The 25 Greatest War Films of All Time
by smiley_b81 | created - 17 May 2015 | updated - 17 May 2015 | PublicOnly includes narrative feature films, not documentaries.
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1. 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: 97,213
The best war movie I've seen. It makes some further down this list look fake by comparison.
2. The Thin Red Line (1998)
R | 170 min | Drama, History, War
Adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo
Votes: 199,581 | Gross: $36.40M
Poetic, cynical, brutal and nary a patriotic flag is waved
3. City of Life and Death (2009)
R | 133 min | Drama, History, War
In 1937, Japan occupied Nanjing, the Chinese capital. There was a battle and subsequent atrocities against the inhabitants, especially those who took refuge in the International Security Zone.
Director: Chuan Lu | Stars: Ye Liu, Wei Fan, Hideo Nakaizumi, Yuanyuan Gao
Votes: 11,715 | Gross: $0.12M
If you want 1 movie on the Rape of Nanking (maybe WW2's most horrific event), look no further.
4. The Red and the White (1967)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, War
During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army - aided by Hungarian Communists - and the White Army fight for control of the area surrounding the Volga.
Director: Miklós Jancsó | Stars: József Madaras, Tibor Molnár, András Kozák, Jácint Juhász
Votes: 3,946
Disillusionment and betrayal in the Russian Civil War, brought to disturbing life in strenuous long-takes.
5. 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: 790,303 | Gross: $46.36M
Kubrick's vision of the Vietnam war, seen through a satiric lense as dark and angry as crude oil.
6. 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: 710,078 | Gross: $83.47M
..And of course, that OTHER great Vietnam movie. An epic journey toward hell.
7. 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: 310,353
Tokyo children living among firebombs, animated with sympathy and humanity.
8. 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: 19,768 | Gross: $0.02M
The men went off like lemmings to fight the Great War, and the women were left to fend for themselves.
9. 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: 41,958 | Gross: $5.73M
No matter how smart, talented or fast you are, to outrun a machine gun is pointless.
10. 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: 375,179 | Gross: $5.51M
The last days of Nazi Berlin and its dunderheaded savior.
11. 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: 362,155 | Gross: $48.98M
Michael Cimino's masterpiece about the effects of Vietnam at home and its metaphors beyond.
12. 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: 212,229
Kubrick's earlier, more meditative war film is every bit as sobering.
13. The Ascent (1977)
111 min | Drama, War
Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.
Director: Larisa Shepitko | Stars: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergey Yakovlev, Lyudmila Polyakova
Votes: 10,106
Desperation and disloyalty buried in the malaise of the Russian winter.
14. Dust of Life (1995)
87 min | Drama
Based on a true story, after the US withdrawal and the fall of South Vietnam to the communist forces in 1975, many people are sent to reeducation camps. Several desperate boys in one of the camps begin planing their escape.
Director: Rachid Bouchareb | Stars: Daniel Guyant, Gilles Chitlaphone, Jehan Pagès, Eric Nguyen
Votes: 152
A childhood bathed in napalm rain.
15. 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: 1,450,450 | Gross: $96.90M
Still Hollywood's best movie about the Holocaust. Probably forever
16. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country for which he fought.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Tom Cruise, Bryan Larkin, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava
Votes: 115,924 | Gross: $70.00M
Hard to be an unquestioning patriot after you lose your penis for them (and they don't even apologize)
17. Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, War
During WWII, Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev strikes up a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers while working as a scout behind the German lines.
Directors: Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov | Stars: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov, Stepan Krylov
Votes: 39,928
Nazis kill a boy's family, so he becomes a spy. All of Russia loses its innocence.
18. 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: 473,726 | Gross: $17.02M
An Iraq movie not about the Red States or the Blue States, only about the war in Iraq.
19. 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: 65,645 | Gross: $0.06M
Don't assume sides: the French were fascists too.
20. Empire of the Sun (1987)
PG | 153 min | Drama, War
A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers
Votes: 134,295 | Gross: $22.24M
An abandoned British boy in China, 1937. He was white, therefore, interned relatively safe...you'd think
21. The Pianist (2002)
R | 150 min | Biography, Drama, Music
During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Emilia Fox
Votes: 912,034 | Gross: $32.57M
A Jewish man manages to evade the camps and survive through Poland with wit, luck and a bit of selfishness. A personal film for Roman Polanski.
22. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
PG | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
Director: David Lean | Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,266 | Gross: $44.91M
Is collaboration ever worth ensuring survival?
23. The Razor's Edge (1984)
PG-13 | 128 min | Drama, Romance, War
He had everything and wanted nothing. He learned that he had nothing and wanted everything. He saved the world and then it shattered. The path to enlightenment is as sharp and narrow as a razor's edge.
Director: John Byrum | Stars: Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliott, Catherine Hicks
Votes: 5,953 | Gross: $6.55M
The great Bill Murray shines in this film about the effects of World War 1 on a man's psyche.
24. 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: 264,314 | Gross: $11.49M
The U-Boats were Hitler's winningest weapon of the war, that is, until he started to lose.
25. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
R | 169 min | Drama, War
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns
Votes: 1,496,242 | Gross: $216.54M
The story still feels like a tall-tale, but how it goes about its vision and its combat choreography is a ticket to greatness well earned in the genre.
26. Three Kings (1999)
R | 114 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, four soldiers set out to steal gold that was stolen from Kuwait, but they discover people who desperately need their help.
Director: David O. Russell | Stars: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze
Votes: 180,443 | Gross: $60.65M
I added it only because of the sore lack of humor on this list, and the # of good films on the Iraqi wars can barely be counted on one hand.
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