Favourite War Film
 

Hi everyone

What is your favourite war film?

My personal favourite is the Dambusters.

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yep..looks like yet another of my posts on this site is being ignored by all!!!

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I like a bunch of them. Probably Tora Tora Tora is my favorite with Midway second.

aeroeng

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Blue Max

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Battle of Britain.

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Went the Day Well?
Fires Were Started
Enigma
Downfall
Battle of Britain (Spitfire porn!)

As for The Dam Busters, I saw the restored print at the cinema last year. Spectacular flying scenes, totally different from seeing them on TV.

Can I also recommend a novel about making a wartime film? "Their Finest Hour and a Half" by Lissa Evans.

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Of the past classics......
Battle of Britain -- rat tat tat tat tat tat (See "Piece of Cake" for more Spit fun)
Midway....
The Sea Hawk....old swashbuckler...

newer or Present wow too many...
Black hawk Down
Downfall
Glory
Stalingrad (German Film)
Gettysburg

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Good call. Made in 1940 and the Spanish Armada/Battle of Britain parallels are clear as day.

Other nominations:

Casablanca
The Cruel Sea

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For me it has to be Das Boot, Conspiracy is also on my list

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For good accuracy: Tora, Tora, Tora and Band Of Brothers. Also, The Horse Soldiers as it is based on an actual US Civil War Raid.

Worst accuracy: The Patriot with Mel Gibson. Only two things in the movie are accurate: There was an American Revolutionary War and there was (is) a city of Charleston, SC. The rest of the movie is garbage: Braveheart set in the US. Second worst accuracy: Troy. War lasting 3 weeks instead of 10 years, Troy the size of a major modern city....etc. However, it did not matter as my wife said (about the accuracy), "I don't care, I got to see Brad Pitt naked". Hollywood wins!

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Hello
Kelly’s Heroes
Stanley Kubrick: Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Edvin Laine: Tuntematon Sotilas ("Unknown Soldier") (1955)
Parikka: Talvisota, the original film
Mark Robson: The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954 )
Zulu
Battle of Britain
Ashquit: The Way to the Stars (1946)
Das Boot
Sam Peckinpah: Iron Cross
The flight of Intruder
Tora-Tora-Tora
Blue Max

A couple which I couldn’t watch very long when shown in TV
U-571
Pearl Harbor

I didn’t like Rukajärven tie because of the numerous tactical mistakes in the film.

Juha

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The War Lover
Twelve O'Clock High
Flying Leathernecks
Angels One Five
Cross of Iron
All Quiet on the Western Front
Night of the Generals
Stalingrad
Flying Tigers
Catch 22

Oh! and the first Star Wars films

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BBC2 has The Dam Busters on tonight, preceded by a documentary about the raid.

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You wrote 1hr and 8mins after posting the original thread.

There was a time when I was happy to get a reaction within a day, let alone an hour.

But that aside, back to the topic.

I like movies in general, so it would be hard to name one specific movie.

Often I love a movie for a single scene (which in the case of war movies is merciful, as they are often mediocre taken as a whole).

Band of Brothers, Saving Pvt Ryan, An Apocalypse Now, Dark Blue World, D-Day, The Hill, Flight of the Intruder, The Thin Red Line, Tigerland, The Way to the Stars, A Piece of Cake, Das Boot, Full Metal Jacket, Conspiracy, Catch 22, Twelve 'O clock High, Blue Max, Kelly's Heroes, Master and Commander, Indigenes, Soldaat van Oranje, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Cross of Iron, Jarhead, The Hurt Locker etc.

Tora Tora Tora and Battle of Britain are not strong movies, but they are classics non-the-less because of the aerial element. With Tora I like the Japanese bits, with Battle I like the Brit bits.

I don't want a docudrama, I want a movie (so I can live with Troy and Patriot).

Leaving out many good ones.

Indeed Errol Flynn rules!!

Ruy

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Hmmm.... I must disagree with our beloved site owner, for once.

Tora, Tora, Tora is very accurate for what it does (unlike Pearl Harbor which is garbage). Unfortunately, for today's generation, it does not have, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, just decent history.

And, what about Gunga Din? A movie about how we think India should be in history, and, it has a real British officer from one of the Guards Regiments!

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Ah a couple more.

Hell in the Pacific
Sgt York
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Great Escape
Battleground

M*A*S*H (the movie)

Stalingrad (ok...forgetting the "righteous twist")

Hart's War (nice dogfight / aerial scene).

