From Dunkirk to Apocalypse Now, These Films Will Blow Your Mind

War is hell. It’s one of the worst aspects of human history, but we sure love stories about the great conflicts in human history. The movie has been perhaps the best way to show the realities of war, and there’s plenty of competition at the top.

As a bit of a war movie fan myself, I’ve humbly decided to furnish you with the ten war movies I personally think are the best of all time.

10

Dunkirk

I think quite a few people will probably be puzzled that I’ve ranked Dunkirk as the lowest on this list of best war films, especially since I’m (big surprise) a bit fo a Christopher Nolan fanboy.

The thing is, while Dunkirk is a masterpiece of cinematography, it’s more like an experience of a time and a place than a real story. Any film, whether about war or not, needs a strong narrative core, but Nolan’s nonlinear, low-dialogue, almost meditative witnessing of the events portrayed in the film don’t quite meet that standard.

Dunkirk, which shows the famous Dunkirk evacuation, is a masterpiece of cinematography and suspension of disbelief. It’s a necessary film that preserves important history as more than just words on a page, but it fails a bit as a movie in the more traditional sense.

9

The Thin Red Line

While many war films focus on a grand battle, or even try to cover entire wars and their epic scope, I find it’s usually the movies focused on smaller conflicts and more personal stories within that theater of war that hit the hardest. In the case of The Thin Red Line, the focus is essentially on the effort to take a single hill from the Japanese by US forces in the Pacific theater of World War II.

The film is comparatively philosophical compared to some of the more mainstream choices that usually make it onto lists like these, and it has that special 90s cinematic flavor that somehow works really well for what the plot requires. There are real questions here about war, morality, and what the point of it all is from the perspective of individual soldiers. It’s a classic for a reason, but probably not for everyone.

8

Platoon

I’ll be honest, when it comes to great conflicts in world history the disastrous Vietnam war is one that I don’t find particularly interesting as a subject for a film. I don’t like the setting, the culture of the era, or much of anything about it from an aesthetic point of view. I do love the Bell UH-1 helicopters though, they’re pretty cool.

That said, Platoon is an absolutely phenomenal film. It’s one of only three Vietnam War films that I personally like, and all of them are on this list. Sorry Mel Gibson, We Were Soldiers didn’t make the cut!

Platoon is basically a genre-defining film, and it’s extra powerful given that writer and director Oiver Stone wrote the script based on his experience as an infantryman in the conflict. This is not a movie that showers anyone in glory, and shows the chaos, terror, and psychological toll soldiers underwent during this time. It shows that the “good guys” can be just as brutal and depraved as their supposed enemies, and that plenty of innocent people get caught up in these ultimately fruitless conflicts.

The characters, the iconic scenes, the cinematography, and the sheer character of this film make it obvious why it was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress.

7

1917

Many people think of 1917 as a bit of a gimmick movie, because so much has been made of the “continuous take” illusion it goes for. However, this is such a unique and impactful choice, and once again brings us the perspective of the normal footsoldier playing a tiny part in a larger conflict they have no real control over.

Frankly, the First World War doesn’t get enough coverage in cinema, and it’s understandable given the bigger sequel that’s been done to death in all media, but if 1917 is the last hurrah for WWI in cinematic form, that would be a fitting capstone I think. Definitely one for your collection.

6

Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List probably needs no introduction, but it does need to be on this list. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi party member credited with saving 1200 Jewish people during the Holocaust, it’s a brilliant story of how the two sides of a conflict aren’t clear-cut, especially at the individual level.

It is still quite a heavy film to watch, and of course it’s not about big battles, but rather bribery and other machinations in service of saving human lives, but perhaps not from a purely altruistic motivation from the start. Of course, you can’t go wrong with a Spielberg flick either, so if you’ve never seen this one, it’s time to rectify that immediately.

Full Metal Jacket is in my opinion, and as this list suggests, the second-best Vietnam movie ever made. It’s interesting because a good portion of the film is set during boot camp before a group of fresh marines are shipped out. This is arguably the best part of the movie, and includes the legendary performance of Lee Ermey as the harsh drill sergeant and Vincent D-Onofrio as Private Pyle, but the Vietnam portion of the movie has its charms and the entire movie oozes style in a way that only Kubrick could manage.

4

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai is widely-regarded as one of the best films ever made, and although it’s mostly fictional, it’s based on a very real period of time during the construction of the Burnmese railway. It follows a group of British prisoners of war at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. The soldiers will be used by the Japanese as labor to build build a bridge over the eponymous river.

The construction of the bridge is, ironically, impeded by British sappers (and bad Japanese engineering) but the commanding officer of the prisoners decides if they’re going to build the bridge, they’ll do it right. The whole film is characterized by the goofy laws of warfare, rationalizations about loyalty, and a whole heap of futile labor and sacrifice. There’s some deeper meaning there for anyone who feels like digging it up.

3

Paths of Glory

Another WWI film on this list and another Kubrick turn to boot! The 1957 Paths to Glory is a famous anti-war film, and one of Kirk Douglas’ most notable roles. Clearly named for irony, the film depicts officers and soldiers taking part in farcical operations where commanders order operations with no chance of success, troops fire on their own, and innocent soldiers are court-martialed in a kangaroo court to cover up the guilt of their superior officers.

Following an era of rah-rah pro-war enthusiasm, Kubrick went out on a limb to make something that so bluntly calls out the corruption and inhumanity of war, and honestly this film is as relevant today as it was the year it released.

2

Apocalypse Now

In college, I had to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for the English Lit portion of my first degree, and honestly I didn’t enjoy it much. However, give that basic plot line to the likes of Francis Coppola and John Milius, and you get Apocalypse Now, which is not only the best Vietnam war film ever made, but just plain one of the best films ever made.

It’s beautiful, haunting, and has some absolutely show-stopping performances. This is where we get helicopters and napalm to the tune of Wagner. This is where we learn to love the smell of it in the morning.

1

Saving Private Ryan

This is the WWII film from a cinematic language perspective. The look and feel of Spielberg’s epic would go on to influence just about every WWII media that followed, including Spielberg and Hank’s own Band of Brothers, which is one of my favorite miniseries of all time.

This is probably the closest thing we’ll get to a perfect war movie, and it hits all of the most important aspects on my personal list of criteria. It tells a very personal-level story from the perspective of soldiers on the ground, includes the impact and context around the war, has a great cast of characters to connect with, and absolutely nails the visual and auditory aspects to a tee.

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If I could have only one war film in my collection, it would be this one.