best ww2 film

Though I don't agree with all his choices there are some good ones on the list.

Sunday, May 25, 2008
Best World War II Films

A compilation of movies about the world's bloodiest conflict

By GARY A. WARNER
The Orange County Register
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(Former Register military writer Gary A. Warner created this list in 1991 for the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II. He updated the list in 2008 and added just three films – "Enemy at the Gates," "Saving Private Ryan" and "Letters from Iwo Jima." "Ryan" also allowed for the demotion of "The Longest Day," a star-studded 1962 take on the same D-Day battle. Warner is now the Register's travel editor.)

From the classic "Casablanca" to the classically bad "Pearl Harbor," World War II movies have been Hollywood fare for over 60 years. Here is a subjective list of some of the better films dealing with World War II. Other films just didn't click for me ("Battle of Britain" and "The Big Red One" to name two) I'm sure there are many films that fans will find AWOL on my list. But for one military buff and film fan, these are the cinematic war stories that have held up over the decades. Presented in alphabetical order:
"The Americanization of Emily"(1964) Sharp Paddy Chayefsky script drives black comedy about a self-proclaimed coward hailed as the first American to die on D-Day. James Garner and Julie Andrews star.
"Battleground" (1949) Van Johnson and future US Sen. George Murphy head a strong cast in gritty telling of the Battle of the Bulge. There's cowadice, heroism and pointless death in this realistic postwar film.
"The Best Years of Our Lives"(1946) More than six decades later, this tale of three veterans readjusting to home life resonates with humanity. Harold Russell, who lost both his hands in battle, is exceptional as a disabled vet. Best picture Oscar.
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) David Lean's wide-screen saga is very long, but worth the sit. William Holden, Hollywood's favorite war cynic (see Stalag 17 below), is at his best as the reluctant hero. But Alec Guinness as the British leader in a Japanese POW camp is the film's linchpin - a study on the blindness of pride. Best picture Oscar.
"Casablanca" (1942) It's basically a Humphery Bogart-Ingrid Bergman romance using the war as a backdrop, but for rousing war images you must remember this: Paul Henreid leading the jaded crowd at the Cafe Americain in the "Marseilles" and Claude Rains throwing the Vichy water in the waste can.
"The Conformist"(1971) Hard-to-find Bernardo Bertolucci film is a tense character study of one man's descent into the Italian fascist police state. Outstanding for showing the duplicity of interior and exterior lives of Mussolini's prudish fanatics.
"Das Boot"(1981) War from the other side. This sometimes self-serving German film overplays the ideas of Germans as inherently anti-Nazi. It nonetheless captures the claustrophobic, tense, dirty, terrorized world of underwater combat better than any movie before or after. Skip the English dubbed version, marketed as "The Boat. "
"Forty-Ninth Parallel"(1941) Smashing story of sailors from bombed German U-boat attempting to make their way across Canada to the then-neutral United States. Emeric Pressburger won an Oscar for best story.
"Enemy at the Gates"(2001). The story of two snipers – one Russian, one German – battling it out in the rubble of Stalingrad was just one of the plots of William Craig's harrowing non-fiction book of murder, deceit and cannibalism in the pivotal battle of World War II. For all its flaws (Ed Harris as the German sniper has a tough time submerging his broad American accent), the movie of the same title is a rare piece of worthwhile cinema about the bloodiest battleground of the war – the Russian Front.
"From Here to Eternity"(1953) Overwrought but still compelling tale of Army life in Hawaii just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's clinch on the beach is an iconic image from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Best picture Oscar.
"The Great Dictator" (1940) Charlie Chaplin's wonderful send-up to Adolf Hitler. He plays a Jewish barber who is the spitting image of dictator Adenoid Hynkel of Tomania. Chaplain's ballet with a globe-shaped balloon is unforgettable.
"The Great Escape" (1963) Gripping POW drama with an all-star cast. Steve McQueen was immortalized as the "cooler king" who attempts to escape over the Swiss border by jumping a stolen German motorcycle over a barbed-wire fence.