Those civil war flicks produced by Ted Turner have something, although sometimes the "drama" ends up looking a bit funny.

All Quiet on the Western Front should be mentioned (30-ies version).

Ah, for a 'interesting" experience try The 9th Company, which is a pretty slick Russian / Ukrainian (and more?) coproduction. Heavy on the action, even some sex, drugs and rock and roll. Some stuff is over the top, but there are some gems in between (certainly if you like original Soviet hardware).

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Worthy of honorable mention:

Glory
The Dawn Patrol
Flyboys
Paths of Glory
O.S.S.
A Walk in the Sun
They Were Expendable
Objective BURMA!
The Sands of Iwo jima
Fighter Squadron
Stalag 17
The Train
The Longest Day
633 Squadron
The Eagle Has Landed
Go Tell The Spartans
Bravo Two Zero

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1. Das Boot
2. Band of Brothers
3. Tora Tora Tora
4. Thin red line

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1. Saving Private Ryan
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. Hamburger Hill
4. Platoon
5. Stalingrad
6. Tora Tora Tora !

7. Memphis Belle ;)

8. Das Boot

9. Die Brücke

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1. The Alamo (starring Billy Bob Thornton as David Crockett)
2. Zulu
3. Zulu Dawn
4. Pork Chop Ridge
5. Hamburger Hill
6. The Pacific (The HBO series- OUTSTANDING)

I haven't seen the Russian film on the Battle of Rzhev and don't have the actual title but I hear it was very good as to how it was done. So if it even shows up in subtitles I want to see it.

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The Battle of Britain
All Quiet on the Western Front (the original)
Tora, Tora, Tora

Jeremy

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Films:
Operation Daybreak
Battle of Britain
The Eagle Has Landed
Saving Private Ryan
Play Dirty
Went the Day Well
Sahara (original & Belushi version)
The Way Ahead
It Happened Here
Murphy's War
The McKenzie Break
Eye of the Needle
Windtalkers
Fires Were Started
Enigma
Downfall
The Train
Defiance
Valkyrie

TV Series:
Secret Army
Danger UXB
Colditz

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Interesting. I've never heard of some of those titles. I'll have to look them up. 'The Train' has always been one of my favorites. To add to the TV series I would have to add 'Band of Brothers' and the just released 'The Pacific'. I had heard that the guys that did 'Band of Brothers' were planning on doing something on the Pacific, but did not realize that they had done so until seeing this in stores several weeks ago. Now, having seen it, I actually think it is better than 'Band of Brothers'. It focuses on 3 characters (Robert Leckie [author of 'Helmut for my Pillow], Eugene Sledge ['With the Old Breed'] & MoH winner John Basilone) rather than a whole regiment - much more personal. The 2-3 episodes on Peleliu are incredible.

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I am not a big fan of the usual Hollywood style war movies like Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down etc. Instead in the past years I learned to appreciate some of the war movies from the USSR and Russia, which often show the consequences of war for ordinary civilians and soldiers more realistic and without the usual cliches than many western films.

Here some examples:

I guess many have heard of Come and See (1985) by Elem Klimov:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_See

An unusual war movie about a unit of young female anti-aircraft gunners is The Dawns Here Are Quiet (1972) by Stanislav Rostotsky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawns_Here_Are_Quiet

Prisoner of the Mountains (1996) by Sergei Bodrov is set in the first Chechen War and loosely based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_the_Mountains

The Cuckoo (2002) by Aleksandr Rogozhkin is a story about a Finnish and a Soviet soldier and a Sami woman during the Continuation War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo_%28film%29

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'Braveheart' cracks me up. Bunch of tattooed ragamuffin 'Scottish' warriors, circa 100 AD (as depicted by that crazy, lunatic jackass Gibson) versus the 'modern' 13th century English - umm, Wallace was Scottish nobility, as were presumably the best of his forces, and, as such, would have been out-fitted in much the same arms and armour as his opponents. Of course outfitting in appropriate time-frame clothing, arms & armour has never been a Hollywood strongpoint - duh. At least, as a for instance, the movie 'The Four Feathers', for all its other faults, actually depicted infantry as forming in square when faced with a cavalry attack! Anybody ever see a shield wall formed in film about a 5th-10th century battle? Didn't think so.

Though very low-budget (i.e. battlefields with 2-300 guys versus 2-3000 and more), I always appreciated the UK attempts at doing battle scenes for the 'Sharpe's' series of books (Napoleonic battles in Portugal, Spain, along with Waterloo - great books too). Also add 'Zulu'.

