I love history and war is history in its way, so War! movies have always been a part of my life.
whether its accuracy, drama, a compelling story or just shit blowing up good, war movies can convey the true brutal humanity in us all, fucking savages.
So tell us of your favorites and why, or grab some popcorn.
Patton
Master and commander
Band of brothers
12 o’clock high
Dr. Strangelove
Glory
We were soldiers
Laurence of Arabia
I want to study history more but it’s an endless vortex of too much information that I can’t retain. And I already have other interests just like that.
I’m not into most war movies but I did really enjoy the German miniseries “Generation War” recently.
Bit melodramatic but I like that shit so there is that.
Rhy: don’t think you do streaming but, if The Defeated ever turns up where you can watch, worth a look. It’s a murder investigation set in Berlin in 1945 with German detectives aided (required) by an American.
👍
From the losing sides: Cross of Iron, Das Boot, All Quiet on the Western Front, They Died With Their Boots On.
Lords of war,
Letters from Iwo Jima, Stalingrad
Letters was fantastic.
I just got Letters on DVD. Next time im in the mood for a war movie, ill watch it.
Stalingrad, the version by Peterson of Das Boot, is excellent. Ignore the Russian bullshit one.
“The Shall Not Grow Old” is an outstanding documentary by Jackson. It is simply stunning. Plus watch the end feature about making the movie. In that segment is one of the most haunting bits of film you will ever see.
Yep. A must see.
The Burmese Harp.
A war movie that I remember having an impact on me, as a young skull full of mush was Hamburger Hill.
I didn’t understand it the first watch, and a friend insisted on a second viewing. That time it clicked. Damn.
Agreed
I’ve found, over the last few years that I find it really hard to watch war movies, particularly WWI & WWII. It’s not the violence per se since I can still watch something like John Wick. I think it’s because most war movies are at least based on real conflict and I find it hard to watch with that in the back of my mind (personal change, not suggesting anything universal).
That said, from the past when I watched a LOT of war movies I’d agree with Patton, Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Lawrence of Arabia. I’ve not seen the others. I’d probably add Braveheart, Where Eagles Dare, Hunt For Red October, The Killing Fields, Battle of Britain (1969), Downfall, Tora Tora Tora.
Special shout out to The World at War, a 26-part documentary from ITV/Thames Television in 1973-74. Brilliant although I think some of the information has been superseded as more documents have become public.
At the crappy end, I’d probably add Midway (1976) which is kind of average movie but, given the cast, is much worse than it should have been.
I can’t watch real footage anymore either. I would have when I was younger but I am more squeamish now.
I can’t bring myself to watch stuff like Saving Private Ryan or Fury.
The soundtrack for Glory is outstanding.
The scene that haunts me is when, in silhouette, the doctor is sawing his patients leg off, and the soldier is begging him to stop.
Das Boot is incredible.
Jarhead is far too close to home, even though I was an army guy in the next war.
In the army now. Yeah, basic was kinda like that. I was in the last class at Ft Jackson to get the grey sweat suit, still have one marshmallow top i wore last weekend.
For war documentaries I recommend Little Dieter Meeds to Fly. A fascinating story. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0145046/
I’ve never seen Das Boot but I remember visiting the Das Boot exhibit at the same film studio that gave us The Neverending Story and… probably some other stuff that I don’t recall.
I miss those sweats. Comfy as hell, except for the panty liner in the shorts.
Great selections, keep it up, Im writing
300, cartoony but accurate, I loved the style
On the home front:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093209
Also: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101121
Ooh! I liked that series! I thought I was the only person not involved in the production who remembered it!
OMG, I always knew I liked you! I have some creaky VHS tapes…
(I tried to flirt with Kyle Chandler in person, who merely looked puzzled.)
LOL I can’t blame you
Also on the home front:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036160/reference/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036695/reference/
I like this “reference view” that is new to me – I need to see if I can add that to quick search techniques I use.
Looks like you need an account. Is it paid?
Mrs. Miniver
And, although I’ve not watched many episodes, from what I have seen Foyle’s War is pretty good.
Uncommon Valor.
The one and only Gene Hackman.
Haven’t seen it in many years.
