Here’s our ranking of the best war movies of all time . Cinema has drawn inspiration from many historical conflicts. Historical epics that tell grandiose stories have used big budgets to bring these larger-than-life stories and characters to life. Top 20 Best Netflix Movies Watch Before Die
Check out our ranking of the best war films of all time
20) Inglourious Basterds – 2009
It’s a funny and bold film, but also one that’s tinged with sadness, thanks in large part to Mélanie Laurent’s performance as the sole survivor of an opening scene in which Landa hunts a Jewish family in hiding. It’s a reminder that while movies can rewrite history and even offer a chance at revenge, they can’t really undo it.
19) Requiem for a Massacre – 1985
Russian director Elem Klimov’s harrowing film Requiem for a Massacre opens with a Belarusian teenager named Flyora (Aleksey Kravchenko) impersonating a soldier as he and a friend dig in a trench for weapons. In doing so, he seems to summon war to his village, first in the form of a partisan militia that enlists him to fight the German invaders, and then in the form of the Germans themselves, who arrive not only as conquerors but as gleeful sadists with no regard for human life. One of the very best war films of all time . Top 20 Best Netflix Documentaries to Watch Now
18) Thou shalt not kill – 2016
Mel Gibson’s film career…isn’t what it used to be. But he temporarily bounced back from his fall from Hollywood grace with this World War II drama about U.S. Army medic Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a conscientious objector who refused to carry a gun because of his religious beliefs. Top 20 Best Netflix Series Right Now
Doss distinguished himself during the Battle of Okinawa by saving 75 men, becoming the first man in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor without firing a shot. Gibson had originally intended to have a role for himself—that of a tough drill sergeant—but passed it on to Vince Vaughn so he could focus on directing; the film marks his first return to the director’s chair since 2006’s Apocalypto .
17) Letters from Iwo Jima – 2006
We continue our look back at the best war movies of all time with Letters from Iwo Jima . After depicting the Battle of Iwo Jima and its aftermath from the American perspective in Flags of Our Fathers , Clint Eastwood revisited the event from the perspective of Japanese soldiers in Letters from Iwo Jima . Eastwood relentlessly depicts the desperation of Japanese soldiers defending their position in tunnels as they run out of resources and succumb to disease. The 30 Best Movies of All Time
16) Fury – 2014
A tough , gutsy look at tank warfare, director David Ayer’s Fury doesn’t show anything glamorous or glorious about the battle. But it does make you feel every cramped, claustrophobic moment inside a Sherman tank with Commander “Wardaddy” Collier ( Brad Pitt ) and his crew as they race across Germany to eliminate Hitler’s last forces in the dreary days of 1945. Top 70 Movies You Must Need To Watch in Your Lifetime
15) Black Hawk Down – 2001
Director Ridley Scott took his 1999 fictional book by Mark Bowden about a US military raid on Mogadishu after 9/11 to create an adrenaline-fueled entry into the war movie genre. The film stars a slew of young Hollywood actors, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Sam Shepard and Tom Hardy (in his film debut), as members of an elite Delta Force tasked with capturing a Somali warlord. When one of their helicopters crashes in enemy territory, night falls and the mission goes even further awry. In the real-life raid, 20 US soldiers were killed, along with more than 1,000 Somalis.
14) Braveheart – 1995
Mel Gibson’s gripping war film is a throwback to the Hollywood epics of yesteryear, albeit one that brings the story of Scottish revolutionary William Wallace to the screen for the first time. In addition to directing, Gibson stars as a Scottish peasant who witnesses the brutal execution of Scottish nobles by the British army from a young age. Wallace is content to stay out of the conflict, but after his secret wife Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack) is murdered by two British soldiers, he frees his town from the oppressive rulers. Top 60 Best Horror Movies in Cinema History
Wallace gains a following among the Scottish lords who join his movement, including Robert the Bruce (Angus McFadyen). The cruel King Edward “Longshanks” (Patrick McGoohan) hunts him down, but Wallace develops a surprisingly intimate relationship with the French princess Isabella (Sophia Marceau). Gibson’s massive action sequences are brutal and show the overwhelming odds the Scottish rebels faced; the religious imagery used to depict Wallace’s final sacrifice makes the conclusion even more moving. It would go on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.