"The Harp of Burma" (1956) Slow but moving story of a Japanese soldier who become obsessed with burying the war dead. Kon Ichikawa's effort is one of the best anti-war films ever made.
"Lacombe Lucien" (1974) Complex Louis Malle film tells the cautionary tale of a young boy who just wants to belong. When the French Resistance won't have him, he becomes a collaborator with the Gestapo - only to fall in love with a Jewish tailor's daughter.
"Letters from Iwo Jima"( 2006). It's exceptionally rare to get a chance to see war from the enemy's point of view. The brilliance of Clint Eastwood's film is that it humanizes the Japanese defenders of the rock in the Pacific without soft-pedaling the brutality and mindless regimentation that drove nearly all to their deaths. It's odd to think this film was an afterthought to "Flag of Our Fathers," Eastwood's earnest if ultimately unsatisfying big budget epic about the American servicemen who "raised" the flag at Iwo Jima.
"Lifeboat" (1944) Based on a John Steinbeck story, the survivors of a torpedoed ship wrestle with the moral questions of the war when they rescue a German from the ship that sank them. Alfred Hitchcock's taut direction makes this talkative film work.
"Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" (1956) Gregory Peck is just right as Madison Avenue executive joining the rat race while wrestling with his conscience over the German soldier he killed and the Italian woman who bore him a son, who he left behind.
"Mrs. Miniver"(1942) Showing the British stiff upper lip to the American movie-going public, this stylish film features Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson as the perfect upper-crust couple struggling through the Battle of Britain. Best picture Oscar.
"Open City"(1946) Powerful portrait of Roman partisans fighting the Nazis in the waning days of the war. Roberto Rossellini film is one of the best of the great period of postwar Italian films.
"Patton"(1970) George C. Scott's towering portrayal of Patton is aided by Francis Ford Coppola's crisp, literate script. The film portrays the great tank commander as a heroic, neurotic mystic unashamed to savor the carnage of war. A rare sweeping epic with great individual performances. Best picture Oscar.
"Sahara"(1945) This story of a lone American tank lost amid a hostile desert has been copied several times from the Western "Last of the Comanches" to "The Beast" about a Soviet tank stranded in Afghanistan. Humphery Bogart at his hard-boiled best.
"Sands of Iwo Jima"(1949) Practically a Marine recruiting commercial, the film is watchable for a classic John Wayne portrayal as a crusty sergeant leading his men up in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific campaign. Intercuts real footage of the battle. Also rare: Wayne dies at the end.
"Saving Private Ryan"(1998). The amazing D-Day invasion sequence is reason enough for this Steve Speilberg film to make the list. Tom Hanks is understated as the high school English teacher turned unit leader risking their lives to look for a soldier named Ryan tapped to return home because his three other brothers had already died in the war. The opening sequence and coda are hoary Spielberg sentimentalism at it's worst. But for what's in between, the movie "earns this," it's place on my list.
"Stalag 17"(1953) William Holden again as the cynical GI everyman, battling suspicious fellow POWs who believe that he is a German plant. Holden won a well-deserved Oscar for this claustrophobic film, which spawned copy-cat scenarios and dialogue in everything from "The Great Escape" to the "Hogan's Heroes" television series.
"They Were Expendable"(1945) Director John Ford's tale of the role PT boats played in the dark days after Pearl Harbor. Coming at the end of the war, Ford could allow for a more grim tone than earlier films because by then the audience knew it would all turn out OK.
"Twelve O'Clock High" (1949) Air Force bomber group commander Gregory Peck is pushed to the limit as he must send men to sure death over the skies of Germany. Dean Jagger won a well-deserved supporting Oscar.

Entertainment: Best World War II Films | war, film, best, battle, german - OCRegister.com

 

i do remember an other one written in german but it didnt have subtitles, i think it was called the war of the dogs but in german.

 

I like Downfall and Enemy at he Gates but my favorite is

Cross of Iorn-

 

the thin red line is great too.cheers.

 

My favorite is Gregory Peck in 12 O'clock High followed a close second by the Dambusters, third is the Great Escape and last but not least Saving Private Ryan.