Go back to Vietnam and rescue. POWs, but without Rambo. Tex Cobb was part of the cast, IIRC.
One of my favorites for sure.
Full Metal Jacket, for the obvious reasons.
I do agree with the criticism that the first half and the second half felt like two different movies.
Still a stellar movie.
Shut up! Joker!
Stellar
Charlie don’t surf.
IMO, the most underrated scene in the movie is when Gomer Pyle gets treated to the soap party, or whatever it’s called.
I wish that had been permissible when I was in.
blanket party
I know that First Blood isn’t technically a war movie, bit it does deal with the aftermath of war.
It needs an honorable mention.
He was just hungry.
If I ever meet Stallone, I’m going to shake his hand for First Blood. And Copland.
I have t seen Copland, I’ll put it on the watch list.
I enjoyed Samaritan.
I remember first watching First Blood and thinking how bad it was for the mean sheriff to escort the poor homeless guy out of town. Now, 40+ years later and living in a blue shit hole, I want our sheriff to chase all of our bums out.
Rambo wasn’t homeless. He was just vagabonding.
Aftermath is still related, carry on
To quote Michael Yon “everyone’s war is a snowflake.”
I loved Empire of The Sun. Not sure how it’s held up.
Well done movie, intense
Dr Strangelove is absolutely in my Top 10, maybe Top 5. It’s magical. Somehow threading absolute deadpan hilarity, and the legit, philosophical madness behind the very real fear of Mutually Assured Destruction as it was feared?
And fucking Peter Sellers and George C Scott (not knowing it was supposed to be funny)… and plenty more… uh. *BRAVO* on making that work. Damn.
Dunkirk, I thought was spectacular. I really enjoyed the well-executed different timelines, with Sea having the most time pass in the battle plan, Land in the mid, and Air’s immediacy reflecting how much time each mission, plan or battle had.
Saving Private Ryan is amazing. I read WWII vets saw it and told Spielberg that it looked real. Well. Won’t say more.
I wanna rewatch Master and Commander. Kinda down on myself, cuz I’ve certainly seen Glory but don’t remember, I only *know* the other titles. I’m positive I’m lapsing on many others at the momo. Like, Killing Fields. I’ve been there and it should be ALL OVER my To Watch list, but I never do. *kicks self*
Master and commander is great.
The books, they could do it now and be relevant
We picked up a couple for the boy in the recommendations here.
My visit to Prison S2 1ST in Cambodia, with the pyramid of skulls at the entrance, is (predictably) one of the more powerful places I’ve ever been. Male and female skulls and different color dots, with kids another. Piles of ribs and femurs. And the cells. BUT. I won’t link it here. For kids there was a big tree that was used – they’d just swing young kids into it to kill ’em. The tree now is covered with colored ‘bracelets’ with names affixed to it.
Chum Mey’s cell. One of seven known survivors. “His life was only spared because of his ability to repair sewing machines.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Chum_Mey%27s_cell_at_S-21.jpg_.jpg/960px-Chum_Mey%27s_cell_at_S-21.jpg_.jpg
I’ve also been to Dachau, as well. I’m not sure which was more haunting. The swift, third-world brutality in S-21, or the highly ‘mechanized’ efficiency of die Deutchen. yeeeeesh
Swimming to Cambodia: had forgotten about that one. Recommended.
Dachau for me was anticlimactic. It was pretty empty of buildings and not the industrial sort of killing camp that Auschwitz supposedly was.
Apocalypse Now, needs a mention.
So does The Deer Hunter. While more of a drama, imo, it does have Christopher Walken in it.
I crossed the streamed above.
Charlie do t surf is from apocalypse now. Whoops.
Still relevant, party on Wayne,
I will watch literally anything with him in it.
Enemy at the Gates.
Second best sex scene in any movie next to The Big Lebowski.
Seconded.
I bought the book.
I *really* like Enemy at the Gates. Hard film to do. I also have a thing for Rachel Weisz. I LOVE her in The Mummy (only the first exists and it’s fabulous). She’s good at her job.
Master and Commander definitely.
Also the Patriot.
Gotta go back to work, last thought.
Southern Comfort. Starring Powers Booth.
National Guard gets in a scrap with Cajuns, in a swamp, I think in Louisiana.
