The War List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[Yojimbo]

On the 'Cold War' front - apart from the obvious: The 'Tinker Tailors'; 'Spy Who Came In From The Cold' ...'Ipcress File'...yadda yadda, just a special shout out for a great fave of mine which will be definitely earning itself a rewatch and should comfortably make my list: Sidney Lumet's 'The Deadly Affair'.

Super cast - not least with two wonderful Brit supporting actors, Harry Andrews and Roy Kinnear, but the whole oppressive grimy bleakness of contemporary London is beautifully captured, and is an important character - quite apart from yer usual 'cold-warring' scenes.

[Yojimbo]

Straight War Movies

Films about men in combat:

Men in War (Anthony Mann) – About as good as this stuff gets, with the psychological acuity you’d expect from Mann in this period.

Objective: Burma (Raoul Walsh) – A perfectly generic subject elevated to greatness by Walsh’s brilliant three dimensional mise en scene.

The Red and the White (Miklos Jansco) – One of the few films that conveys just how arbitrary, bewildering and terrifying warfare must be for your average footsoldier.

The Marines Who Never Returned (Lee Man-Hee) – Yes, that title is a bit fat spoiler, but the filmmakers know that their film is so great that it doesn’t matter. This film has some of the best defined and most visceral combat sequences I’ve ever seen.

Plus: Cross of Iron, The Big Red One, The Thin Red Line, They Were Expendable, Wooden Crosses, Ivan’s Childhood, Overlord

Since I pretty much agree with everything else on your list, zedz, I guess that means I need to check out The Marines Who Never Returned. Is it widely available?
And may I bring your attention to Wellman's 'Battleground'. I guess the 'King of Hearts' fits, also

And Wajda's 'Landscape After Battle' for your
Prisoners of War category

Newbies

Rather than bury them in the above categories, I wanted to draw attention to some great war movies from the last ten years or so.

Generation Kill (various directors) – This is what David Simon did after The Wire, and it often gets described as ‘The Wire Goes to War’ or somesuch, but apart from its density and scepticism about institutions it’s really a different kettle of fish. And it’s great. Go watch it.

I'd started into my boxset - about three or four years back - and somehow never got around to finishing it. Which means I'll start all over again

[Lemmy Caution]

A Time Out of War (Denis Sanders) – Lovely Oscar-winning short in which two civil war soldiers get to know one another during a one-hour truce, before they have to start trying to kill each other again.

Is this available anywhere?
I did a quick youtube search (through a proxy since youtube is banned in China) and couldn't find it.

[zedz]

Since I pretty much agree with everything else on your list, zedz, I guess that means I need to check out The Marines Who Never Returned. Is it widely available?
And may I bring your attention to Wellman's 'Battleground'.

Battleground is pretty good (as is Aldrich's Attack!), but I don't think either will make my list (especially since half the films I've already mentioned won't make it!)

The Marines Who Never Returned is in the excellent Lee Man-Hee box set put out by the Korean Film Archive. Available here. It's not cheap at the moment, but these sets sometimes go on sale (I think I got mine for under $50), and this is one of the best collections of films they've put out. All their sets are fully English-subbed, with substantial bilingual book(let)s.

[zedz]

A Time Out of War (Denis Sanders) – Lovely Oscar-winning short in which two civil war soldiers get to know one another during a one-hour truce, before they have to start trying to kill each other again.

Is this available anywhere?
I did a quick youtube search (through a proxy since youtube is banned in China) and couldn't find it.

As far as I'm aware, this isn't available on home video, unfortunately. I know it through an old 16mm print that probably dated back to the time of release.

[Yojimbo]

The Marines Who Never Returned is in the excellent Lee Man-Hee box set put out by the Korean Film Archive. Available here. It's not cheap at the moment, but these sets sometimes go on sale (I think I got mine for under $50), and this is one of the best collections of films they've put out. All their sets are fully English-subbed, with substantial bilingual book(let)s.

Yeah; a bit outside my price-range at present - especially for a sight unseen.
Sounds like an interesting collection of films - not least the 'Cold War' film, which I suspect might be jingoistic even by Western cinema standards.

In the meantime, I'll bookmark that site.

[domino harvey]

Warning warning danger Will Robinson: the Beast was apparently one of Sony's titles that got reissued on full frame only, so the copies available on Amazon are not OAR. Sorry Mr Sausage but my copy's going back

[knives]

Damn, fortunately my copy didn't ship yet. There's a UK disc, but it is OOP.

[Mr Sausage]

That's pretty disappointing. I saw it in OAR on tv a couple of years ago. Hadn't looked into the DVD version.

[Red Screamer]

Any WWIII films worth checking out? I will definitely be voting for La jetée but I'm still struggling with deciding if The Sacrifice counts as a war film

[Yojimbo]

Any WWIII films worth checking out? I will definitely be voting for La jetée but I'm still struggling with deciding if The Sacrifice counts as a war film

I think The Sacrifice should count - which might admit other 'apocalypse' films - though not sci-fi.
But if you haven't seen The Sacrifice, you should; although it might require two viewings.

[Red Screamer]

Any WWIII films worth checking out? I will definitely be voting for La jetée but I'm still struggling with deciding if The Sacrifice counts as a war film

I think The Sacrifice should count - which might admit other 'apocalypse' films - though not sci-fi.
But if you haven't seen The Sacrifice, you should; although it might require two viewings.

