Top 61 War Movies

Here's my list of the Top war movies.  Generally, I've avoided movies where "the war" is a small part of the movie ( like GWTW or Dr. Zhivago) or movies about mass killing (Katyn, Killing Fields, etc.). However, I've relaxed that rule when the movie has a military setting: (From Here to Eternity or Sand Pebbles). Famous excluded movies?  Paths of Glory is too  unrealistic, Glory is a standard war movie with a black cast and  Battle of Algiers is more about politics than war.

	Movie	Year
01	The Big Parade	1925
02	Wings	1928
03	Hell's Angels	1930
04	Wooden Crosses	1933
05	Grand Illusion	1937
06	Dawn Patrol	1938
07	Four Feathers	1939
08	In Which We Serve	1942
09	Wake Island	1942
10	Life & Death of Col. Blimp	1943
11	Rome: Open City	1945
12	They Were Expendable	1945
13	Battleground	1948
14	Twelve O'clock High	1949
15	Sands of Iwo Jima	1949
16	Steel Helmet	1952
17	Cruel Sea	1953
18	From Here to Eternity	1953
19	Stalag 17	1953
20	Bridges of Toko Ri	1954
21	The Caine Mutiny	1955
22	Bridge on the River Kwai	1957
23	Human Condition	1957
24	Kanal	1957
25	Run Silent, Run Deep	1958
26	Ice Cold in Alex	1958
27	Fires on the Plains	1959
28	The Bridge	1959
29	Ballad of a Soldier	1959
30	El Cid	1961
31	Guns of Navorone	1961
32	Damn the Defiant	1962
33	Longest Day	1962
34	Great Escape	1963
35	Zulu	1964
36	Sand Pebbles	1966
37	Blue Max	1967
38	War and Peace	1967
39	Dirty Dozen	1968
40	Battle of Britain	1969
41	Patton	1970
42	Japan's Longest Day	1972
43	Deer Hunter	1978
44	Apocalypse Now	1979
45	Das Boot	1980
46	Gallipoli	1981
47	Platoon	1986
48	Full Metal Jacket	1987
49	Henry V	1989
50	Winter War	1993
51	Gettysburg	1993
52	Stalingrad	1995
53	Braveheart	1996
54	They Were Soldiers	2002
55	Saving Private Ryan	1997
56	Thin Red Line	1999
57	With Fire and Sword	2001
58	Blackhawk Down	2003
59	Master and Commander	2004
60	Downfall	2004
61	Dunkirk	2017

Bite The Bullet - Rewatch

Second Viewing
After re-watching Bite The Bullet - all I can say is that I was in a very forgiving & generous mood in my 2011 review. This time round, I was struck at how FAKE it is. There's nothing genuine about the movie. The characters are 1970's Hollywood stereotypes, the violence is badly done, the story is boring, and there's not one *real* emotion in the whole damn thing. Somehow Brooks got the reputation as a Western director because of "The Professionals" but there are huge differences between The Professionals and this 2 hours 11 minute piece of crap:

• The Professionals was adopted from a novel - Bite the Bullet was written by Brooks while filming - and it shows. 
• The Professionals stars three of the greatest Hollywood Western actors of all time: Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, and Burt Lancaster. Bite the Bullet has only one true Western star: Ben Johnson in a small role. 
• The Professionals is full of action. The group has to "rescue" a kidnapped woman from a Mexican Bandit and fight their way back to the USA. Bite the Bullet isn't. Its about a horse race.
• Bite the Bullet is full of preachy attitudes and phony characters. Bergen is a "You-go-girl feminist", Hackman beats up people for being cruel to animals & doesn't like Guns. Vincent is the opposite: the "Cowboy" villain who likes guns and is cruel to horses! Coburn is fake-tough and tosses off quips like a Beverly Hills screenwriter. Ian Bannen shows up to boost UK Ticket sales, and we get a nice super-cool Mexican who must deal with RACISM.
• Bite the Bullet concern for animal rights is fake. The movie self-righteously bangs the drum endlessly against cruelty  to horses. Yet the movie has *real* horses being dropped in a lake, ridden almost till they drop, and tripping over wires. That's reality! And even in the movie, Hackman, "Mr. Animal Rights" almost rides his horse to death in order to reach the finish line. 
• The Racing in Bite the Bullet is completely fake. Yes, there were 700 mile horse races in the Old West. But they were marathons. To cover the distance, the horses had to be given plenty of rest, and their riders walked more than they rode. In Bite the Bullet, we RARELY see anyone walking their horse. Instead, the horses are always racing over the roughest terrain, with their rider tall in the saddle. We reach peak stupidity, when Bergen rides in from the Desert, so parched with thirst, she tosses down a galleon of water from a flask. So what about the horse? There aren't any water troughs! And what the hell was the horse drinking while speeding through the Desert!
• The Ending in the Professionals is cool. We get a great quip and a surprise ending. The ending in Bite the Bullet is just plain dumb. After 700 miles, Coburn and Hackman are still neck and neck, and both riders and horses are so exhausted they can barely cover the last 100 yards. So they get off and walk together to the finish line. A good thing the finish line wasn't 100 yards even further, then Hackman/Coburn would've died!

