Best War movies

I really don't like realistic war movies, especially not the ones that show all the bits that should stay inside.

An interesting thing: look up one, like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down on Rottentomatoes, and see the totally different reasons why the reviewers like it: some like it because it shows what utter madness war is, others like it because it shows what heroic things humans are capable of, others like it because it shows that their country could kick serious ass.
 
Some good ones listed.

Braveheart
Heaven and Earth (Japanese)
Various Kurosawa flics
Ivan the Terrible

Not really a war movie per se but one I like a lot: Kellys Heroes.
 
The best:
Saving private Ryan
Blackhawk Down
U-571

Fair:
Full Metal Jacket
Apocolypse Now
Enemy at the gates

Hated:
Pearl Harbor
Tears of the Sun
Windtalkers
 
a selected few from IMDB that ive rated (though some arent really war but more taken place in a war)
The General (1927) 9
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 9
No Man's Land (2001) 9
Ran (1985) 9 other kurosawa films (this is prolly the most warlike)
Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1981) 9
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 8
Apocalypse Now (1979) 8
Braveheart (1995) 8
Catch-22 (1970) 8 better than the book which ran outta steam halfway through
The Deer Hunter (1978) 8
Full Metal Jacket (1987) 8
Hotaru no haka (1988) 8
Paths of Glory (1957) 8
Platoon (1986) 8
Spartacus (1960) 8

.. and the not so good (lots, incl some some ppl have mentioned )

Barry Lyndon (1975) 7 one of kubricks worst
Saving Private Ryan (1998) 7
Black Hawk Down (2001) 5
Schindler's List (1993) 5
The Great Dictator (1940) 4
Gone with the Wind (1939) 3
 
For all those people who suggested Black Hawk Down as a war movie you ought to be ashamed of yourself , firstly because it is crap and secondly it is not a war movie as it's about a military operation and not a war.

I'm not even going to comment on Braveheart as it is not even worthy of the contempt I showed BHD

Bridge on the River Kwai must be up there as the best, also i am surprised that nobody mentioned The Great Escape due to it having the coolest moment in war films ever, Steve McQueen attempting the bike jump even though he knew he could not make it.

Braveheart ... pwfift ... shocking.
 
For all those people who suggested Black Hawk Down as a war movie you ought to be ashamed of yourself , firstly because it is crap and secondly it is not a war movie as it's about a military operation and not a war.

Actually I've heard otherwise from troops returning from Iraq. I have a good deal of friends that are active duty, and I'm always sure to ask them what the most accurate depiction of modern day warfare is portrayed on film and BHD is typically their answer.
 
Actually I've heard otherwise from troops returning from Iraq. I have a good deal of friends that are active duty, and I'm always sure to ask them what the most accurate depiction of modern day warfare is portrayed on film and BHD is typically their answer.

I wouldn't take your average Joe on the street to give me a good critique of films and so therefore I do not give your average Joe in army uniform anymore credence. If we are talking about modern day documentaries on war maybe you have a point, but we are not.

I was thinking that all the war films mentioned had mainly a US bent, but here are two more British films that are pretty good:-

The Cruel Sea
In Which We Serve

For US war films the best has to be, in my humble opinion, not Humbug Hill, but Gone with the Wind, thus proving you do not have to have Duke Nukem running up the hill with a grenade between his teeth to actually have a great war film.

Two terrible "war" films

Iron Eagle
Wings of the Apache

Don't get me started on those two, I could rant all night long with phlegm bouncing off the monitor.
 
I wouldn't take your average Joe on the street to give me a good critique of films and so therefore I do not give your average Joe in army uniform anymore credence. If we are talking about modern day documentaries on war maybe you have a point, but we are not.

The point is we're not. The thread is about war movies, 90% of which are fictionalized Hollywood drab, not documentaries such as Gunner Palace. When I hear from multiple persons that one movie depicted an acute sense of realism in terms of modern day combat, especially those who've encountered it first hand, I tend to give them a little more merit than your "average everyday Joe."

And no one said that to make a war movie, it needs to be 140 minutes of unadulterated violence. While I respect your opinion that Gone with the Wind is a potential canidate for groundbreaking war movies, I tend to think differently.
 
When I hear from multiple persons that one movie depicted an acute sense of realism in terms of modern day combat, especially those who've encountered it first hand, I tend to give them a little more merit than your "average everyday Joe."

You are mixing up realism with what makes a good movie. A good movie should have story and plot. If you want to have a realistic movie about war then I guess the first 30 minutes would be about getting from the USA in a transport plane, then getting delayed in Germany, then being re-routed via Saudi than going straight to Iraq and then settling in and making your mess a bit more homely and then .... you end up with the worlds most boring war movie.

For a good war movie we want STORY not realism as per the above. Given that the modern day soldier has no more credence than Paris Hilton and should be cut out of the equation altogether.

Black Hawk down is still rubbish and it is still not a war movie. They even pinched the bit where the 2 guys were fighting off the millions of Somali's from the helicopter from the film Zulu.

"Somalies, thousands of them ! "

Oh dear....
 

Fourthded. (In it's original incarnation at least).

EDIT: I suggest that the submarine and the destroyer are the best settings for a war movie and/or thriller. I guess it's the combination of the isolation of the submariners and the cat+mouse / chess game between submarine and destroyer. One of the Cold War movies which sticks in my mind was The Bedford Incident.
 
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Fourthded. (In it's original incarnation at least).

Yes, not the american version with subtitles and canned laughter. (ironic joke)

Talking of which two classic funny war films that have not been mentioned thus far

MASH
Catch22

The MASH series we had on BBC for many years was great because it had no canned laughter, later on they put canned laughter on it and ruined it completely. You know, I don't need to be told when to laugh, it just happens naturally. Without the canned laughter you were in Korea, with it you were in some Ca. studio lot.

Not good at all.
 
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