I have and am planning a rewatch for this project. I'll vote for it if you will!

[Yojimbo]

Any WWIII films worth checking out? I will definitely be voting for La jetée but I'm still struggling with deciding if The Sacrifice counts as a war film

I think The Sacrifice should count - which might admit other 'apocalypse' films - though not sci-fi.
But if you haven't seen The Sacrifice, you should; although it might require two viewings.

I have and am planning a rewatch for this project. I'll vote for it if you will!

Well, it's certainly good enough to make any 50.......

[colinr0380]

Any WWIII films worth checking out? I will definitely be voting for La jetée but I'm still struggling with deciding if The Sacrifice counts as a war film

How about Luc Besson's first feature film The Last Battle? Or Mamoru Oshii's sci-fi/war film mash-up Avalon?

Enemy At The Gates (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2001)

Talking about sniper war movies, if you can get past the way that all of the actors have been dubbed into a kind of 'neutral' English accent, this is a very well made film about two famous snipers on either side of the Russian/Nazi conflict fighting it out in the ruins of Stalingrad for control of a psychologically significant pile of rubble.

Presumably the across the board dubbing is to make all of the characters sound as if they are all part of the same cultural community, but it gets a little problematic when you have the extremely obviously dubbed mother and son figures to Weisz's character and well known actors with distinctive accents such as Bob Hoskins or Ron Perlman getting 'neutralised'! This seems a characteristic of Annaud's films, from Name of the Rose through to the most recent Black Gold. Perhaps the prehistoric Quest For Fire (which also starred Perlman) and the animal films such as The Bear are the 'purest' Annaud films as they do not really need to deal with language at all, or at least at its bare minimum of grunts and growls!

Anyway Enemy At The Gates is another one of those love triangle stories frequent in war films (although this is where the film sort of fails as a 'true Russian' film, as the hero really should be torn between his mother and his lover, rather than there being the classic Hollywood tradition of two guys fighting over who gets the girl!). Here it takes the form of a conflict between the brains and the brawn (or the hands and the mind controlling them) portrayed by Joseph Fiennes and Jude Law's characters, while Ed Harris's German superstar sniper lurks threateningly in the background. Of course this all goes down the route of the brains being smart but slightly duplicitous and propagandistic, making backroom deals, and the brawn being earnest but dim, never able to stop those he cares about from being hurt.

There is not really too much in the film about the wider conflict after the initial set up scenes with Hoskins playing the ambitious and ruthless Krushchev (paralleled by the beaten down German officer who greets Harris), but like many of Annaud's films that seems because he usually seems more interested in the specific details to illustrate the wider picture, using the wider picture as an evocative background for the somewhat romanticised foreground story.

This film in particular is narrowing relentlessly down into a dualistic conflict by the end, ruthlessly sidelining or eliminating all of the extraneous characters until it is just Harris and Law left pointing guns at each other across a wasteland.

[martin]

Two French silent WWI films:

Verdun, visions d'histoire (Léon Poirier, 1928)
This 2½ hour film blends WWI archive footage and fictive drama although the drama isn't very prominent. The film is mostly a very meticulous attempt at describing the battle at Verdun, using charts and maps of forts and frontlines to illustrate the progression of the battle. Some parts of the film are really wonderful. Excessive use of double exposure. A good English-friendly restoration is available on DVD. I don't think I'll be able to submit a list for this project, but I doubt this film would make the list even if I did. The next film probably would though.

J'accuse! (Abel Gance, 1919)
It's remarkable how abuse and rape of women during war was already touched by Gance almost 100 years ago! It's also a theme in Gance's film how offsprings of German soldiers were subject to bullying already during WWI (something we know happened to WWII children in countries like Denmark, Norway, and France). Two men are in love with the same woman, but they're sent to the frontline. The woman disappears - apparently abducted by German soldiers. Then she has a daughter. Was she gangraped by the German soldiers as she claims (brilliantly illustrated by excessive expressionist images)?

Beautiful film done with bravura and technical mastery. Almost overwhelming. The restoration is stunning and the music is great, although some of the music in the third part seems like a Mahler rip-off. It's a very long film, almost three hours, but I enjoyed every minute of it (comments re. image and music refers to the Flicker Alley DVD).

[bamwc2]

In honor of Zeds' massive omnibus listing on page 2, I've put together a few other listings that I think deserve attention for the project that I don't think have been mentioned yet. The listings are imperfect, and there is plenty of spillover from one category to another. I've only included films that I've seen and liked. I've probably forgotten a lot as well. Some of these are very tangential, but I decided to error on the side of inclusiveness:


The Anti-War Films: Films made to protest war.
Civilization (Reginald Barker, et al., 1916): Jesus returns to end a destructive conflict.
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940): The most eloquent anti-war film ever made.
How I Won the War (Richard Lester, 1967): Not a great film from Lester, but one that still has some interesting ideas.
Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1971) The film adaptation of Metallica's "One".
On the Beach (Stanley Krammer, 1959): The last survivors of the US Navy await the winds to bring the nuclear holocaust to their station in Australia.
The Red Badge of Courage (John Huston, 1951): Huston takes on the Stephen Crane classic.
When the Wind Blows (Jimmy T. Murakami, 1986): Very powerful film about the effects of a nuclear war in Brittan.