Summary: Ignore my first review. Bite the Bullet comes up lame and should be put out of its misery. Its completely fake and Brooks didn't even care enough to write the script before he started filming. Rating *

Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns (2000)

I recently got interested in Miles Davis and Jazz music  - so I decided to check out the Documentary by Ken Burns. And unsurprisingly, it turned out to be your standard, awful, Ken Burns/PBS production. We get all the usual Ken Burns' tropes:

• Endless liberal social commentary from a white POV. There's a real Margaret Mead "Hello Pygmies!" tone in the production when discussing Black people.
• Reduction of complex individuals to Social symbols 
• Pretentious talking heads/critics telling us what to think
• Pompous narration
• Celebrities giving us their silly "Layman's Opinions"
• Focus on a few "Big Names" while everyone else is ignored

It was so bad during Episode 8 "Risk" - I just stopped watching**. Burns reduces the entire Bebop movement and story of Jazz from 1946-1959 to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, with a few minutes expended for Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. Absurdly, Gillespie is written off as a failure who couldn't make Bebop massively popular, while Parker (Bird) is portrayed as a "Junkie" who did some mysterious magic on the bandstand.

What *exactly* Parker did that was so amazing is never really explained. We don't have enough time for that because Burns is talking endlessly about Heroin and Parker's private life. We also waste time on irrelevancies like (a) Dizzy had a female trombone player and (b) Armstrong played at an integrated club in 1947.

Summary: Every Ken Burns documentary seems made for a middle-aged woman who reads the NY Times and lives in Boston or SF.  I had hoped "Jazz" would be different - but I was wrong. If you liked Burns' other Documentaries you might like this one. If not, and you want to learn about the history of Jazz - just google it, and listen to some CD's. Rating **

**So, if Episodes 9 or 10 were the series highlight, I'm out of luck.

The Only Game in Town (1970)

Man, this is one slow, talky movie.  A one-act play blown up into 2 hour movie- the story is very thin. Liz is a lonely 30-something showgirl - Warren Beatty a compulsive gambler & lounge singer. Both are unhappy and want to leave Las Vegas - but love conquers all.

The wordy script is made worse by the miscast leads. Taylor is too old/short to be a Las Vegas showgirl and sports a weird hairdo. Beatty is a bad fit for a world-weary piano player**. Neither is a good enough actor and there’s little charm or romantic chemistry. Unsurprisingly, it was a box-office bomb. To those under 30 it was an “old person’s movie.” The over 30 considered it “old hat” - or couldn’t buy glamorous Liz Taylor as a poor showgirl.

Direction? Not much is required. Its all talk, with 80% of it set in Liz’s apartment or Beatty’s piano bar. We get a few good external shots of Las Vegas, but most of the $11 million budget must have gone for salaries.

Worst Scene:  We get an incredibly fake “fishing on Lake Meade” sequence with Beatty on a Sound Stage holding a fishing pole against the rear projection of a lake.  Afterwards, we spend five minutes in a grocery store. Did Stevens think it was still 1938?

Summary: Stay away from The Only Game is Town - its for suckers. A boring two-character movie. Studio-bound, overlong, and underacted. One of Warren's worst.  Rating * 

**Sinatra (who had to drop out) makes more sense

Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)

Don Siegel's short (80 minutes) well-directed, low-budget film about Neville Brand (in a good performance) leading a prison revolt to improve living conditions. Its fast moving and predictable - except for its hard push for prison reform.

Unfortunately, that's let down by some implausible attitudes and characters. The "Good" Prisoners are impossibly decent/honorable - and the movie roots for Brand even after he kidnaps 9 Guards and  threatens to kill them!  Even more absurd, we're supposed to feel sad when Brand has to stand trial for leading the riot. Why would anyone honor a "get out of jail free card" that's given under duress* ?

 Summary: If you're in the mood for a Prison film, this is a good one of its kind. But I doubt its Criterion material. Rating **1/2 

* = Imagine an employee putting a gun to your wife's head and then demanding a pay raise and a written agreement that you won't call the police! Would that be legally binding?

New York New York (1977)

Plot:  A Saxophonist and Big-Band Singer have a tumultuous relationship while trying to make it big.
Stars: Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro
Alternate Title:  Raging Bull - The Musical
Best Negative Comment: Occasionally repellent but mostly tedious and trite... Liza Minnelli, difficult to like at best, comes out looking like a giant rodent en route to a costume ball..