13) Minesweepers – 2008
Moviegoers have been largely resistant to films about the Iraq War, perhaps because it remained a hotly contested topic even as the films began to appear (and remains so today). One exception: Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker , which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, doesn’t ignore the political aspects of the conflict but also focuses on the terrifying experiences of an explosive ordnance disposal team led by William James (Jeremy Renner).
Bigelow captures the intensity of a job in which the slightest mistake means death, and how the experience becomes so enveloping that any other way of living begins to seem impossible. A must-see in our top 20 best war movies.
12) Dunkirk – 2017
Christopher Nolan ’s audacious account of the Dunkirk evacuation—a humiliating setback in 1940 that advanced the German cause—attempts to capture the full magnitude of the event by depicting it simultaneously across three differently paced timelines. The first, the story of a handful of stranded soldiers, unfolds over the course of a week. The second, which follows civilians attempting to rescue soldiers by boat, unfolds over the course of a day.
A third, in which a pilot storms the beach by air, runs just an hour. What could have been a cerebral exercise carefully builds tension on three fronts. A deeply emotional climax and a moving denouement capture the spirit of a nation desperately trying to find sparks of hope in grim circumstances.
11) 1917 – 2019
1917 is set during Operation Alberich, after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line. The film follows two British soldiers who are ordered to deliver a message to the 2nd Battalion to cancel an attack planned for the next day. The two men face various obstacles and difficulties in their race against time to stop the attack.
Now on to the top 10
10) The Thin Red Line – 1999
Nominated for seven Oscars, The Thin Red Line won none. But director Terrence Malick’s lush, brutally beautiful, and highly philosophical adaptation of James Jones’s 1964 novel was widely praised and is still considered one of the greatest war films of all time.
9) Rescue Dawn – 2006
Director Werner Herzog and actor Christian Bale, who plays Dengler, bring to life the harrowing tale of the “great escape,” based on the true story of German-American U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down, captured, tortured and held prisoner in the jungle by pro-Vietnam villagers during the 1966 war. Bale and the other actors who play his fellow prisoners (Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies) lost up to 55 pounds each for their roles as emaciated, malnourished prisoners. And in the scene where Bale’s character eats worms, yes, those are real worms.
8) American Sniper – 2015
Continuing our top 10 war movies of all time with American Sniper . Bradley Cooper takes aim at real life in the lead role of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in director Clint Eastwood’s psychologically heavy biopic about the decorated sniper who became a legend for his sharpshooting skills during the Iraq War.
7) Born on July 4th – 1989
Tom Cruise has become such a movie star in big-budget action blockbusters that it’s easy to overlook his impassioned performance as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, who enlisted and served as an enthusiastic U.S. Marine, then returned home to Long Island, paralyzed from the waist down, as one of the war’s most ardent protesters.
6) The Bridge on the River Kwai – 1957
British filmmaker David Lean was on his way up the film ladder (from Great Expectations to Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter) when he adapted Pierre Boulle’s 1952 novel into a big-screen blockbuster.
5) The Deer Hunter – 1978
Michael Cimino was rightly praised for this gripping, majestically directed three-hour drama about how the Vietnam War affected the lives of a small group of friends in a small Pennsylvania industrial town. It won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken).
4) Apocalypse Now – 1979
War is hell—and shooting this movie was certainly hell, according to almost everyone involved. Director Francis Ford Coppola lost nearly 100 pounds while filming this Vietnam-inspired fantasy in the Philippines. Actor Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack midway through production, requiring a stunt double for some scenes. The set was destroyed by a typhoon. Filming took so long that editing took two years.
And the podium of the best war films of all time is…
3) Full Metal Jacket – 1987
But none of the film was shot anywhere near South Carolina or Vietnam. It was filmed entirely on sets in England. Welcome to the podium of the best war films of all time.
2) Saving Private Ryan – 1998
Tom Hanks leads the cast of director Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama, which sets a small story — the search for and safe evacuation of a single soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon) — on top of a larger one, the epic 1944 assault by Allied troops on Omaha Beach in France.
1) Platoon – 1986
We decided to put Platoon at the top of our list of the 20 best war movies of all time. Before filming began on his Vietnam epic, Oliver Stone put the actors through an intensive two-week boot camp in the Philippines, under the supervision of a military advisor, to get them in shape as a unit, but also to deprive them of sleep, exhaust them, and put them in the shoes of a group of recruits ready to relive some of the experiences of combat and life in the country that the director himself had lived through.
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