My favorite WWII movie

Patton, Das Boot, A Bridge Too Far- all great films. I liked Midway, even with the F9F crash footage- used again in The Hunt For Red October, wasn't it? My favorite would have to be The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Did you guys see Empire of the Sun?
 
I would have to say The Longest Day is one of my favorites as well as Saving Private Ryan. I live in Saipan and this is where Wind Talkers takes place. It was funny everyone here went to see that movie and they show the island right before the invasion and it says "Japanese Island Saipan" More like Japanese held island of Saipan. It showed huge valleys and big mountains coming out of the water...everyone in the theater said at once "yeah right!" That movie was totally lame. How can you make a radio call exciting? I know, they have to do it from the japanese dugout using the Japanese radio thats how! Stupid movie. Oh yeah, Tora! Tora! Tora! kicked ass.
 
This is the problem with getting to a thread like this late, most of the movies have already been talked about. My three favorite war movies/miniseries would be "Patton," "Battle of the Bulge," and "Band of Brothers." I agree with whoever said BoB was far superior to "Saving Private Ryan." The Batogne episode and the one immediately were almost hard to watch (trying not to spoil anything). Oh, and the First Sergeant (the guy played by Donnie Wahlberg) was from Huntington, WV (my hometown!).

Some other good movies were "Kelly's Heroes" and "The Devil's Brigade," although you really could argue that "Kelly's Heroes" is more like a heist movie set against the backdrop of WW2. Two of my least favorite are "The Thin Red Line" and "When Trumpets Fade." In fact, "Thin Red Line" is the only movie I ever walked out of. I was 14 at the time, so the film's more artistic strokes were lost on me. I might watch it again sometime.

How about Vietnam movies? My favorite is "Platoon." (I've lost track of the number of times I've watched it) "Hamburger Hill" is good, too. "Full Metal Jacket" is good, but R. Lee Ermey steals his scenes to the extent that I lost interest in the whole 'Vietnam' part of the movie. "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter" are both fantastic movies, but I don't really count them as war movies.
 
Definitely not my "favorite", but Saving Private Ryan was pretty remarkable in that it introduced both the general moviegoing public and I to some pretty darn graphic stuff. I haven't been able to watch another war movie the same since; the standard 'bang, grab chest, fall over' of the past 50 years just doesn't convince me anymore... it looks cartoonish and fake. Not that I'd want every movie to be as graphic, of course.

Like LOAF said: Band of Brothers is some top notch stuff. The actors, the music, the production, the varied editing and storytelling approaches of the episodes... it's basically the definition of good.

My favorite WW2 movie, though, is "The enemy Below", a drawn out duel of wits between a US destroyer captain, and a German u-boat captain. I hate to admit it, but my liking of this movie probably has a lot to do with my Star Trek fixation (Balance of Terror, TWoK).

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/enemybelow.php
 
My favorites are Patton and The Great Escape.

Although, I also enjoy the more wimsical Kelly's Hero's, and Von Ryon's Express.

Tora, Tora, Tora is high on my list, but primarily because several of my friends, who were stationed at Hickam, are in it, and they told me of several interesting details.
Like the guy who rang the bell the morning of the attack...
The bell is the REAL bell from the USS Arizona.
And when that guy backed up, he stumbles, on the placard that marked the spot where the Arizona went down.
(This was before the current memorial.)
One of my friends can be seen being blown up while firing an anti-aircraft gun.
Both of them were killed several times in the movie, on ships, bases, runways, etc.

One of the more enjoyable stories about the film had to do with the zero crashing into the hanger, and the windows all blew out as the hanger went up.
According to my friends, they were inside the hanger, with fire extinguishers, and told to be ready to put out any fires that might start.
(They weren't told what was about to happen.)
When the windows blew up, they both filled their pants!
(Scared the crap outa them, literally.)
 
Man I can't believe I forgot some of those great movies...

Thanks Bryns, it was Operation Market Garden (I'm not sure where I got Black Market from?).

However, Where Eagles Dare, is probably the best spy/intricate plot movie I've seen ever. Richard Burton give an indisputable performance there, I highly recommend this film to anyone who is even remotely interested in this time period.
 
Anyone mention Born On The Fourth Of July? (now that other people have mentioned non-WWII war movies)
 
Nomad Terror said:
I also liked U-571
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*barf*

U-571 is 2 hours of my life I'd like back.

(I suppose Das Boot spoiled me, though, having seen it before I wasted 7 bucks on a ticket for U-571.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Also, no one has mentioned Tora! Tora! Tora! yet...
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That's cuz I didn't notice this thread until now. :D

For a pure war movie that really does a lot of explaining HOW/why stuff happened, Tora! Tora! Tora! takes the title, for me. It's pracitcally a documentary.

Patton is an incredible movie.

Midway butchered the footage portion. Story was pretty much good, but having aircraft in roles they were never used in was kinda bad. :rolleyes:

12 oclock high is a great one. Good 'ol Gregory Peck. And come to think of it, it is kinda WCish because the character development is indeed excellent.

Speaking of Peck, MacArthur is a fantastic movie. Peck did an excellent job portraying MacArthur's combination of arrogance and wisdom at the same time. (Note: I think MacArthur was one of the best generals we've ever had. Brilliant man.)

The Great Escape is a great movie as well. Great soundtrack. They even got a lot of stuff historically correct. :p

There was a pretty good made-for-tv movie called "the Great Escape: the untold story" (I think that's the title) that covered less of the escape, but did cover a lot of the process of hunting down the SS after the war. I recall seing it in the 80's/early 90's. They got a lot of stuff correct.

If I had to rank movies,

1. Tora! Tora! Tora!
2. MacArthur
3. Patton
4. The Great Escape
5. Twelve O'clock high

For comedy, Father Goose was great. Carrey Grant, man.

Some of the wartime comedies were funny as well, such as some of the Jerry Lewis movies like Sailor Beware.
 
Hummm...Platton is kinda bad, in some aspects. SPR has some confusing things. Is the german who stabs the american the same one they let go earlier? The opening sequence is trully great, but the rest of the movie, the overall events are too artificial... I mean, they seem to be old episodes of some series.

I do have to agree that after watching it, movies like the dirty dozen, where a guy gets shot by a M1 from 10 feet, staggers a bit, clutches his belly and falls FOWARD seem way too ridiculous.

But then again you have something like BoB, which is superb. Granted, it is kinda inconsistent in quality, i.e. the middle episodes are far better than the first 2 and the last 2. But overall it kicks a lot of ass.
 
Nomad Terror said:
I also liked U-571
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U-571 was a load of Poop

It was all lies the Royal Navy was the first to capture an Enigma Machine (they went on to capture a lot more), the Yanks only captured one (towards the end of the war)
 
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by now that the earlier work in breaking Enigma-encrypted communications, by the Poles (who not only mathematically cracked the codes, managed to manufacture a working Enigma device without having one to study, before any of the German machines were captured IIRC), goes pretty much unnoticed, considering how mathematical decryption lacks the "flash" of capturing Enigma machines through combat.
 
Hummm...Platton is kinda bad, in some aspects.
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I disagree, Platton is the perfect mix of Platoon and Patton, so much so that we can't even be sure which one you're talking about.
 
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