War Movies to See Before You Die
by knight1192a | created - 14 Dec 2013 | updated - 27 Jan 2016 | PublicWe all have movies we think people should see at least once just to say they've seen them. These are movies we enjoy and suggest to others for the very reason of tei being able to see them to say they've seen them, maybe to get them interested in them as well. And we can break those movies down into particular genres so we can suggest by genre. These are war movies and TV mini-series that I have enjoyed and am suggesting for people to see.
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1. April Morning (1988 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 100 min | Drama, History, War
On the morning of April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began with the "shot heard 'round the world".
Director: Delbert Mann | Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Blakely, Chad Lowe, Robert Urich
Votes: 782
2. The General (1926)
Passed | 78 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.
Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
Votes: 98,161 | Gross: $1.03M
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: 1,451,103 | Gross: $96.90M
4. 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: 67,696 | Gross: $3.27M
5. 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: 76,940 | Gross: $81.60M
6. 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: 144,467 | Gross: $26.83M
7. The Blue and the Gray (1982)
TV-PG | 381 min | Drama, History, War
America just before and during the Civil War, as seen through the eyes of an artist correspondent.
Stars: Stacy Keach, John Hammond, Julia Duffy, Robin Gammell
Votes: 1,867
8. 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: 423,694 | Gross: $108.64M
9. 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: 59,080 | Gross: $39.10M
10. Operation Petticoat (1959)
Approved | 124 min | Comedy, Romance, War
During World War II, a commander finds himself stuck with a decrepit (and pink) submarine, a con man executive officer, and a group of army nurses.
Director: Blake Edwards | Stars: Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O'Brien, Dina Merrill
Votes: 15,875 | Gross: $23.30M
11. Gettysburg (1993)
PG | 271 min | Drama, History, War
In 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.
Director: Ron Maxwell | Stars: Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang, Richard Jordan
Votes: 31,309 | Gross: $10.77M
12. Europa Europa (1990)
R | 112 min | Drama, History, War
A boy in Nazi Germany, trying to conceal that he is Jewish, joins the Hitler Youth.
Director: Agnieszka Holland | Stars: Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider, André Wilms
Votes: 17,480 | Gross: $5.58M
13. Red Tails (2012)
PG-13 | 125 min | Action, Drama, History
A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
Director: Anthony Hemingway | Stars: Cuba Gooding Jr., Gerald McRaney, David Oyelowo, Andre Royo
Votes: 37,251 | Gross: $49.88M
14. We Were Soldiers (2002)
R | 138 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, and the soldiers on both sides that fought it, while their wives wait nervously and anxiously at home for the good news or the bad news.
Director: Randall Wallace | Stars: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott
Votes: 151,298 | Gross: $78.12M
15. Away All Boats (1956)
Approved | 114 min | Drama, War
The story of a U.S. Naval ship and its crew in the Pacific, from 1943 to 1945.
Director: Joseph Pevney | Stars: Jeff Chandler, George Nader, Lex Barker, Julie Adams
Votes: 1,627
16. Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
R | 130 min | Drama, War
Hard-nosed, hard-living Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason, Everett McGill, Moses Gunn
Votes: 48,210 | Gross: $42.72M
17. The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960)
Approved | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, War
During WW2, Lt. Rip Crandall, who was a yachtsman before the war, takes command of the USS Echo, a sailing ship, for a secret mission in waters patrolled by Japanese warships.
Director: Richard Murphy | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Ricky Nelson, John Lund, Chips Rafferty
Votes: 2,534
18. Run Silent Run Deep (1958)
Approved | 93 min | Action, Drama, War
A U.S. sub commander, obsessed with sinking a certain Japanese ship, butts heads with his first officer and crew.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, Brad Dexter
Votes: 13,114
19. The Great Locomotive Chase (1956)
Approved | 85 min | Action, Adventure, Family
During the Civil War Union spy Andrews and his men volunteer to steal a Confederate train and drive it to Union territory while destroying the Confederate railway system along the way.
Director: Francis D. Lyon | Stars: Fess Parker, Jeffrey Hunter, Jeff York, John Lupton
Votes: 1,374
20. Flying Tigers (1942)
Approved | 102 min | Action, Drama, Romance
Capt. Jim Gordon's command of the famed American volunteer fighter group in China is complicated by the recruitment of an old friend who is a reckless hotshot.
Director: David Miller | Stars: John Wayne, John Carroll, Anna Lee, Paul Kelly
Votes: 4,250 | Gross: $3.27M
21. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, History, War
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Tim Murdock
Votes: 6,461
22. Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 100 min | Drama, History, War
Life in Hiroshima, following different Japanese, a German priest and church, and some American POWs, before and after the atomic bomb was dropped August 6, 1945.