All great choices and Glory is criminally underrated. I’ll add a few more movies.
Enemy at the Gates is pretty good. The Russians hate it because it’s one of the few movies that emphasizes that the Red Army shot a lot of their own men on purpose and otherwise shows their incompetence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8fWp-i-BGA
Tora! Tora! Tora! is the best Pearl Harbor movie, and the stunt flying in actual planes is the best part. The Blue Max has great WW1 dogfights with real planes as well.
The battles scenes in Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven are pretty good. Ditto for Zulu. Saving Private Ryan stands out in a crowded field. The Bridges of Toko Ri examines a forgotten war, as does The Charge of the Light Brigade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKchwAWMpDA
Behind the Door
Europa, Europa
I thought that was already on my wish-list. 🥴
Now it is.
Red Dawn, heh
In the words of the great philosopher Mills Lane, I’ll allow it.
The reboot was lame. They should have stuck with China as the bad guys.
This Chinese war movie (Assembly) is pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Kd4t4gDsg
Here’s clip from a Vietnam war movie from the Vietnamese perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ7nEYvc65E
There are films with war in the background like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Apocalypse Now is probably the same.
I generally don’t watch a lot of film with war as a feature in the film, but have see many of the ones already mentioned.
I’ll add Breaker Morant to the list.
Subway pusher #2 of the year. Still on the loose. It will be interesting to see the excuses for why he wasn’t already in jail or an institution.
I have been on that platform at that exact time dozens of times – it was a required transfer point after partying when my usual train doesn’t run all the way to where I used to live.
Situation awareness people learn it. Even if you’re kind of drunk it can save your life.
I can feel the aie pressure change when someone walks up behind me, I see the shadows of movement around me, and dont get me started about traffic
Air pressure
“Street smarts” are an absolutely mandatory skill if you live there. There is even an easy way to stand with your leading foot in a position to prevent being pushed which if you’re not using, you ought to be.
This Russian miniseries (Soviet Storm) on WW2 is pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OECigjkU-YI&list=PLwGzY25TNHPAgAk-xYhMDZ1u-u6N_8C97
The part about espionage and codes really intrigued me.
After my parents got cable, I watched a lot of history channel. My favorite shows were Sworn to Secrecy, Military Blunders, Suicide Missions, and Weapons at War, which had a great intro theme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mQELBl0uto
Lord of War kind of counts as a war movie. It gets a *chef’s kiss* from me.
Storm of war was an eye opener for me, great series,
Lord of war was perfect
Soviet storm
I like A Bridge Too Far.
Boy they screwed up that one. Market Garden was amazing that any of it worked out at all. Throw enough meat at the enemy and you’ll win I guess.
Andersonville is about Union POWs but is accurate and has many powerful moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgGWiM4HgMI
Gettysburg (1993) has great battle scenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC7bYDBj_eA
To Hell and Back was probably the best WW2 movie before Saving Private Ryan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveDGdtt-Mg
Kelly’s Heroes and the quasi-remake Three Kings are good war comedies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgeIINs1TrQ
Three Kings is good. Not bouillon.
To Hell and Back was probably the best WW2 movie before Saving Private Ryan.
The lead knew the part well …
Audie Murphy talks about WW2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1F1kRTpWE
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-heros-journey.html
Want a super soldier? Find a short boy whose father abandoned him and spent his childhood hunting rabbits to feed his siblings.
How about a Tennessee hillbilly?
Alvin York? Yeah, I live a bit south from where he grew up. I read he was in a lot of bar fights. Makes sense. The quickest way to end a fight is to pull out a knife, at least in my experience.
Short guy.
Now I wonder about Richard Bong’s childhood.
Typical Wisconsin farm boy.
Major Bong was listed at 5’8″, 160 when he passed away at 24.
Colonel Tibbets (in wartime you could make Major at 24, but you had to be 29 to be a full-bird colonel) killed a lot more people than Bong — ironically, most of them on the same day that Bong died — and he was only an inch taller.
Both pretty typical of the well-fed, bright guys who went to college prior to the war. Taller than average and well built by the standards of the times.
