What is your favorite WAR movie? Why?

Kagemusha because I dig Samurai

 

Real war or imaginary? I like Starship Troopers. It's a war movie, just not based on any historical wars.

 

The Longest Day is my favorite, followed by the Great Escape. I'd also rate Grave of the Fireflies up there, but that's a film that's really in a class by itself. I also recently saw a French film, The Grand Illusion, set during WWI that I thought was excellent.

 

Saving Private Ryan is amazing, along with Band of Brothers, the HBO mini series produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

If we're talking samurai movies, you can't beat Seven Samurai. It's one of my all-time favorite movies of any genre.

 

Die Brucke (The Bridge) is a powerful German anti-war war film.
Most of the other films already mentioned are great. Too bad it's so easy to make fun of Saving Private Ryan, the storming of the beach is the single best battlefield set piece I've ever seen. Then, it unaccountably becomes a Steven Spielberg film. How'd that happen?

 

In Harms Way. The Duke at his finest.

 

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A Midnight Clear, great movie and book.

 

I guess Duck Soup doesn't count, does it?

 

The Star Wars trilogy. If I had to choose one from the three, it would definitely be the Empire Strikes Back.

 

I think the subject is a bit double edged asking what portion of war is your favorite, but I do like a few war movies.
The Great Escape is my favorite.
Many great actors fill the list. The subject is based on real accounts. The suspense of the movie is not in actual battle but the struggle to be free. Everyone in the movie is under some sort of distress, including the German commander. There is a small glimpse into the ingenious nature of the captured man. The ending is not all that happy which lends a bit more realistic flavor. And of course Steve gets to ride a bike in the escape attempt.

Next would be Das-Boot
I served on a fast attack submarine and this is about as close to reality as one can get with sub movies. There is a stirring statement, in the beginning credits, that tells a story if you know history.
"40,000 men served aboard German U-boats during WWII, 30,000 never returned"

 

Episode 1 ... it's the first one I saw (watched them in order 1 through 6 last year) and little annikan skywalker is absolutely adorable! you get to see the relationships develope ... HATED Jar Jar Binks though!

[EDIT] HAHAHAHA I thought it said "Star WARS movie!"

Favorite War Movie: Braveheart ... Don't feel it needs an explenation really ... just a movie that moved me

 

Comedy...I'd go with Mister Roberts...I love William Powell, Jack Lemmon, and James Cagney and the way it shows that there were factions that didn't see warfare and yet contributed all the while thinking they weren't. Not to mention the classic line..."It is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinkin palm tree overboard".

Drama...several choices...

The Deer Hunter...war and it's effect at those at home before and after

Schindler's List...the atrocities committed...

Saving Private Ryan...gritty, harsh, survival.

The Best Years of Our Lives...also showcasing the return home of the vets and their re-entry into civilian life.

The Bridge on the River Kwai..the absurdity

Glory....not everyone is treated equal, and yet you still rise to the occasion

And oh so many more that come to mind

Sadie

 

I forgot to add The Caine Mutiny - Not exactly a war movie but a great performance by Bogart

 

The Deer Hunter - DeNiro
The Dirty Dozen - Lee Marvin
Hell Is For Heros - McQueen
Objective Burma -Flynn

 

I guess I'd say BLACKHAWK DOWN, since it's sorta like the Omaha Beach scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, only for two hours. I was a nervous wreck watching it the first time.

My grandfather, a WW2 vet, said that FULL METAL JACKET was the first "realistic" war movie he'd seen. Not so much the actual action, which takes place in a war he didn't fight, but the idea that the platoon would get lost, that no one really knows what's going on, the hookers, the profanity, the arbitrary nature of it all . . .

 

Jack Lemmon won the Academy award for that one.

Another war comedy that I am also a big fan of Billy Wilder's "Stalag 17". William Holden won the Academy award for that one. The recently re-released DVD looks great.

 

Patton. George C. Scott is why.

 

Kelly's heros

 

One of my favorites and probably a lesser known film is Go Tell the Spartans with Burt Lancaster. A really good film about Vietnam.

It's more about how history repeats itself than the actual war.

-Tony

 

Really tough one.... right now as I type this I've got to go with "The Deer Hunter".

Some others (in a serious vein) I like very much...

"Saving Private Ryan"
"The Bedford Incident"
"Fail-Safe"
"Hamburger Hill"
"Full Metal Jacket" (serious? I'm not real sure with Kubrick)
"Patton"

Less serious...

"Dr. Strangelove"
"M.A.S.H."
"Apocalypse Now"

 

Less serious? Not exactly a laugh riot

 

True, but "Apocalypse" is really over the top and somewhat cartoonish compared to The Deer Hunter. Certainly less serious.

 

Without a doubt, the Deer Hunter. Growing up in a small town in PA, it really hit home on a lot of issues.

 

Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. I'm surprised it hasn't already been mentioned (I didn't find it in a quick search of this thread).

TTRL came out about the same time as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, and I think that was unfortunate, because SPR overshadowed it, if for no reason that it was Spielberg's tribute to WW2 veterans.

SPR captured the true horror of the Normandy landing in France in a way that hadn't been done before.

TTRH is beautifully photographed, and has a "killer cast" (no pun intended): Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Sean Pean, Woody Harrelson, to name a few (Travolta's role is too small to merit consideration).

This movie is full of "Emersonian musings," and this is a boring put off for some. Not me.

This movie focused on the war on the Pacific, and in general, there seem to be more war movies that focus on the Germans and the European theater (of course, Pearl Harbor and Tora Tora Tora also focus on the Pacific).

Malick's movie portrays the insanity of warfare well, and this belongs in the well-established "antiwar war movie" category (along with Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Gallipoli, to name a few).

My second favorite war movie has already been mentioned--Apocalypse Now (Redux).