An Interesting Failure
Scorsese's DVD commentary tells you - unintentionally - why New York, New York was a box-office bust and currently has mediocre 6.7 IMDB rating. Martin talks endlessly about the look of the film, the set design, and his desire to do a revisionist musical.  What's rarely discussed?  The characters, dialogue or music! But that's what people want in a musical - good story, good songs, and engaging characters. And a few laughs never hurt.

Instead we get  the most unlikable Musical Leading man - ever
For the first  2 hours  the movie is dominated by De Niro, playing "Jimmy" -  a hot-headed, obnoxious, unstable motor-mouth. He's a walking poster-boy for Sexual harassment and childish egotism.  His most "endearing" scene shows him posing as a disabled vet - to get out of paying a hotel bill.  And he has 60% of the dialogue.

Liza  and the Puzzling Love Affair
Meanwhile, Minnelli is given a passive character - who just reacts to De Niro. Sometimes she fights back, but mostly she's just looking at De Niro with her mouth open in a smile or shock.  And what does Liza see in him? It's never made clear. When they break up, you aren't sad - just relieved.   As you'd expect,  Liza and De Niro have zero romantic chemistry.

Supporting Characters? Who needs 'em
Even worse, De Niro and Liza are the whole movie.  They have 90% of the dialogue and every scene is about them. Unlike your typical 40's musical, there is no love triangle, subplot, or "Best Friend".  The three main supporting actors are just cardboard cutouts:  Liza's agent, Liza's backup singer, and the guy who buy's De Niro's band.

The Positives
The set design and direction are great. Scorsese wanted an "old fashioned MGM musical" look and gets it.  He uses back projection, realistic costumes, and the same montages and colorful nightclub signs you'd see in a 40's musical. As for the music, we get an excellent long sequence, some old standards, and New York, New York. You can't blame the failure on Minnelli's singing or even De Niro's acting. Its a script/story that's the problem.

The Horrible Dialogue
Two and half hours long, and not one memorable line. According to Scorsese, most of it was "improvised" which probably accounts for the verbose and repetitive quality of so many conversations. Sample:

Liza -I'm going to back to New York 
De Niro -What do you mean?
Liza - I want the baby to be safe. I need to go back to New York
De Niro -You're going back to New York?
Liza - Yes, I need to go back - for the baby
De Niro - I'll get you a car.
Liza - I don't want a car.

Worst Scene -  De Niro and Minnelli argue with 2 nobodies over a parking space.
Best Music Scenes -  First, the Happy Endings movie within a movie. Second, Liza sings "You brought a new kind of love to me" to win them a new band gig.

Summary:  163 minutes long with 40 minutes of Liza singing and  2 hours of De Niro playing Jake Lamotta with a Saxophone.  Here, quantity doesn't mean quality -  and we needed a better story, better dialogue, and a lot more charm. Sure, it looks great and has a few good musical numbers, but there's too much unlikable drama to slog through.

Mickey One (1966)

Plot: A Night-club comedian fears for his life when he owes the Mob $20,000
Stars:  Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart,  Hurd Hatfield
Best Quote: What are you guilty of? 
Mickey One: I'm guilty of not being innocent

You've got to give Arthur Penn some credit, this is one interesting movie for about 20 minutes. Beatty's on the run and lives a downscale existence. There are striking images, grotesque character actors, and crisp B&W photography. I loved the location shots of skid-row Chicago.  But once Beatty hooks up with Alexandra Stewart (who's a bore) the movie goes into a repeat loop and the amount of pretentious twaddle becomes unbearable** Penn uses Fellini's techniques*** - without his talent.

Best Scene:     Hatfield tries to convince Mickey One to leave town -  but Beatty wants answers.
Worst Scene:  Every single one with the Damn Mute Clown.

Why was this movie made?
Given the script/story, this movie could never have been more than an art-house curiosity. Yet it was bankrolled for $1 million and Arthur Penn given complete artistic freedom.  Why? I'd love to see a film on *that*.

Warren Beatty
Often described as Beatty's worst film performance, I think that's unfair. He's miscast. The part calls for energetic rage, paranoia, and deep-seated fear.  But Warren can't supply those kinds of fireworks - he's too controlled and mannered. Nor is he flamboyant/funny enough to be a credible nightclub comedian.  Or to put it more simply: The film needed Gene Hackman or George C. Scott and it got Warren Beatty.

Summary:  Different doesn't always mean good as Mickey One shows. While interesting at first and beautifully photographed -, its badly cast.  And without a strong story, the movie gets bogged down in pretentious symbolism and repetitive situations. After the half-way point it became an endurance contest.  Mickey One - Audience zero.

 **- what's up with the endless shots of a  mime in a wagon?  And why do we see him set fire to an art exhibit?
*** - depending on who you read, Penn was either imitating  Godard's non-linear plots, Fellini's surrealism, or Antonioni's preference for mood/image over narrative. Other's have called the movie Kafkaesque while Penn later stated the movie was an attack on McCarthyism ( well, okey-dokey).