Military psychologists studied US aces during the war to see what made them tick. The common element was they all got in a lot of fights when they were kids. Aggressive risk takers succeed in combat more often than not. In his book about military intelligence, Keegan said in the end war is more about doing than thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqfXXaOisKo
Never seen the former (nor the latter), but I heard Audie Murphy told directors to tone down the shit he actually did, cuz people wouldn’t believe it. There’s a short dude who kicked ass WAY above his weight.
I see he talked to Korean and Vietnam vets about PTSD after he was fucked up by it. (Yep. Understandable.) Carlin’s fantastic bit on ‘Soldiers would be receiving a lot more care if we’d still call it SHELL SHOCK’ is on point.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hypen!”
After the Civil War, it was called Soldier’s Heart. Symptoms included drunkenness, anger, depression, and violence.
Then it was called Shell Shock (WW1), then Battle Fatigue (WW2), then PTSD. Soldier’s Heart was more accurate and poetic, IMO.
The average US infantryman in WW2 was 5’8 and 140 pounds. There were a lot of shrimps on the battlefield.
Fiorello LaGuardia was 5’2, was a fighter pilot in WW1, and became mayor of NYC before they named the worst airport in the world after him.
LAX and IAD wish to challenge.
Yeah LAG is probably not the worst and that’s before they opened a new main terminal at titanic expense to rave reviews after I moved away from NYC. I flew out of there a lot.
JFK is much worse.
I visited LAX once – no particular memory. Easy transfer from what I recall.
CLE and ROC are the best I have experience with – smaller markets so probably easier to get it right.
Changi Airport in Singapore (SIN), is considered the best in the world. They are correct. That place is fucking on point. That whole country is on point. Unless you vote the wrong way.
They adopted good things from the Brits. That’s a place I’ve been meaning to write about. Gotta think of a focus. I taught there for two years, 2014-16. Fuck. Weed was, duh, easy peasy in Thailand. Hard in Korea, but my last year we found a dude, but not easy. Singapore? Wouldn’t risk *thinking* about it. God, most law-breakin’ folk are so careless. Put some fuckin’ *thought* into it. Starting point? Don’t fucking do it. (Unless you’re inside a country that’s kinda-cool with it. Still, don’t be stupid.)
Typing pokes ideas loose. Language in Singapore should obviously be the focus. Profession highlight: My school’d level test kids and I’d have students read the material, and they’d succeed. Had some students for a long time, maybe age 3 or 4 to 5 or 6, and I taught kids to read English before they could read in their native language. Swish.
Or chew gum.
I like the good parts and really, really dislike the bad parts. Maybe there is a happy medium that leads to a pleasant, high-trust, low-crime society but that place ain’t it. And don’t get me started on the inhuman weather.
@rhy: What were the bad part of Singapore? Like bad neighborhoods, or bad politics? If the latter, I totally follow. The former? Didn’t experience it, or really, really am misplacing a memory.
The weather? FUCKING BALLS the equator sucks to live on. (The 12hr day/night, each and every day is fucking GOOFY.) I gained a shitload of weight there, 160 at my highest (I’m ~130-135.) It was all bloating cuz I took so much Prednisone to combat the really shitty rashes on my hands, face, stomach etc cuz all the sweating.
Nothing beats pretty big monkeys chillin’ at bus stops, sitting on the Wait Here seats cuz they were shaded. Certainly not every day, but it wasn’t shocking. (After the first couple times.)
Though not war movies, there’s a mind-numbing number of Youtube vids on the site describing various campaigns, battles, etc. etc all the way back to Megiddo. One learns how chance, the fog of war, and garbled, bad, or false information can lead to heroic outcomes or horrific ones. Some interesting vids I saw recently involved the merchant ship’s cook who helped win the Battle of the Atlantic by discovering that water was an effective dampener of machinery noise, the girl with incredible pattern recognition who cracked the Italian Enigma code and led to the total victory at Cape Matapan, and the grocery clerk from Pittsburgh who used his experience in stocking shelves to halve the time it took to reload Sherman tank guns.
I’m probably an outlier in this one, but then, I’m a libertarian, so I’m used to it.
In the late 1980s there was a film about the Vietnam War that had everything going for it, film-wise. Based on a terrific little novel by infantryman-turned-war-correspondent Nicholas Proffitt, it was directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
The cast featured James Earl Jones, James Caan, Angelica Huston, and Laurence Fishburne.
