Jump to content

WWII movie recommendations!


Guest phoenix

Recommended Posts

I would second getting 'Zulu'. You'll be shouting 'Front rank...Fire! Rear rank.. Fire. Advance!' for the next two days. My squadron sergeant keeps humming the theme in the armory. (That and 'Das Panzerlied'). Also has moments of British Humour. "Fire at will!" "That's jolly nice of him..."

I would disagree with the comment on A Bridge Too Far, I liked it a lot. I would not recommend movies like Private Ryan, Platoon or Full Metal Jacket. I'm sure that they are cinematographic works of excellence, but I don't much like war movies that make a political statement. Just things that say what happened as it happened, no excuses. ABTF and Zulu qualify.

An apparently excellent Vietnam movie I have been recommended but can't find in Irish video stores is 'The Siege of Firebase Gloria' Another interesting one, again hard to find is 'An Ungentlemanly Act', possibly made for TV, but well made and is about the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in April 1982. Just the first night. Only ever saw it once, on BBC. Another odd one released about two years ago was a Korean movie, about some North Korean infiltrators who try to sabotage peace talks. It's rated as one of the best movies to come from Korea, but alas I cannot recall the name.

Kelly's Heroes makes my all-time top three movie list. Another movie along the same lines is French: 'Que ce que passe de la 7eme companie' (What happened to the 7th company), and I quite enjoyed it. It spun off two sequels, but the first was the best.

Pentagon Wars, with Kelsy Grammar is well worth a watch. It's got the same blend of slapstick and reality as his other movie 'Down Periscope', but has a ring of truth about it. You are there convinced that that's how the US Army ended up with the Bradley.

Night of the Generals was an entertaining yarn, albeit more of a 'whodunnit' than a war movie, it just hapenned to be set in WWII.

Finally... Starship Troopers! BUGS!!!!

DWH

Manic Moran

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 100
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Oh.. one other I forgot to mention was 'The Bryll Cream Boys'. Mainly because it's set in an internment camp in Ireland. In a nutshell, Axis and Allies in the same camp, and both sides allowed out on day passes if they promised to return that night. The strange thing is that sort of stuff really happened here. Awfully civilised if you ask me!

DWH

Manic Moran

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last one.. I promise!

Gettysburg. I don't know how accurate it is (It seems from my reading to be fairly on the money), and it's hideosly long, but it doesn't seem like it's the 5 hours or whatever as you're watching it, so I suppose it must be good! It's the only movie on my current 'Must Buy' list for DVD.

DWH

Manic Moran

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing Full Metal Jacket has is the best Marine Boot Camp scenes ever filmed. Its as close as you can get without being there... I was. Best way to view this one is: rent it, watch the first 20 minutes or so, stop it, rewind and return it. After boot camp the movie is complete crap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Movies:

Land

Cross of Iron... Get the movie and the book. Indispensable and brilliant. Put Sergeant Steiner on the map wink.gif

Kelly's Heroes. I always annoy my wife by singing along to the choir when it comes on. Anyone who knows where I can get a copy of the song for download gets on my x-mas card list wink.gif.

The epics are good, although each has some flaws obviously.

Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Longest Day, A Bridge Too far.

When Trumpets Fade is good. A few minor errors BUT the "sellout 15 minutes" at the end of SPR totally ruin the movie for me and make me put When Trumpets Fade ahead of it.

I must admit I also like Ghettysburg and Hamburger Hill but none of the PC or "political point" movies. War is hell and should be portrayed as such without coming in with some political agenda which skews the whole portrayal.

The Big Red One is also good although marred by some horrible ahistoricities. The asylum scene is haunting.

Also there's some movie about tunnel rats in Vietnam. Scary stuff and a great movie. It's more a documentary really but still excellent.

Air:

12 O'Clock High isn't bad at all BUT "COmmand Decision" with Clark Gable (despite being a movie) really wins points for giving the higher-level view of the air war for me. A commander's lot is never easy.

Sea war:

Directors cut of "Das Boot". Simply the best.

John Huston did a series of 3 documentaries on war and the after effects. one was on shellshock and the psychiatric conditions soldiers suffered from. I saw all three one night one after the other with directory commentary on TV. Very good.

Out of all those I think Cross of Iron, Kelly's Heroes, the epics, Das Boot and Command Decision are the only unmissable ones (each for different reasons though of course).

------------------

___________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Battle of Britan - hell it is bloody boring

The Longest day- nice but not too real

Saving privte Ryan - Hell ya Beginning is the best and the end too - german tank an't invisible to gi without at weapon!!!!!!

The thin red line-blah blah blah copy cat copy cat boring......

A bridge too far- dam British retreat too early

There is way too many ww2 movie out there.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did anyone see the recent movie "three kings"? I didn't bother to see it. Any movie with a rap star (iced-tea) cant be too serious, you know they got to play on his image a bit...

Any comments from the peanut gallery?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Charles

I would like to nominate Catch-22, with Alan Arkin, Buck Henry, Bob Newhart (yes, Bob Newhart, as Major Major Major Major)!! and others.

Good for a laugh, but poignant at times, as well. The scene with Yosarrian and the wounded gunner in the B-17 sticks with you for a long time.

------------------

Not THE Charles from BTS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, most of my favorite movies have already been mentioned but here are a few more I like:

"The Wind and the Lion": Sean Connery vs. Teddy Roosevelt in pre-WW1 Morocco, all Jarheads MUST see it smile.gif. Great fights, great "big stick" politics, excellent soundtrack.