Comedies: If there's humor to be found in war...
The Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller, 1964): An army playboy finds out that he must leave his comfy post to take part in D-Day.
Buck Privates (Arthur Lubin, 1941): Abbot and Costello join the war effort.
California Dreamin’ (Cristian Nemescu, 2007): Mishaps delay NATO troops from reaching Kosovo.
Carnival in Flanders (Jacques Feyder, 1935): Villagers dread an impending Spanish invasion.
The Cow and I (Henri Verneuil, 1959): A POW makes an unlikely escape in WWII with the help of a beloved cow.
The Elusive Corporal (Jean Renoir, 1962): Odd ball comedy from Renoir about WWII POWs.
Les Grandes Manoeuvres (Rene Clair, 1955): Clair's comedy of manners set in a French battalion.
I Was a Male War Bride (Howard Hawks, 1949): A series of wacky misadventures lead Cary Grant to become a...well, look at the title.
Jacob the Liar (Frank Beyer, 1974): Dramedy about a man who tries to bring hope to Warsaw's ghetto.
The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder, 1941): A cute flick about mistaken identity on an army base.
Mister Roberts (John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, 1955): Dramedy about a WWII ship that never sees action.
The Mouse That Roared (Jack Arnold, 1959): A poor European country declares war on the US just to get rebuilt a la the Marshal Plan.
Mr. Freedom (William Klein, 1969): Absurdly boorish superhero who acts as a surrogate for America's foreign policy.
No Time for Sergeants (Mervyn LeRoy, 1958): Affable Andy Griffith plays an affable airman in this affable comedy about life at the base.
One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961): Charming Cold War comedy about a Coca-Cola exec. who tries not to set off an international incident.
Our Man in Havana (Carol Reed, 1959): A Cold War caper in which Alec Guinness goes from vacuum cleaner salesman to international spy.
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (Leo McCarey, 1958): Paul Newman headlines a cast about the chaos the results from a small town getting a missile base.
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming! (Norman Jewison, 1966): An innocent excursion by Soviet submarine sets a small New England town on edge.
A Sailor-Made Man (Fred C. Newmeyer, 1921): Idle rich heir Harold Lloyd joins the navy.
The Second Civil War (Joe Dante, 1997): Red state America tries to leave the union over government showboating.
The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Stanley Kramer, 1969): Italian village hides their wine from Nazi invaders.
Seven Beauties (Lina Wertmüller, 1975): Dramedy about an Axis deserter sent to a concentration camp.
Shoulder Arms (Charles Chaplin, 1918): The tramp proves himself in war.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (Trey Parker): We finally declare war on Canada.
The Teahouse of the August Moon (Daniel Mann, 1956): Marlon Brando embarrasses himself in yellowface in what is an otherwise decent comedy.
Team America: World Police (Matt Stone, 2004): America. Fuck yeah!
Thank Your Lucky Stars (David Butler, 1943): WB contract stars play themselves in this comedy about a botched charity show.
Through the Back Door (Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford, 1921): Displaced by WWI, Mary Pickford travels to the states in search of her mother.
To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch): An acting troupe must perform for the Nazis and help out a Polish spy.
Wag the Dog (Barry Levison, 1997): A fake war is produced to distract from a president's scandal.
When Willie Comes Marching Home (John Ford, 1950): An under appreciated comedy from Ford about a soldier who can't seem to get his wish of being on the front lines.

Documentaries: War in real life
5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi): The brutality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shown in bitter detail.
The Atomic Cafe (Jayne Loader, et al. 1982): Collection of Cold War ephemera about nuclear war.
Ballad of the Little Soldier (Werner Herzog, 1984): Herzog looks at Contra child soldiers.
The Battle of Chile: 1,2,and 3 (Patricio Guzmán, 1975-9): Incredible look at Pinochet's military take over of the country.
The Battle of Culloden (Peter Watkins, 1964): Well, at least it's like a documentary.
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam(Bill Couturié, 1987): Astonishing look at the Vietnam War from letters written by servicemen.
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara, 1987): A WWII soldier works to uncover his country's involvement in war crimes.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004): An examination of why we went to war with Iraq.
Field Diary (Amos Gitai, 1982): A look at the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003): Robert McNamara attempts to defend the indefensible.
The Gatekeepers (Dror Moreh, 2012): Former Israeli defense ministers discuss their nation's military history and the role that they played in it.
General Idi Amin Dada (Barbet Schroeder, 1974): A surreal look at a military dictator at war with his imagination.
Hearts and Minds (Peter David, 1974): The definitive documentary on the Vietnam War?
Hell and Back Again (Danfung Dennis, 2011): Extraordinary look at a wounded veteran's rehabilitation.
Hôtel Terminus (Marcel Ophüls, 1988): The life of Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo.
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (Connie Field, 1980): Outstanding documentary about women working in the steel industry during WWII.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997): A fighter pilot becomes a POW in Vietnam.
Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938): Nazi physical ideals expressed through the summer Olympics.
Ordinary Fascism (Mikhail Romm, 1965): It's already been orphaned on two of my lists. I hope that this doesn't happen again.
Our Hitler (Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1978): Free form documentary about Nazi Germany.
Point of Order (Emile De Antonio, 1964): Cold warrior Joe McCarthy condemns himself with his own words.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Gini Reticker, 2008): A group of women work together to try and end Liberia's civil war.
Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, 2010): A look at the daily battles at a fort in Afghanistan.
Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985): The greatest documentary ever made (or so my list says in the last genre thread).
The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophüls, 1969): A devastating look at occupied France.
Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008): A look at the dehumanization of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1934): Has evil ever looked so beautiful?