There were no Michael Bay-style explosions, no feats of derring-do. It was just a quiet, serious film about the parts of war one didn’t see because the action was seven thousand miles away.
And it disappeared without a trace, because after Platoon, no one in America was ready for another ‘Nam flick.
It’s called Gardens of Stone. Available free on YouTube with ads.
Is it a sequel or prequel to Apocalypse Now?
For those of less than a certain age, Platoon was so huge especially with the sort of folks who were teaching while I was in high school it was the only film I can recall that got a field trip dedicated to making us watching it.
Gardens of Stone is a brilliant fucking movie.
“Soldier, do you know who first proposed the idea of asexual reproduction?”
“Sir, your wife, Sir!”
Paraphrased from memory. I ain’t gonna look up a clip.
Isn’t that from WarGames? lol
I distinctly remember James Earl Jones asking the question while James Caan is snickering at the answer.
I remember a Vietnam flick that was set up as a documentary following g a swift boat crew. All I can remember about it was the line “I’m so short I can skydive off a fucking dime.” And the one guy saying he was going to be a sou chef when he got out. I may be confusing two movies though.
From your AM post about expenses.
“1 truck’ll make ya; 2 trucks’ll break ya”
I don’t care for war movies or mob movies mostly. Maybe there is some kind of connection there…
Can any of you tech folk explain why with Flash video a person with a slow internet connection could use their own memory to buffer a paused video all the way but with HTML 5 that doesn’t work beyond about a minute? Was it just programmers that live in areas with fast internet thinking it wasn’t necessary or some technical reason?
That’s probably the truth.
I called Apple support once and they told me to upload some file.
Asked them what it was. Oh it’s the OS.
I told them it would take me close to 20 hours. Guy was silent. I followed up his silence with, the vast majority of the world does not live in Curpertino.
My rule is don’t call support. I open a ticket. Phone calls are useless – especially at Big Corp – unless you know it’s a simple thing like resetting a password.
The same kind of issues I have with the TV show I edit. Sure, at the TV station it takes them 15 minutes to upload the file to their servers. But from my house it takes literally 3 days. So instead I take it to aunt’s house where it still takes 3 hours. And they insist I have to upload it. blech.
As far as war video games, my favorite one is Shellshock: Nam 67. Kill gooks, do drugs, bang whores…it’s Grand Theft Auto: Saigon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC7BN9edskw&list=PLpIsWP7aexyXvCH4dZ2rsbz6uQ4u9gpXl
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-drugs-that-built-a-super-soldier/477183/
Maybe because these came out years before most of us were born, but I’m a little surprised that no one’s mentioned From Here to Eternity or The Best Years of Our Lives yet.
One flick that I have a soft spot for is the 2019 remake of Midway. Sure, some of the dogfight action sequences are ridiculous, but the special effects were no only probably more realistic than most previous films (i.e., the AA coming at the dive bombers) but pretty cool to watch.
I was just about to mention Best Lives; also Platoon.
Soldier is more of a sci-fi movie than a war movie. Even so, I like the opening montage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW57mVNNJM8
Toys is my favorite comedy sci fi war movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHRbX3gDba8
Soldier’s problem was not giving Kurt more (any?) lines. I’m sure he took it as a challenge, but with an action star, especially Kurt Russell, the audience goes in expecting some snarky lines. As a character piece it could work to have a silent protagonist, but as Kurt Russell Summer Blockbuster Action Movie, it didn’t really work.
***
In the 1998 film “Soldier,” Kurt Russell’s character speaks a total of 104 words throughout the entire movie.
***
[chef’s kiss]
Sometimes less is more.
Here’s a Tanzanian documentary about the war against Idi Amin. It’s graphic in places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdqpLdhD7Ac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn5g8DpRrHk
Just wondering what others think — is Heartbreak Ridge basically The Bad News Bears, but with Marines?
It’s Police Academy with Marines.
Swede! Swede! Swede!
No love for “1941”?
HEY YUFUS!
Top Gun is a war movie, sorta. Great music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVRUxtPKK-w
Memphis Belle is in the same category.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djIvmaYI9LQ