War in Film: what films have to say about war

Author(s): Pete Luisi-Mills

Few topics have been as well-documented on film as war, and there are countless hundreds of movies on the subject. What I would like to provide here is a useful list of films that concern themselves with the moral and philosophical aspects of war, and/or are realistic, intelligent depictions of armed conflict. I have tried to avoid films that are either pure entertainment or that are jingoistic. Hopefully this resource list will provide you with thought-provoking material.

I have divided this list of films into two categories: films that are told from the perspective of Americans, and those that are seen through the eyes of non-Americans. Many of these films concern themselves with the experience of the soldier, both in combat and in the dazed aftermath. Some of these films are about the civilians — wives, children, journalists, and those just caught in the middle — that struggle to cope and survive as their lives are torn apart. Some concern themselves with the horror of war crimes. All are powerful reminders of the often pointless, occasionally necessary, always dehumanizing practice of warfare.

The (more or less) American perspective

One of the first (and arguably greatest) war films ever made, All Quiet on the Western Front remains a powerfully moving anti-war film seventy years after its initial release.
The mystical, trippy Apocalypse Now is essential viewing for the way in which it captures the nightmarish unreality and lunacy of protracted warfare.
The 1946 classic The Best Years of Our Lives is the greatest "coming home" film ever made.
Samuel Fuller's antimilitaristic, autoboigraphical WWII tale The Big Red One (aka the First Infantry Division) is an unsentimental gem.
Black Hawk Down, a detailed account of the disastrous 1993 Somalia mission, is a sobering tale of American military hubris and personal bravery.
Oliver Stone's Born On the Fourth of July is the painful chronicle of a soldier's return from Vietnam and his struggle to rebuild his life.
Emotionally exhausting, The Deer Hunter follows three friends through the "before", "during", and "after" stages of their Vietnam experience.
Dr. Strangelove is the only obvious comedy on this list, and I am including it because it is such a devastating, angry satire of the very type of people who currently occupy seats of power in the U.S. government. Think of Cheney and Rumsfeld when you watch Sterling Hayden's performance.
Full Metal Jacket is the strangest of Vietnam epics, and worth watching if only for its hellish depiction of basic training.
The Killing Fields is the story of an American journalist's quest to locate his translator & friend, who has disappeared into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
A Midnight Clear is an unusual movie about a group of American soldiers patrolling a German forest at the end of the World War II.
The Kubrick classic Paths of Glory is arguably the greatest anti-war war film ever made, about a French regiment in the trenches of World War I.
The operatic Platoon is the most accessible Vietnam War film and probably the most moving.
The Academy Award-nominated The Quiet American, in theaters as of this writing, is a powerful, critical look at early American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950's, and highly relevant in light of current events.
The modern classic Saving Private Ryan is really the last word in realistic combat horror, and a fitting tribute to the American soldiers of World War II.
Set in Bosnia, Savior is a frightening exploration of ethnic/religious hatred.
The Steel Helmet is an unflinching, bitter film about the Korean War; made in 1951, this film served as the blueprint for most of the Vietnam films of the 1970s and 1980s.
Unencumbered by the flag-waving bravado so common to World War II films of the 1940's, They Were Expendable is a sober film about the sacrifice of American soldiers in the Philippines.
At the other end of the spectrum from Saving Private Ryan is The Thin Red Line, a cerebral, visually rich exploration of the 1942 Guadalcanal campaign.
We have been tottering on the brink of war for months now, with hawks and doves duking it out in the halls of power; Thirteen Days is a fascinating look at an earlier administration that struggled over whether to use diplomacy or bombs to solve an international crisis.
The stylized, serio-comic Three Kings is an unorthodox take on the 1991 Gulf War; its primary strength is in its willingness to represent an Iraqi view of the conflict.
If all the current talk about "weapons of mass destruction" is beginning to jade, kindly direct your attention to the chilling documentary Trinity and Beyond, a freewheeling account of the nuclear arms race, filled with highly disturbing images from declassified American, Russian and Chinese test footage and propaganda films.
War Photographer is a harrowing documentary about photojournalist James Nachtwey, who has documented armed conflict in Kosovo, Israel, and Rwanda.
We Were Soldiers is a straight-ahead account of American forces' first major battle in Vietnam in 1965. This is a very violent, realistic war film that parallels its action with the desperation of the soldiers' wives at home.

Through Other Eyes

If your only cinematic experience of the 1980's Russian-Afghan war is Rambo III, you might want to check out The Beast, about a Soviet tank and crew that has become separated from its unit and becomes the focus of a small jihad.
There are many films mentioned in this article that have to do with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, and the best of all of them is Before the Rain, a noble, magical film around which an aura of death and sadness hangs like a shroud.
Black Rain is a moving Japanese film about a village located across the bay from Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped, and the aftermath [note: do not confuse this film with the Michael Douglas thriller of the same name!].
Capitaine Conan is a dark World War I tale of French soldiers in the Balkans.
The visually opulent Cranes are Flying is at the same time a romance and an engaging drama of a Russian family caught up in World War II.
Das Boot is a stirring, claustrophobic film about a German U-boat mission in World War II.
Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun follows a nine-year-old English boy's struggle to survive a Japanese prison camp.
The Japanese film Fires on the Plain is the grim story of a soldier forced to hide in the Philippine jungle while fleeing American forces.
The French Forbidden Games is another excellent film about children in wartime.
Gallipoli, starring a very young Mel Gibson, is a visually striking account of the calamitous World War I campaign against the Turks by Australian and New Zealand forces.
One of the great classics of world cinema, Grand Illusion, about French officers in a German POW camp in World War I, was labeled "cinematographic enemy #1" by the Nazis when it was released in 1937.
The final film in Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy, Heaven and Earth is told from the perspective of a young Vietnamese woman. This is a savage film that indicts Vietnamese and American alike.
Hope and Glory is a satisfying, finely-observed account of a family in London at the height of World War II.
King and Country is a bitter attack on the fatuous single-mindedness of those who would blithely send others off to fight.
Kippur is a gritty, nasty look at the 1973 Yom Kippur War; this film is similar to We Were Soldiers or Saving Private Ryan in its depiction of combat.
Men with Guns, by the great filmmaker John Sayles, is a deeply insightful look at the conflicts that have raged throughout Central and South America. The title refers to the way local people refer to soldiers: when asked which group or force attacked their village, the answer is simply "men with guns". Those suffering in the middle do not care about the politics of the opposing sides.
The wicked satire No Man's Land tells the tale of a Serb and a Croat trapped in a booby-trapped trench together, and the efforts of both sides, the U.N., and reporters to deal with the situation.
Paisan is a moving neo-realist classic from 1946 that observes the American liberation of Italy through six different stories.
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, based on an actual event, concerns a platoon of Serbian soldiers trapped in a tunnel and besieged by Bosnian forces.
Welcome to Sarajevo is the story of a British journalist's attempt to rescue a child from war-torn Yugoslavia.

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