 

Gotta say, I'm also a big fan of lesser known movies;

Sahara ~The Humphrey Bogart vehicle, not the cheezy action movie with Matthew McConahey (however you spell his last name)

Saints & Soldiers ~ Minor errors in troop placement aside, made on a budget of LESS than 1 Million dollars?? Comeon!! Ya gotta give it props for that alone!

When Trumpets Fade ~ The only film I've ever seen that revolves around the Hurtgen forest and the 28th, so it's good enough for me.

Documentaries
Hell in the Pacific (4 parts) ~ Saw it on Military chanel last winter, and I've got to say, I understand why so many of those guys still hate the Japanese today. Utterly worth the effort to find and tape.

You Enter Germany ~ Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Thank you Edwin!

 

You enter Germany-never seen but should see it.

Hell in the Pacific-Never seen it,not really interested in pafic ww2.

Saints and Soildiers-Loved it so much

Sahara- Also another one which i loved.I love desert war movies aswell.

 

One of my all time favorite lesserknown WWII movie is "Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious" 1965 with Alec Guiness,Robert Redford and Mike Connors.

"During World War II, two Americans are forced to bail out and parachute into a small German town. Herr Frick, being equal parts patriotic and lonely, keeps them as prisoners of war in his bomb shelter. While his prisoners go stir crazy, Herr Frick must decide if he's willing to lose their companionship by letting them know the war has ended."

This failed to mention that he didn't tell them that the War had ended 6 years earlier LOL.

 

My vote goes to Cross of Iron for the best war fiction film.

 

I've have got to see Cross of Iron. It sounds excellent. Thanks for in effect suggesting it!

 

Always had a soft spot for Sean Connery in The Hill.

 

..looks like Cruise's Valkyrie will be in this list of faves just as soon as its released....if only for the chance to see Eddie Izzard playing a German general (cross-dressing, gay British comedian for those that don't know him)..

Another well worth seeing is 'Dark blue world' - a story of Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain...

 

Izzard is gay?

 

!

 

I doubt many will agree with me but I really enjoy A Walk in the Sun, as I mentioned recently in the What are you Watching thread. It captures for me the double edged sword of boredom and fear that seems to be the soldiers lot. It stars Dana Andrews and is well worth watching if you have an a opportunity.

 

He dismisses claims that he is a male homosexual, saying he is either a straight transvestite or a "male lesbian". He has also described himself as "a lesbian trapped in a man's body",[7] transgender, [8] and "a complete boy plus half a girl

And you think your confused....

 

..thanks for the clarification.... how much of himself will he put into his portrayal of a German general then ?.

 

Watch which version of the disc that you get. Some of the earlier versions had bad sound. They remastered it with a secial edition release a couple of years ago. It's a Sam Peckinpaw movie, isn't it? You can't go wrong with Peckinpaw.

 

Can't believe You don't like "The Great Escape" :O. It is very amazing, true story, said in funny way.

I also like "Band of Brothers" for the professionalism, and amazing special effects.

"Hitler the rise of evil" for telling the whole story, even though they ignored one very important fact. So it make people think after watching this movie that Hitler was so evil because he was beaten in childhood and undervalued. But despite that, I still think this movie is good.

And of course "How I Unleashed World War II". I recommend this for You, it's an old Polish movie, actually 3 episode movie, about guy who thinks he started the war. Totally unhistorical comedy, which is just set in the war theme. Everything happens in the army but those aren't the real facts. Very funny but it couldn't say about historical events because the movie was made when Poland was still a Soviet puppet, year 1969-1970, and we were forced to believe that USSR is the best, and how "they" won the war. Here You got movie profile on imdb:
Jak rozpetalem druga wojne swiatowa (1970)
The only problem is, that I don't know if the English subtitles were ever made, or if this movie was ever shown outside Poland.


But I still like documentary movies the most.

 

my favorites are definately:
1. enemy at the gates
2. valkyrie
3. downfall
4. stalingrad
5. first 20 mins of saving private ryan (the rest is overrated)