don’t think have been noted yet:
Shakespeare and Kurosawa? Winner.
Hurt Locker would probably be my #5. Band of Brothers and Ran are great. Ran is very intense in that particular Japanese way.
Can we talk for a moment about how the atomic bomb influenced movies like Akira? Probably getting a little too off topic…
Yes, now, I think we have veered past “War Film”. Broad category, it surprised me just how broad.