Best War Movies
by Atari1974 | created - 12 Jun 2012 | updated - 12 Jun 2012 | Public35 Best War Movies
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1. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Approved | 218 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins
Votes: 314,218 | Gross: $44.82M
2. Patton (1970)
GP | 172 min | Biography, Drama, War
The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong
Votes: 107,910 | Gross: $61.70M
3. Schindler's List (1993)
R | 195 min | Biography, Drama, History
In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall
Votes: 1,449,878 | Gross: $96.90M
4. The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, Romance, War
Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov | Stars: Tatyana Samoylova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasiliy Merkurev, Aleksandr Shvorin
Votes: 19,761 | Gross: $0.02M
5. Platoon (1986)
R | 120 min | Drama, War
Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David
Votes: 439,310 | Gross: $138.53M
6. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Not Rated | 89 min | Animation, Drama, War
A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.
Director: Isao Takahata | Stars: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Shinohara
Votes: 310,161
7. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 709,774 | Gross: $83.47M
8. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 362,031 | Gross: $48.98M
9. The Killing Fields (1984)
R | 141 min | Biography, Drama, History
A journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody 'Year Zero' cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million 'undesirable' civilians.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands
Votes: 59,105 | Gross: $34.70M
10. Black Hawk Down (2001)
R | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of 160 elite U.S. soldiers who dropped into Mogadishu in October 1993 to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord, but found themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily armed Somalis.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana
Votes: 423,393 | Gross: $108.64M
11. The Longest Day (1962)
G | 178 min | Action, Drama, History
The events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
Directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck | Stars: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda
Votes: 59,049 | Gross: $39.10M
12. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Passed | 152 min | Drama, War
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Votes: 67,658 | Gross: $3.27M
13. Glory (1989)
R | 122 min | Biography, Drama, History
Robert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman
Votes: 144,370 | Gross: $26.83M
14. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 517,978 | Gross: $0.28M
15. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
R | 116 min | Drama, War
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin
Votes: 790,075 | Gross: $46.36M
16. War Horse (2011)
PG-13 | 146 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A young farm boy enlists to serve in World War I after his beloved horse is sold to the cavalry. His hopeful journey takes him out of England and onto the front lines as the war rages on.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch
Votes: 165,562 | Gross: $79.88M
17. Come and See (1985)
Not Rated | 142 min | Drama, Thriller, War
After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.
Director: Elem Klimov | Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas
Votes: 97,106
18. Downfall (2004)
R | 156 min | Biography, Drama, History
Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Votes: 375,074 | Gross: $5.51M
19. The Hurt Locker (2008)
R | 131 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce
Votes: 473,642 | Gross: $17.02M
20. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
PG-13 | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
When an open-minded Jewish waiter and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.
Director: Roberto Benigni | Stars: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Giustino Durano
Votes: 742,855 | Gross: $57.60M
21. Das Boot (1981)
R | 149 min | Drama, War
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
Votes: 264,242 | Gross: $11.49M
22. Triumph of the Will (1935)
Not Rated | 110 min | Documentary, History
The infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.
Director: Leni Riefenstahl | Stars: Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Max Amann, Martin Bormann
Votes: 18,317
Gives you a better understanding of why Germany was able to fall inline. Must be included on any war movie list
23. Restrepo (2010)
R | 93 min | Documentary, Biography, History
A year with one platoon in the deadliest valley in Afghanistan.
Directors: Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger | Stars: The Men of Battle Company 2nd of the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, Juan 'Doc Restrepo, Dan Kearney, LaMonta Caldwell
Votes: 24,422 | Gross: $1.33M
24. The Great Escape (1963)
Approved | 172 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson
Votes: 258,804 | Gross: $12.10M
25. M*A*S*H (1970)
R | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, War
The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and high jinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman
Votes: 76,897 | Gross: $81.60M
26. Gone with the Wind (1939)
Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War
A sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 334,143 | Gross: $198.68M
27. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 605,757 | Gross: $1.02M
28. Stalag 17 (1953)
Not Rated | 120 min | Comedy, Drama, War
After two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss
Votes: 58,793
29. Where Eagles Dare (1968)
M | 158 min | Action, Adventure, War
Allied agents stage a daring raid on a castle where the Nazis are holding American brigadier general George Carnaby prisoner, but that's not all that's really going on.
Director: Brian G. Hutton | Stars: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark
Votes: 62,878
30. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Approved | 150 min | Action, Adventure, War
During World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes
Votes: 79,067 | Gross: $45.30M
31. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
G | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.
Directors: Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Martin Balsam, Sô Yamamura, Jason Robards, Joseph Cotten
Votes: 37,199 | Gross: $29.55M
32. The Counterfeiters (2007)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, History
The story of the Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history, carried out by Germany during World War II.
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky | Stars: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Martin Brambach
Votes: 47,169 | Gross: $5.48M
33. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Not Rated | 121 min | Drama, War
In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo | Stars: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash
Votes: 65,626 | Gross: $0.06M
34. Paths of Glory (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, War
After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
Votes: 212,158
35. Gallipoli (1981)
PG | 110 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee, Bill Kerr, Harold Hopkins
Votes: 41,943 | Gross: $5.73M
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