Author Topic: Top Five WW2 Movies  (Read 4203 times)

1SO

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2017, 11:48:48 PM »
I notice most of those movies have little to no fighting.

I considered oldkid's wording "war as a background" so they don't have to specifically be war films. My list has Dirty Dozen and Big Red One which have a lot of fighting.

colonel_mexico

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2017, 11:55:30 PM »
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944)
MY WAY (2011)
AIR FORCE (1943)
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992)
THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #12 on: March 22, 2017, 02:52:47 AM »
Pan's Labyrinth is not a WWII movie. The Spanish Civil War ad nothing to do with the German shenanigans.

However it does take place during WW2

Quote from: Wikipedia link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan's_Labyrinth
The story takes place in Spain in May–June 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War

So given the timing, it is very arguably a WW2 movie
« Last Edit: March 22, 2017, 02:54:36 AM by Dave the Necrobumper »

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2017, 03:03:49 AM »
Not sure what my top 5 would be, but films in contention are:

Kelly's Heroes
Von Ryan's Express
12 O'Clock High
Casablanca
Stalag 17
Letters fron Iwo Jima
Enemy at the Gates
The Heroes of Telemark
Mister Roberts
PT 109
The Guns of Navarone

I do like the Colonel's picks of The Sound of Music and A League of their Own. I also am tempted to put the contentious Pan's Labyrinth in the list.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #14 on: March 22, 2017, 05:02:39 AM »
I notice most of those movies have little to no fighting.

It's the least interesting aspect of war.

Intellectually, maybe, but it is the most essential - that and, in this case, the Shoah. I am struck by the fact that it seems to me this state of affairs is only true of WWII. If you were to list the five best Vietnam War movies you would have the likes of Platoon and such, all very much battle oriented.
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Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #15 on: March 22, 2017, 07:44:51 AM »
No one has mentioned Come And See yet.
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MartinTeller

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #16 on: March 22, 2017, 09:45:44 AM »
I notice most of those movies have little to no fighting.

It's the least interesting aspect of war.

Intellectually, maybe, but it is the most essential - that and, in this case, the Shoah. I am struck by the fact that it seems to me this state of affairs is only true of WWII. If you were to list the five best Vietnam War movies you would have the likes of Platoon and such, all very much battle oriented.

This would be my list:

1. Apocalypse Now
2. Swimming to Cambodia
3. Daughter from Danang
4. The Killing Fields
5. Dat Kho

Only the first is "battle oriented" and even in that case I would say that's not really the point. And probably 95% of people would agree that the best part of Full Metal Jacket is boot camp and all the fighting stuff is pretty ho-hum. I haven't seen it for a long time now, but I'm not sure I would say Platoon is all that "battle oriented" either. Really, the most interesting aspects of Vietnam aren't military, it's the psychological, sociological and political.

Teproc

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #17 on: March 22, 2017, 09:56:58 AM »
The scond half of FMJ, much like the second half of WALL-E, is unjustly undervalued, and just as good if not better as the first part.

As for my list :

1. Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
2. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
3. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell, 1943)
4. Idi i smotri / Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)
5. L'armée des ombres / Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)


Honorable mention to The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I couldn't justify putting on there because not only is the war peripheral, it's also a fictional war that's just heavily coded as WWII.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2018, 02:35:40 PM by Teproc »
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oldkid

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #18 on: March 22, 2017, 10:05:16 AM »
I can't believe that I didn't put Colonel Blimp on my list.  I forgot.  Well, consider that a part of my list.
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1SO

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Re: Top Five WW2 Movies
« Reply #19 on: March 22, 2017, 10:09:58 AM »
1. Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Teproc has invalidated my list by pointing out this unforgivable exclusion.



Come and See has an elevated reputation because it was discovered years later. A powerful climax and some great scenes in the middle, but overrated.

 

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