The Effects of War: Life on the home front.
The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1970): A US-German soldier twisted by his experiences in Vietnam becomes a hitman.
Angry Harvest (Agnieszka Holland, 1985): A Jewish family is separated while fleeing the Nazis.
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987): A French catholic school hides a young Jewish boy from the Nazis.
Barefoot Gen (Mori Masaki, 1983): Animated tale about the effects of the atomic bomb in Japan.
Before the Rain (Milcho Manchevski, 1994): A series of tales of life during the Bosnia conflict.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Piel Jutzi, 1931): Tells a personal story that involves the devastation of the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Nazism.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980): Like before, but even better!
Berlin Express (Jacques Tourneur, 1948): Uncaught Nazis resurface to plot terrorism.
Circle of Deceit (Volker Schlondorff, 1981): A German journalist covers the war in Beirut.
Cutter's Way (Ivan Passer, 1981): A Vietnam veteran becomes obsessed with exposing a conspiracy.
The Damned (Luchino Visconti, 1969): Nazi rule brings a rich family to their end.
Destiny of a Man (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1959): The story of a Soviet soldier who returns to find out that all has been lost in his absence.
Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg, 1987): A young Christian Bale must survive on his own after losing his parents amidst the madness of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai.
Europa, Europa (Agnieszka Holland, 1990): A teenage boy must hide his Judaism to survive alone in WWII.
Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings, 1943): British firemen fight the results of Nazi bombings.
Germany Pale Mother (Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980): Devastating look at the ways war can change a person.
Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948): A young boy struggles for survival in bombed out Berlin.
Heroes for Sale (William A. Wellman, 1933): A WWI war hero can't catch a break in this pre-code thriller.
Hope and Glory (John Boorman, 1987): A young boy's life during the blitz.
House of Bamboo (Samuel Fuller, 1955): A thriller set in a military base in occupied Tokyo.
The Human Comedy (Clarence Brown, 1943): Mickey Rooney is a teenager pining for the action that his brother experiences in Europe while he has to stay at home to take care of his family.
I Live in Fear (Akira Kurosawa, 1955): A man's angst over atomic annihilation causes his mental and physical deterioration.
Ikiru(Akira Kurosawa, 1952): A man dying of the effects of the atomic bomb must decide how to spend his remaining days.
Incendies(Denis Villeneuve, 2010): A brother and sister looking for answers about their parents get trapped in a war between Christians and Muslims.
Lord of War (Andrew Niccol, 2005): Unconventional story of an arms dealer fueling African conflicts.
A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956): A French partisan must escape from the Nazis.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (Nunnally Johnson, 1956): An ex-GI finds it hard to rejoin the business world.
Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942): A strong British matriarch attempts to hold her family together amidst the Nazi bombing of London.
Murders Among Us (Wolfgang Staudte, 1946): A Holocaust survivor returns home to find a Nazi living next door.
The Nasty Girl (Michael Verhoevan, 1990): A German town ostracizes a woman who uncovers their Nazi past.
Night of Truth (Fanta Regina Nacro, 2004): African tribal factions meet to discuss peace terms.
The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974): A sadomasochistic relationship between a Nazi and his victim is rekindled years later.
The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1964): A Holocaust survivor is haunted the horrors that he's witnessed.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969): Fascist loving prep school teacher encourages her students to fight for Franco with disastrous results.
The Prisoner of Shark Island (John Ford, 1936): The Civil War looms large in this biopic about the man who treated Lincoln's assassin.
Romeo, Juliet, and Darkness (Jirí Weiss, 1960): A Pole falls in love with the young Jewish woman that he's hiding in his attic.
Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964): Cold War jitters cause a military coup.
Shame (Ingmar Bergman, 1968): An unnamed war causes a couple to become refugees.
The Silence (Ingmar Bergman, 1963): A pair of sisters and one of their sons are stuck in a hotel room located in a war zone.
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958): Frank Sinatra as a returning GI battling alcoholism.
The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946): Edward G. Robinson headlines an all star cast as a fed tracking down a Nazi war criminal.
Verboten! (Samuel Fuller, 1959): An architect of the Marshal Plan falls in love and in danger in his attempt to help out a German family.
Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn LeRoy, 1940): Vivian Leigh as a Londoner who takes up prostitution to survive in WWI.
The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957): Follows Spig Wead from the marines to Hollywood after a devastating spinal injury.

The History Films: War films set in the distant past:
300 (Zack Snyder, 2007): I'll probably get guff over this, but, dammit, I liked it!
Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev, 1938): Russians fight back Germanic barbarians.
Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914): An early epic that is set during one of the Punic wars.
The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1936): It's about um...The Crusades and told by the world's most Christian director.
The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964): Barbarians eat away at Rome.
Flesh & Blood (Paul Verhoeven, 1985): Medieval gore/nudity fest from Verhoeven. A devilishly good time.
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh, 1989): Branagh's take on the warrior king.
The Legend of Suriyothai (Chatrichalerm Yukol, 2001): Fun fact: I came down with the worst stomach flu of my life while watching this film in 2004.
Marketa Lazarová (Frantisek Vlácil, 1967): Poetic tale about religion spread by the sword.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003): Naval conflict during the Napoleonic Wars
Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955): Shakespeare's account of the recently unearthed king.
The Passion of Joan of Arc(Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928): While there are no battles here, it is a biography of a famous general.
Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1961): See the Dreyer above.