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For shear entertainment, "Pearl Harbor". Planes, flyin', shootin', dames, nylons, bullshit. Nothing beats it.

I'd sure like to see those Russian movies you mention Juri, but here in Australia I doubt if I could do so.

The best movie ever made.
12 O'Clock High.

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One more interesting movie :

Enemy at the gate

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215750/

Yes....a bit of lovie lovie is there too :D

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From 12 O'Clock High.

Stop worrying about it. Stop thinking about going home. Consider yourselves already dead".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVbnDBBtg3I

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Here's the official trailer for your 'Enemy at the Gates' mate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxT4c9K4GgI

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I'm going to push my luck here. This isn't WW2, as it is 1953. But they are flying USAF Dakotas.
A really great movie with a great cast. Before the days when you had to have a lot of violence to get audiences to pay to see it.
This trailer gives an idea of what it's like for those who have never seen it.
I have the DVD and I watched it again last night. But then I am a buff....................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LvC-JoQmo

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/n...ndinthesky.jpg

Look for the best flying sequences of Dakotas ever seen in any movie towards the end of the full movie.

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The general has retired, but since I've just stumbled on this post I took some time to check the YouTube link an watch the trailer for "Island in the Sky".

Well you can't really judge a movie on a trailer alone, but if the footage between 01:50 and 02:23 is indicative, I'm glad for John Wayne's memory that we haven't remembered / seen this performance!

:tease: :piliot:

It is a shame that the TV companies don't air more classics, although DVD does redress the balance (somewhat).

Ah, still don't have a PAL DVD (R2) version of "The Hill" nor the original wide screen version of "Hell in the Pacific".

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PS ... Slightly off topic ...

Ok, I'll admit that I have a soft spot for PC games.

After almost a decade of mainly (combat) flight sims I have switched to playing mainly first person war shooters and real time strategy.

Specifically I've been playing Call of Duty Black Ops and Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor (in Afghanistan). On he other side it has been Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2, Company of Heroes series and Total War Empire/Napoleon.

Sorry for the long intro, but a week ago I finished the single player campaign of Black Ops and back to topic I have to say that a game experience like this brings movies and games pretty close together. Once you have Hollywood grade actors doing the voice acting combined with state of the art graphics you are no "just playing a game" you are experiencing an interactive adventure.

With the next Call of Duty (MW4) and Battlefield (3) about to be released in Q4 I'll be having more fun than "just" watching a movie.

...ps I've recently installed Project Strike Fighter 2, the updated version with a couple of add ons, and it appears to be a good looking cold war sim that doesn't require a long study of the manual. But I'm not totally lost to the genre.

Hugely OT, I know...

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I watched on "Netflix" the Russian war movie "9th Company"(in letter box) based on a real event from the Russian withdrawal in 1989. It reminded me of Gregory Peck's movie "Pork Chop Hill" (one of my favorites) at the end with the unit being overwhelmed before help arrived (but in the 9th Company case the help seemed just as dangerous).

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There'd probably be a very long list if I thought too hard about it but two that'd definitely be on it would be "Fires Were Started" and "Went The Day Well?", both made in Britain during the war.

And I'd recommend a book, "Their Finest Hour And A Half" by Lissa Evans. This is on-topic (just) because it's a humorous novel about making a film in wartime Britain.

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Gee,
that's a hard one....I reckon the "Bridge Too Far" is top notch..I especially love the bit where Sean Connery knocks off a German through some poor Dutchman's kitchen window...that actually happened...

Can you believe that Sean was not the directors first choice to play General Roy Urquart??...Roger Moore was......and he would have been a flop at the job.....didn't even look like him.....


Oh and "Bomberboy"....looks like no one's ignoring your posts now, are they ??....

Thank your lucky stars you're not married to my Wife...she ignores me all the time!!!

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Top Ten
1. 12 O'Clock High
2. Pork Chop Hill
3. Das Boot
4. Band of Brothers
5. The Pacific
6. Downfall
7. Letters from Iwo Jima
8 Saving Private Ryan
9. Full Metal Jacket
10. Memphis Belle
11. The Great Escape

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Nice list Del. I also like that you included 'Full Metal Jacket'. I've always much preferred that Viet Nam-era film over 'Platoon' (I think that's the title). One of my other favorites is 'The Train'.

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In 2ww:
Battle of Britain
Das Boot
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Great Escape
Kelly`s Heroes
Enemy at the Gates
Stalingrad
Tora! Tora! Tora!
..................
..................
...................
regards