"55 Days at Peiking": Charlton Heston vs. the Boxers.

"Full Metal Jacket": Except for the fat guy not slimming down in bootcamp and shooting the DI before the DI realizes he's freaking out, it's got a perfect portrayal of bootcamp and Jarhead characters.

"Zulu Dawn": Peter O'Toole at Isandlawana. Seems to do the battle pretty well although some of the events leading to it aren't so accurate.

BTW, I just rented "When Trumpets Fade." Can't say I liked it much, although Dwight Yoakum didn't ruin it like I was afraid he would wink.gif. I thought the basic story was good but the execution (acting, SFX, etc.) wasn't up to snuff. OTOH, maybe I'm just spoiled from SPR. But WTF (hehe, nice acronym) also didn't use accurate tactics nor was the underlying battle correct. The characters are in the 28th Division and it shows them not getting to Schmidt, when in fact they did fairly easily (by Heurtgen Forest standards) but then got kicked out in a big rout.

-Bullethead

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tom punkrawk

Whoever mentioned "How I Won The War", I saw a part of that, the reason I started watching it was because the main character was John Lennon.

I saw "When Trumpets Fade" the day it came out on HBO, I thought it was great.

I have to disagree w/ those of you who say the Thin Red Line sucked.I personally think everyone feels that way because it didn't catch you w/ action right away like SPR did.And who ever said it was a "copycat",well that's crap right there.First off,it's in the South Pacific,not Europe.I personally thought it was a hell of a lot better than SPR,mainly because it showed the mental aspect,instead of the shoot 'em up stuff.I don't know,SPR was good,but TTRL was just as good if not better.

Haha I own Where Eagles Dare.If it weren't for that movie I wouldn't have known they had Helecopters in the later parts of ww2

------------------

We ain't got no place to go,let's go to a punk rawk show

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tom punkrawk

Or who could forget that one, PTO 109 I think, the that told the story of John F. Kennedy

------------------

We ain't got no place to go,let's go to a punk rawk show

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Movies.

Land,

Battleground- very good movie.

Stalingrad- some of you didn't like it but I loved (it was 1992 by the way).

Cross of Iron- of course.

Bridge too Far- I liked this one to.

A Midnight Clear- This movie was quite good, although it is probably hard to find.

As for SPR first 30 mins great, some of the other combat scenes quite good. As for the final bit, absolute bull**** 4 AFV's + company of Inf. vs 12 infantry, that makes a dozen regret to inform you telegrams in a couple of minutes.

Non WW2,

All Quiet on the Western Front- Must see.

Gettysburg- not bad.

An Ungentenmanly Act- saw it on ABC(Australian Broadcasting Commission) quite good.

Gallipoli- little misleading at times but good.

Anzacs- another Australian movie(actually 5 part TV series) about WW1. Follows a group of infantrymen through the course of the war. Loved this when I first saw it on tv years ago, although it can be a bit biased at times. Released on video in Australia last Anzac day.

The Odd Angry Shot- great film.

Waterloo- love the combat scenes.

Air,

12 O'clock High- very good movie.

Tora Tora Tora- include this here as most (all?) of the action happens in aircraft.

Battle of Britain- quite good.

Their Finest Hour?- not sure about name, but recent 2 part TV series based on an RAF squadron (Hornet squadron) from outbreak of war through to the Battle of Britain, in my opinion probably better than 'The Battle of Britain'.

non WW2,

The Blue Max- good film

Aces High- okay

Sea,

Sink the Bismark!- good film.

Das Boot-

Das Boot-

Das Boot-

Das Boot- Great!!

Thats my 2 cents worth.

Speedy

P.S.- Did I mention Das Boot?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can’t believe nobody mentioned Die Brücke (The Bridge). It’s one of the best ever made. It was made in 1959. If you haven't seen this and you like the war film genre, you owe it to yourself to go see this move.

Also great, as mentioned by otheres, are Come and See and Das Boot.

Great world war one moves are Paths of Glory and All Quite on the Western Front.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey! I saw that 'Hornet' Squadron mini-series on The History Channel not too long ago. It was pretty good. However, pilots kept on dying and new ones kept on showing up I got a little confused about who was who. I guess that would be the truth though, in war one way to look at it is to not get too attached.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

PLEASE HELP... On the subject of movies, I awoke to see part of an B/W movie that i liked and I was wondering if anyone could tell me it's name. The lead role was a german soilder who fell in love with a girl of jewish desent and he hid her from athorities. He was on the East Front I believe. At the end of the movie he let a russian? civilian go who turned and shot him. He fell and died and it ended... Any ideas?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest rick614

Private Ryan Great

Thin Red Line Horrible

Sink the Bismark Great I have the song

by Johnny Horton in my truck

One non WW2 that I didn't see mentioned

was Breaker Morant, takes place duing the Boer War

------------------

rick614

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey all,

How about the commandos- ie Devils' Brigade with William Holden and Cliff Robertson, Attack on the Iron Coast with Lloyd Bridges, Attack Forces Z with Mel Gibson All of these movies I have seen on TV one time or another. They not be the best movies out there but they do entertain.

Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tom punkrawk

Speedy-I saw A Midnight Clear,that was a good movie,haven't seen it in about 4 years,but I remember it being good.

------------------

We ain't got no place to go,let's go to a punk rawk show

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...