Korean War: Set during the Korean conflict
Battle Hymn (Douglas Sirk, 1957): A pilot turned preacher decides to start killing again.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri (Mark Robson, 1955): A fighter pilot and family man must take out Korean bridges.
Fixed Bayonets! (Samuel Fuller, 1951): One of two masterpieces on the conflict cranked out by Fuller this year.
The Steel Helmet (Samuel Fuller, 1951): And this one is number two.
Time Limit (Karl Malden): Malden's only directorial effort is this masterpiece about a soldier charged with treason.

Life of the Soldier: In and out of war.
Beau Geste (William Wellman, 1939): A group of friends join the French foreign legion.
Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980): Three Australian soldiers are court martialed during the Boer War.
The Camp at Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembene and Thierno Faty Sow, 1987): French colonists mistreat and imprison native soldiers that just fought for them in WWII.
The Charge of the Light Brigade (Michael Curtiz, 1936): Errol Flynn stars in this timely film about war in Crimea.
Drums(Zoltan Korda, 1938): Life in a British military outpost in India.
The Four Feathers (Zoltan Korda, 1939): A soldier presumed dead seeks to prove that he is no coward.
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009): Oscar winning look at the life of a bomb squad in Iraq.
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway): Gary Cooper as a British soldier stationed in India.
The Ninth Configuration (William Peter Blatty, 1980): Weird as Hell look at an officer played by Stacey Keech who is put in charge of a military insane asylum.
Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston, 1967): Strange flick about sex and obsession at a military academy.
A Soldier's Story (Norman Jewison, 1984): Racial tensions run high in a murder investigation in a segregated army unit.
Southern Comfort (Walter Hill, 1981): A group of National Guardsmen come under real attack while practicing in the bayou.
Tell It to the Marines (George W. Hill): Drill Sargent Lon Cheney has to break in the new recruits.
Tunes of Glory (Ronald Neame, 1960): An august major faces changes in his life.
Twilight's Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich, 1977): An Air Force general risks WWIII to get the President to clear his name.
Wee Willie Winkie (John Ford, 1937): British colonial occupation told through the eyes of a child.
West Point (Edward Sedgwick, 1927): Early Joan Crawford flick about a spoiled rich boy who joins the marines.

The Obvious Ones: Like you didn't think of it already!
The African Queen (John Huston, 1951): A missionary uses her charms to convinced a small boat's captain to attack a German war ship in WWI.
All Quiet On the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930): The all time greatest anti-war film?
Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958): Polish partisans fight for survival against the Nazis.
Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965): My pick for the best film of the 1960s.
Battleship Potemkin (Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein, 1925): Because of course.
The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946): The toll of war told in vivid detail.
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915): Griffith's disturbing Civil War/Reconstruction epic.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957): Has anyone here not seen this?
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964): Fluoridation conspiracy film.
Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford, 1939): Henry Fonda plays a farmer who must join the fight against the Mohawk to survive.
A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932): Borzage's take on the Hemingway classic.
Glory (Edward Zwick, 1989): Civil War tale shown in many a high school history class.
Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939): Um yeah, that one.
King Lear (Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro, 1971): Shakespeare's immortal tale done by one of the Soviet's greatest filmmakers.
The Last of the Mohicans (Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur): Cooper's classic about the French-Indian War.
Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook, 1963): Kids displaced by an unnamed war fight their own battle.
Macbeth (Roman Polanski, 1971): No man born of woman should ignore this masterpiece.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981): Snakes.
Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993): Of course.
Spartacus(Stanley Kubrick, 1960): I am...sure that you already thought of this one!
The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998): WWII from the mind of Malick.
War and Peace (King Vidor, 1956): It has both war and peace.
Zulu (Cy Endfield, 1964): Does anyone not plan to vote for this one?

Revolutionary Flicks: French, Russian, or otherwise, these count, right?
55 Days at Peking (Nicholas Ray, 1963): Westerns try to survive The Boxer Rebellion.
Burn! (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1969): A soldier of fortune instigates a revolt in the Caribbean and then must work to put it down.
Earth (Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1930): The liquidation of the Kulaks.
The End of St. Petersburg (Vsevolod Pudovkin and Mikhail Doller): A peasant survives WWI only to become radicalized during the revolution.
La Guerre est Finie (Alain Resnais, 1966): Resnais film set during the Spanish Civil War.
Knight without Armor (Jacques Feyder, 1937): A British agent must rescue a Russian aristocrat from her Bolshevik captors.
Land and Freedom (Ken Loach, 1995): Story of the fight against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
Leaves from Satan's Book (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1920): Inspired by Intolerance, the film also chronicles the satanic origins of the Russo-Finnish war of 1918.
Les Miserables (Raymond Bernard, 1934): The best adaptation of Hugo's work of all time? Yes.
Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982): A group of journalists are targeted in Chile's military coup.
October(Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein, 1928): Another take on the events of 1917.
Orphans of the Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921): The Gish sisters get caught up in the revolution.
Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981): Bolsheviks!
Reign of Terror (Anthony Mann, 1949): Deeply weird, but brilliant take on The French Revolution.
Spook Who Sat by the Door (Ivan Dixon, 1973): Cheeky flick about a spy who uses his CIA training to start a revolution in the streets of America.
Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952): John McCain's favorite film! And it's not even bad!

