War Movies - a List

Lists are fun. I stole this one from AOL. It's supposed to be the top 25 war movies of all time. Carmen and I had fun running through it, but I decided that this is a yuppie's list - lifestyle lefty lite stuff, with a bit of pap for liberal silliness. Anyway, here it is with my comments. I have put an * beside those I think you should see.

25. The Pianist (2002). Never saw this one.

24. Sargeant York (1941). Saw this one about the time of the end of the Vietnam War (French version, not our attempt). Stereotypical hillbilly goes off to fight the big one in France. Turns out he can kill les Boches as easily as he killed wild turkeys. Note the date.

23. Stalag 17 (1953). Saw this years ago and remember how funny it was. AOL seem to think the humor is dated and interferes with the underlying grittiness of life as a POW in a German camp.

22. Thin Red Line (1998). Must see this one. Interesting reviews.

21. *African Queen. Good movie but is not a war movie. Neither Carmen nor I can figure out what it is doing on this list.

20. *Mash. Saw this when it first came out and it is a great movie. Hilarious while making a good point. It is now a cliche that it is not about the Korean War but the Vietnam war and that is exactly how we took it - way back then. I haven't seen it since, so don't know how well it has held up. God knows the TV version went on forever.

19. Downfall (2005). Don't know anything about this one.

18. *Patton (1970). Saw this one with my Dad when it came. Loved it, but it is the nearest thing to a 'pro-war' movie I can think of. Fascinating psychological portrait of the type of human we sometimes need.

17. **All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). The fact that this is not in the top three shows how shallow this list is. The acting is a bit dated, mainly because it was one of the first talkies made and actors were still doing the silent movie emoting. The battle scenes, filmed on a movie lot with the help of WWI vets (including Germans), are so realistic you sometimes see them slipped into documentaries as 'real' footage. The lead actor, Lew Ayres, becoming a confirmed pacifist, went on to make a movie of world religions. He went around the country personally introducing it (I saw him and the movie in Dinky Town, the little student enclave at the University of Minnesota)

16. Letters from Iwo Jima (2007). I intend to see this one as soon as possible. It's gotten great reviews and apparently should be seen in conjunction with Flags of Our Fathers.

15. *Three Kings. This is a much under rated movie. It stands virtually every war movie cliche on its head. It is also the only movie whose soundtrack I have not been able to find!

14. The Longest Day. Saw this when it first came out and about a half dozen times since on TV. Another example of the shallowness of this list: AOL found its use of literally dozens of big stars a plus, but for me it was always a distraction. When you see Peter Lawford storming the beaches and John Wayne jumping out of a glider, you know you are in La La Land.

13. *Glory (1989). Probably deserves to be here, though I don't think it was a great movie. Certainly the theme is important for any list of American war films. It's about the use of black troops in the Civil War - one of the chief reasons the Confederacy lost.

12. *The Bridge over the River Kwai (1957). Saw this when I was eight - it is still a great war movie and if anything ought to be higher up the list.

11. The Deer Hunter (1978). A superbly made movie that I was always unsure about. Now, I am not sure that it belongs on this list since it seems to be trying to depict something deeper than the Vietnam War.

10. Braveheart (1995). Another case of the list betraying its silliness. It has no business being on this list, not least because it is outside the genre as defined by the other 24 movies on the list. While is was great heroic fun, it had no more relation to history than any other movie made by Mel Gibson.

9. *Lawarence of Arabia (1962). A truly great movie. Why Peter O'Toole failed to get an Oscar for this still puzzles me. An intense look at the inner workings of a war hero, both real and manufactured. Made stars of both O'Toole and Omar Sharif. The soundtrack score my Maurice Jarr actually did win an Oscar. Oddly enough, three big budget films have been made about World War I in the Middle East: Lawrence of Arabia, Gallipoli, and Light Horseman. Only the first deserves to be on the list, though the other two are well worth seeing.

8. The Great Escape. A fun movie, but shouldn't be on this list. It is the model for Chicken Run.

7. **Paths of Glory (1957). A great, and often overlooked, movie based on an incident in the First World War. Kirk Douglas is great as is the entire cast. This choice almost makes me respect this list.

6. *Das Boot. A superb movie about a German U-Boat. If you rent it, try to get the original German soundtrack with subtitles. It was, if I recall properly, originally made for German TV with a big budget and was about 6 hours long. It would be worth watching the full version if you can find it. I remember a woman I knew in grad school telling me how much it meant to her to see it because her father had been in the American submarine service in WWII. Until that moment she had had no idea of what he had gone through.

5. Full Metal Jacket (1987). I did not like this movie. The scenes of Marine boot camp seemed falsified to make an anti-military statement and the final scene made no sense in the context of the Vietnam War. It certainly does not deserve to outrank All Quiet on the Western Front or even Paths of Glory.

4. *Schindler's List. Shouldn't be on this list, though it is a great movie. It is simply not a 'war movie.'

3. Saving Private Ryan. I'll have to take their word for this one, since I have not yet seen this movie. Wonderful reviews, which always makes me a little suspicious.

2. Platoon. I saw this one, and think that it probably deserves to be on this list, but certainly not as no. 2. There are half a dozen films here that are better, and in some cases much better (All Quiet on the Western Front, e.g. )

1. *Apocalypse Now. I am not sure they aren't right on this one. It is a great movie, but I have this nagging suspicion that it is in the no 1 spot because of its liberal anti-Vietnam war take (I think most of the critics who compiled this list are about my age and fixated on Vietnam). On the other hand, my old room mate, a Vietnam vet, loved this movie and has seen it so many times he has practically memorized the dialogue.

That's it. The AOL list of all time great war movies complete with my cranky comments. It is an oddly slanted list in some ways. Few foreign films, few movies before WWI and the two exceptions, Glory and Braveheart, don't actually fit the list. I will give it some thought and list movies I think should have been here in a few hours.

Maybe.

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