whats the best war film ever?

[gammaray117]

Among my personal favorites:

GUNS OF NAVARONE
THE GREAT ESCAPE
BRIDGE TOO FAR
BATTLE OF BRITAIN
VON RYAN'S EXPRESS
SERGEANT YORK

There you have it.

"BATEMAN!!!!!"

[sixx]

Apocalypse now....hands down.

[BoyScoutKevin]

If one wants to see war from the other perspective, then I recommend . . . Now this is a film that I have not seen, but, I have always wanted to see, if only because it is so praised by those who have seen it. It is the 1959 German film "Der Brucke," or "The Bridge." In which seven German teenagers defend an useless bridge from advancing American forces in World War II. What makes this film even more interesting, is that while in most films about World War II, one has American tanks portraying German tanks, here you have German tanks portraying American tanks.

[BoyScoutKevin]

While I have not read the book nor seen the movie, and with all due respect to Ulthar, "Master and Commander" is not about the War of 1812, which was a war between the Americans and the British. It is about the Napoleonic Wars, as the book involves a fight between a Britsh and Spanish warship, and the film involves a fight between a British and a French warship.

[Scott]

BoyScoutKevin, I saw THE BRIDGE (1959) at a political film festival about 5 years ago. Very low budget, but very good film about 3 hitler youth (teenagers) who want to see action and are sent by some experienced soldiers to defend a bridge and to keep them out of harms way, but the war comes to them and they take a stand against some approaching armor. I enjoyed it as I was able to see it one the big screen.

[joe]

I ahve to agree that "Apocalypes Now" is the greattest war film ever because it delt with issues that were only discussed behind closed doors.

[Cricket21a]

"Patton" with George C. Scott has to be one of the best war movies I remember seeing and to be honest they just aren't something that normally interest me.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I think Eirik has it correct. There have been so many war films made, one pretty much has to divide them by the war which they were about. So, here are my choices. They may  not be the greatest or the most realistic, but, for my money, they have the best action sequences I have ever seen.

Ancient:"Fall of the Roman Empire" and/or "Intolerance" for its siege of Babylon

Medieval: "The War Lord"

Napoleonic:  "Damn the Defiant" and/or "Waterloo"

Colonial: "Young Winston" and/or "Zulu Dawn"

I do agree with Eirik about his choices for World War I ("All Quiet on the Western Front") and the Civil War ("Glory.")

And here are my choices for wars not mentioned.

Crusades: "Lionheart"

100 Years War: "The Messenger"

Boxer Rebellion: "55 Days at Peiking"

[Scott]

If anyone is on the board tonight AMC is playing THE LONGEST DAY which is about D-day just like in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

[Eirik]

Interestingly, both movies show the same basic engineering feat at Omaha beach - the use of bangalore torpedos to breach the defenses.  Of course in the older movie, Robert Mitchum just sort of swaggers through the breach and hops in his jeep while Tom Hanks has some fighting to do afterwards.  

Still, Longest Day is a great movie with a broad scope.  I heard somewhere that a lot of the Rangers who really attacked Pont du Hoc were miffed about the Longest Day.  The movie shows them get to the guns on top of the cliff to find them missing and they say something like "all that for nuthin'".  In real life, the guns were missing (replaced by phone poles to fool aerial scouts), but the Rangers figured out they were close by, found them, and destroyed them.

[NC]

Another WW2-Foreign that's really good is 'My Name is Ivan', Tarkovsky's film from 1962. I don't know how accurate it is, but it's an interesting story about this young kid around 11-12 years old that's an unofficial scout in the Soviet Army and all of the crazy things he has to do.

[jmdenn3000]

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