Romances: Hybrids between war and romance genres.
Beau Brummel (Harry Beaumont, 1924): John Barrymore goes from WWI officer to rake over the love of a woman.
Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1932): A Christian missionary captures the heart of a Chinese warlord.
Cold Mountain (Anthony Minghella, 2003): Renée Zellweger manages to not ruin this movie about a confederate soldier who longs for his love.
The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996): Screw you, haters! This one's great!
Eternal Love (Ernst Lubitsch, 1929): Another wartime Barrymore romance.
The Last Command (Josef Von Sternberg): A general from the losing side of the Russian revolution finds work and love as a Hollywood extra.
Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929): Tearjerker about a serviceman injured in WWI.
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946): A WWII pilot meant to die miraculously survives and must defend his life. My favorite of the archers.
Random Harvest (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942): A WWI vet suffering from amnesia goes through highs and lows in the post-war world.
Tempest (Sam Taylor, 1928): Barrymore again, this time in a romance set against the Russian revolution.
Under Fire (Roger Spottiswoode, 1983): Love triangle of journalists covering the war in Nicaragua.
A Year of the Quiet Sun (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1984): A US GI and a Polish woman start a doomed love affair at the end of WWII.

Sci-Fi: Hybrids between war and science fiction genres.
Aelita: Queen of Mars (Yakov Protazanov, 1924): Surreal Soviet fantasy about a communist revolution on Mars.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (Fred F. Sears): Earth vs. the Flying Saucers!
Invaders From Mars (William Cameron Menzies, 1953): US vs. martians
The Invasion of the Bee Girls (Denis Sanders, 1973): Aliens turn women into bee hybrids to kill all the men with sex!
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956): More commie aliens!
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978): Like above, but with less obvious Cold War overtones.
It Came from Outer Space (Jack Arnold, 1953): US vs. commie martians.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984): A princess tries to prevent all out war on her futuristic planet.
Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974): Super intelligent ants declare war on mankind.
Them! (Gordon Douglas): The US vs. commie ants
They Live (John Carpenter, 1988): Mankind is under invasion by aliens and their human collaborators.
Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936): Mankind destroys, then saves itself.

Spy Flicks: Hybrids between war and thriller genres.
5 Fingers (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952): A criminally under seen story starring James Mason as a butler/Nazi spy.
Black Book (Paul Verhoeven, 2006): A Dutch-Jewish partisan infiltrates a Gestapo headquarters.
Cloak and Dagger (Fritz Lang, 1946): WWII thriller from Lang about Nazis trying to uncover the secrets of the atomic bomb.
Four Men and a Prayer (John Ford, 1938): A group of brothers work to clear the name of their disgraced army captain father, but uncover intrigue along the way.
From Russia with Love (Terrence Young, 1963): James Bond vs. the commies!
I See a Dark Stranger (Frank Launder, 1946): An Irish woman's hatred of England causes her to spy for Germany.
The Love of Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927): A young woman gets mixed up in intrigue from the Russian Revolution.
My Son John (Leo McCarey, 1952): Paranoid thriller about commie spies influencing leftist intellectuals.
Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928): Greta Garbo plays a seductress who uses her wiles to charm the secrets out of an Austrian officer.
Notorious(Alfred Hitchcock, 1946): Cary Grant recruits Ingrid Bergman to spy on South American Nazis.
Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953): Fuller vs. the commies!
Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942): A wrongly accused man must fight Nazi saboteurs in the US.
The Spy in Black (Michael Powell, 1939): You're never quite sure who to trust in this thriller from Powell.
Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock, 1966): Paul Newman is a defecting physicist, though not all is as it seems. Not Hitchcock's best, but good enough.

Vietnam Films: Films set in the shit.
Born on the 4th of July (Oliver Stone, 1989): The life and times of Ron Kovic.
Casualties of War (Brian De Palma, 1989): A soldier faces a crisis of conscience when his squadron commits war crimes.
Deathdream (Bob Clark, 1974): Horror film about a vet listed as KIA, but who still returns home fine...or is he?
Go Tell the Spartans (Ted Post, 1978): Late Lancaster performance as the leader of a squad being overwhelmed.
Heaven and Earth (Oliver Stone, 1993): A young Vietnamese woman vies for survival for her and her sons.
Who'll Stop the Rain? (Karel Reisz, 1978): Vietnam veterans continue a heroin smuggling operation begun in the war.

The Westerns: Hybrids between western and war genres.
Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948): John Wayne and Henry Fonda's egos clash in this drama set in the titular fort.
The Horse Soldiers (John Ford, 1959): Wayne and Holden star as Union soldiers sent to disrupt a Confederate supply line.
The Invaders (Francis Ford and Thomas H. Ince, 1912): War breaks out after settlers violate a US/Native American peace treaty.
Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970): Over the course of a lifetime, a soldier switches loyalties between the Union and Native Americans.
Major Dundee (Sam Peckinah, 1965): Charleston Heston as a Civil War officer.
Run of the Arrow (Sam Fuller, 1957): A former Confederate's loyalties are put to the test when his transplanted Sioux nation fights the US army.
Soldier Blue (Ralph Nelson, 1970): A soldier is taken prisoner by the Cheyenne along with a young woman.
They Died with their Boots On (Raoul Walsh, 1941): An account of Custer's last stand starring Errol Flynn.