Director: Peter Werner | Stars: Max von Sydow, Judd Nelson, Mako, Tamlyn Tomita
Votes: 435
23. Memphis Belle (1990)
PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Drama, War
In 1943, the crew of a B-17 based in the UK prepares for its 25th and final bombing mission over Germany before returning home to the USA.
Director: Michael Caton-Jones | Stars: Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Tate Donovan, D.B. Sweeney
Votes: 30,535 | Gross: $27.44M
24. The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944)
Not Rated | 45 min | Documentary, History, War
A documentary on the 25th bombing mission of the Memphis Belle, a B-17 in the US 8th Air Force.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Stanley Wray, Robert Morgan, James A. Verinis, Robert J. Hanson
Votes: 1,848
25. The Tuskegee Airmen (1995 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 106 min | Drama, History, War
The true story of how a group of African-American pilots overcame racist opposition to become one of the finest United States fighter groups in World War II.
Director: Robert Markowitz | Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance
Votes: 7,086
26. Midway (1976)
PG | 132 min | Action, Drama, History
A dramatization of the battle that was widely heralded as a turning point of the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
Director: Jack Smight | Stars: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford
Votes: 21,494
27. 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: 37,219 | Gross: $29.55M
28. Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis (1991 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 100 min | Action, Drama, History
True story of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, its crew's struggle to survive the sharks and exposure, and the captain's scape-goat court-martial.
Director: Robert Iscove | Stars: Stacy Keach, Richard Thomas, Don Harvey, Robert Cicchini
Votes: 961
29. Silent Night (2002 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 100 min | Biography, Drama, War
In a cabin on a World War II front, a German mom with a young son mediates a truce between three German and three American soldiers so they can all celebrate Christmas Eve 1944 together.
Director: Rodney Gibbons | Stars: Linda Hamilton, Matthew Harbour, Romano Orzari, Alain Goulem
Votes: 1,881
30. Band of Brothers (2001)
TV-MA | 59 min | Drama, History, War
The story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord to V-J Day.
Stars: Scott Grimes, Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Shane Taylor
Votes: 527,443
31. The Pacific (2010)
TV-MA | 53 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The Pacific Theatre of World War II, as seen through the eyes of several young Marines.
Stars: James Badge Dale, Joseph Mazzello, Jon Seda, Ashton Holmes
Votes: 130,091
32. U-571 (2000)
PG-13 | 116 min | Action, War
A German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners trying to capture their Enigma cipher machine.
Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi
Votes: 87,415 | Gross: $77.09M
33. PT 109 (1963)
Approved | 140 min | Biography, Drama, War
President John F. Kennedy kept a unique inauguration gift on his desk: a plastic-encased coconut. The tale of that coconut is the heroic story of PT 109.
Director: Leslie H. Martinson | Stars: Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Ty Hardin, James Gregory
Votes: 2,992
34. The Monuments Men (2014)
PG-13 | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, War
An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from German thieves and return them to their owners.
Director: George Clooney | Stars: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett
Votes: 141,210 | Gross: $78.03M
35. Andersonville (1996)
167 min | Drama, History, War
The story of the most notorious Confederate prisoner of war camp in the American Civil War.
Stars: Paul Andre Gibbons, Jarrod Emick, Frederic Forrest, Ted Marcoux
Votes: 2,097
36. The Andersonville Trial (1970 TV Movie)
150 min | Drama
A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.
Director: George C. Scott | Stars: Cameron Mitchell, William Shatner, Jack Cassidy, Wright King
Votes: 493
37. McHale's Navy (1964)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, War
The crazy crew of McHale decide to use their PT boat as an off-track betting parlor and run in to lots of trouble when they owe money to some marines and a horse they bought causes a Japanese sub to run aground.
Director: Edward Montagne | Stars: Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway, Joe Flynn, Bob Hastings
Votes: 1,156
38. The Conspirator (2010)
PG-13 | 122 min | Crime, Drama, History
Mary Surratt is the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. As the whole nation turns against her, she is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer to uncover the truth and save her life.
Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Robin Wright, James McAvoy, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Kline
Votes: 30,008 | Gross: $11.54M
39. Force 10 from Navarone (1978)
PG | 118 min | Action, Drama, War
During World War II, several oddly assorted military experts are teamed in a mission to raid and destroy a bridge vital to enemy strategy.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero
Votes: 19,756
40. The Fighting Lady (1944)
Passed | 61 min | Documentary, History, War
An in-depth look at aircraft carrier combat operations during World War II. Real combat footage. Very strong and compelling.
Directors: Edward Steichen, William Wyler | Stars: Robert Taylor, Charles Boyer, Joseph J. Clark, Dixie Kiefer
Votes: 616
41. Bat*21 (1988)
R | 105 min | Drama, War
During the Vietnam War, Colonel Hambleton's aircraft is shot down over enemy territory and a frantic rescue operation ensues.
Director: Peter Markle | Stars: Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, Jerry Reed, David Marshall Grant
Votes: 9,585 | Gross: $3.97M
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