War movies are the male counterpart to love stories. Some war movies combine elements of love and comedy set in a backdrop of war. Personally, I define a good war movie as one that is historically accurate (if talking about historical events) and realistic in terms of details. For example, seeing the light switch on a building column in the background in a scene in Glory really distracted me from an otherwise good movie. A good way to measure the quality of a movie is based on historically correct uniforms and weapons. For example Colonel Trautman’s uniform was all wrong in Rambo. Another detail is the setting. In the movie We Were Soldiers based on a true story starring Mel Gibson, the movie setting (filmed in Hawaii) ruined it for me. I’ve been in real jungles and it looked nothing like the jungles of Southeast Asia. Same issue with Green Berets starring John Wayne and all the pine trees which aren’t native to Southeast Asia. My biggest pet peeve has got to be the explosions. Hollywood loves fire and explosions. Anyone who has seen a real military explosion knows there is almost no fireball or mushroom cloud unless some sort of fuel or ammo dump gets hit. Real explosions has a deep whomping sound which is not what you typically hear on screen. That said, the war movies list below is based upon the movie achieving a good balance of an accurate portrayal of war with the ability to tell a good story.
Henry’s Best War Movies List
- A Bridge Too Far
- Hamburger Hill
- Black Hawk Down
- Kelly’s Heroes
- Glory
- Spartacus (the original film version)
- Waterloo (1970 version)
- Zulu
- Das Boot
- The Eagle has Landed
- Band of Brothers
Top War Movie Faux Pas
- Patton – the Germans tank force was made up of American tanks with German markings
- Rambo – Colonel Trautman wearing an enlisted man’s uniform
- Rambo II – An explosively tipped arrow cannot possibly make that big of an explosion
- Rambo II – Firing a LAW rocket from inside a helicopter would have severely injured all the prisoners he was rescuing in the back
- Star Wars (series)- Storm troopers can’t hit the broad side of a barn and their armor apparently does nothing
- A Team – everything is wrong
A Bridge Too Far certainly belongs on the list, as does Das Boot. Other movies that should be on the list include Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Deer Hunter, Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, Platoon, and The Battle of Britain.
Being a purist, my opinion of Apocalypse Now was that it was a interesting movie but the plot and story line borders on fantasy. I feel the same about Platoon. Platoon was a caricature of the Vietnam War, you wouldn’t find all those personalities and events in one platoon. War for the most part is characterized mainly by boredom followed by a very brief moments of sheer terror.