WWI on Film: Depictions of the great war.
The Dawn Patrol (Edmund Goulding, 1938): Flynn as a British pilot.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rex Ingram, 1921): French and German family members find themselves on opposite ends of the battlefield.
Four Sons (John Ford, 1928): Another brother vs. brother flick, though a lesser one in Ford's cannon.
Joan the Woman (D.W. Griffith, 1916): An English soldier take succor from the story of Joan of Arc the night before a perilous mission.
King & Country (Joseph Losey, 1964): A desertion trial obscures the truth.
The Lost Patrol (John Ford, 1934): British soldiers struggle for survival while lost in the desert.
The Love Light (Frances Marion, 1921): Mary Pickford awaits her brother's return from the front lines.
Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938): A deserter from the frontlines finds other people to be miserable with.
Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941): A hagiography of a pacifist turned war hero.
Seas Beneath (John Ford, 1931): A decent, but far from great naval tale from Ford.
Spitfire (Leslie Howard, 1942): A biography of the inventor of the first fighter plane.
What Price Glory (John Ford, 1952): James Cagney as a marine sergeant.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942): Biopic of uber-patriotic entertainer George M. Cohan that is just as much about the second world war as the first.

WWII on Film: Depictions of the second great war
49th Parallel (Michael Powell, 1941): Nazis attempt to invade the US via Canada.
Air Force (Howard Hawks, 1943): A bomber's crew must fight to defend the Philippines from the Japanese.
Attack! (Robert Aldrich, 1956): Betrayal and revenge in the waning days of WWII
Battle of the Bulge (Ken Annakin, 1965): Henry Fonda stars in this film about one of the last gasps from the Nazis on the Western front.
Battleground (William A. Wellman, 1949): Soldiers in the European theater fight for survival.
Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray, 1957): Ray's North African story about cowardice and courage in the desert.
Contraband (Michael Powell, 1940): A Danish sailor takes on Nazi spies.
The Counterfeiters (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2007): Slave labor in a concentration camp are forced to produce counterfeit bills to try and fund the Nazi war effort.
Edge of Darkness (Lewis Milestone, 1943): Errol Flynn leads a group of Norwegian partisans.
The Enemy Below (Dick Powell, 1957): An American and Nazi captain attempt to outwit one another.
Eroica (Andrez Munk, 1958): Two stories about life in Italy during WWII.
The Fighting Sullivans (Lloyd Bacon, 1944): A group of brothers enlist in WWII with tragic consequences.
Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940): Hithcock's plea for American involvement.
Il Generale Della Rovere (Roberto Rossellini, 1959): A con man must decide between his life and working with the Nazis.
Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946): A whodunnit in a hospital about a Nazi sympathizer saboteur. Also a superlative thriller!
The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961): An epic about an attempt to take out heavy artillery in the Aegean.
Hangmen Also Die (Fritz Lang, 1943): An assassin faces a moral dilemma after his actions put Czechoslovakian village at risk.
Hell is for Heroes (Don Siegel, 1962): Steve McQueen plays a brash young soldier.
Human Condition I, II, III (Masaki Kobayashi, 1959-61): A man goes from pacifist to POW in WWII.
Inglorious Bastards (Enzo G. Castellari, 1978): Notorious grindhouse film about enlisted criminals who go AWOL and face a moral dilemma.
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009): A bloody good alternative history of WWII.
Katyn (Andrezj Wadja, 2007): After their joint partition of Poland, the USSR and Germany must decide hat to do with the nation's military officers.
Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood, 2006): A look at the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective.
Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944): A group of innocent survivors must make peace with their Nazi companion if they're to survive being left adrift at sea.
Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, 1941): A British hunter who misses his opportunity to kill Hitler has tables turned on him.
Merrill’s Marauders (Sam Fuller, 1962): Classic about a unit that makes their way through the Pacific theater.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Oshima, 1983): POW film starring David Bowie.
The Night of the Generals (Anatole Litvak, 1967): Criminally under seen film about a serial killer operating high in the Nazi command.
Night of the Shooting Stars (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1982): Residents of an Italian town spend the night wandering the countryside after they hear a rumor that the Nazi's will blow it up.
Night Train to Munich (Carol Reed, 1940): The Nazis harass an inventor and his daughter in a bid to gain military supremacy.
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1942): A British bombing crew relies on the help of partisans to survive after being shot down.
Paisan(Roberto Rossellini, 1946): Rossellini's episodic exploration of Roman life during wartime.
Rome: Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945): Priest Don Pietro Pellegrini attempts to take care of Rome's citizens amidst Nazi occupation.
Sahara(Zoltan Korda, 1943): Bogey stars in this war flick about North African tank combat.
Salon Kitty (Tinto Brass, 1976): The Nazis open a brothel.
The Sand Pebbles (Robert Wise, 1966): Love and war in the Pacific theater.
The Serpent’s Egg (Ingmar Bergman, 1977): Misunderstood Bergman film about the rise of the Third Reich.
The Small Back Room (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger): A bomb diffuser must also overcome his alcoholism in this tense thriller.
So Proudly We Hail! (Mark Sandrich, 1943): Melodrama with an all star cast about nurses in the Pacific theater.
The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2005): The story of Hirohito's fall from grace after Japan's surrender.
They Were Expendable (John Ford, 1945): Ford's take on the defense of the Philippines.
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (Mervyn LeRoy): Fighter pilots engage in a secret mission in response to Pearl Harbor.
This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir, 1943): School teacher Charles Laughton fights Nazis in occupied France.
To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944): Bogey and Bacall return in this story of an American who decides to help out the French Resistance.
Wake Island (John Farrow, 1942): A fictionalized account of the Battle of Wake Island.
Walter Defends Sarajevo (Hajrudin Krvavac, 1972): True story and Walter has his own beer in China.
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1969): Burton and Eastwood star as Allied soldiers on a rescue mission full of double crosses.
The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958): Brando, Martin, and Cliff play a trio of soldiers with different views.

[domino harvey]

In honor of Zeds' massive omnibus listing on page 2, I've put together a few other listings that I think deserve attention for the project that I don't think have been mentioned yet.

I mentioned many of these in my own "omnibus" on page one, so we agree on a lot of these (and disagree on a fair share too-- good lord, you want people to intentionally subject themselves to What Price Glory or the Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming?). As far as potentially lost causes go, I'm definitely voting for 5 Fingers, which is one of Mankiewicz's greatest films, so I hope I can count on your vote so it won't get orphaned! And I don't think Brando embarrasses himself at all in Teahouse of the August Moon (and his presence requires some context but not apologia), which I would have made my Spotlight except I don't want to read a bunch of people struggling to engage with the film out of knee-jerk reactions to his casting. I've taught it in the past and have actually used it as an example of how to teach using film at a PD, so I'm used to a spectrum of reactions, but it's one of the most influential films of the 50s (where I was the only one to vote for it) and crucial for understanding how the US was coming to grips with the legacy of the Pacific front

I thought about Seven Days in May but I couldn't justify a failed bloodless coup as a war film, and my own personal metric is pretty lax as is. Good film though!

[bamwc2]

I mentioned many of these in my own "omnibus" on page one...

Sorry, I tried to limit myself to those that weren't already discussed.

...good lord, you want people to intentionally subject themselves to What Price Glory or the Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming?

If it makes you feel better, both are amongst my lowest recommendations; borderline films that I thought had just enough to mildly like.

As far as potentially lost causes go, I'm definitely voting for 5 Fingers, which is one of Mankiewicz's greatest films, so I hope I can count on your vote so it won't get orphaned!

Woo-hoo! Not only can you count on my vote, but it should be top ten material for me. It was recently released on DVD without any fanfare, though I originally streamed it through Amazon last year. It's ridiculously good.

[domino harvey]

Be warned that the R1 5 Fingers is a DVD-R. It was originally supposed to come out on Blu-ray from Twilight Time but apparently the elements weren't good enough, so this is a super depressing downgrade release. It is available in a pressed disc in Optimum's R2 James Mason Collection (along with the two great Carol Reed flicks and at least one of the films from the Eclipse set), which is how I saw it/will see it again

[Lemmy Caution]

I'd also like to put in a mention for the brief flurry of Yugoslavian War films from the mid 90s to early 2000s:

We also shouldn't forget that brief but illustrious subgenre of 'white, middle class journalists exposing war atrocities' that encompasses The Year of Living Dangerously (Indonesia), The Killing Fields (Cambodia), Under Fire (Nicaragua) and Salvador (um, El Salvador)!

There also seems to be a recent mini-trend of Anglo-directors making films in and around the Balkans.

Forgiveness of Blood (2011) an Albanian revenge drama, directed by Joshua Marston best known for Maria Full of Grace.
Katalin Varga (2009) from UK's Peter Strickland -- another revenge drama set around Transylvania. Quite a lean potent film. And Irish Juanita Wilson's As if I Am Not There (2010) set in Bosnia.

I mention this since As if I Am Not There is a pretty harrowing film about atrocities during the Bosnian War. It follows one young woman from Sarajevo who takes up a teaching post in a rural area just before war breaks out and the village gets ethnically cleansed. The local Bosniak men are shot off-screen while the women are kept for work and sex.

The lead actress has a striking look and provides a solid performance. I liked how the film doesn't deal with the politics of the situation but rather focuses on the human cost. It's universal -- this really could be any conflict at any time in any place. The post-war coda was pretty effective in dramatizing how hard it is to go back to one's old self/life after the trauma of war. The film really stuck with me. Worth checking out.

[colinr0380]

Also don't forget the Macedonian/French/UK production Before The Rain, available on Criterion DVD, and which coincidentally along with No Man's Land also stars Katrin Cartlidge!

[bamwc2]

I mentioned many of these in my own "omnibus" on page one...

Sorry, I tried to limit myself to those that weren't already discussed.

Yikes! I just looked at page one of the thread again and have no idea how I forgot about your post, Domino! I'm sorry about any feet that were stepped on.

[domino harvey]

If anything, both of us recommending so many of the same movies can only help with creating awareness and hopefully get them watched and listed

[Lemmy Caution]

I'd like to make my spotlight La Ciociara aka Two Women (1960).
Sophia Loren is terrific. A powerful film depicting how women and civilians are victimized by war. I'm a big De Sica fan, and this is one of his best. Not sure on R1 availability. This seems to turn up in various odd editions.

[YnEoS]

The Passion of Joan of Arc(Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928): While there are no battles here, it is a biography of a famous general.
Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1961): See the Dreyer above.

I was mulling these over earlier, and I think this list might be a case where Marco de Gastyne's Saint Joan the Maid might win out over the other great Joan of Arc adaptations for focusing more attention on her military career. Though I'd need to re-watch it before committing to putting it on my list.