Favourite War Film/Tv series
 

I was actually a bit reluctant to make this thread initially. I guess threads of the 'your favourite x of all time' nature are done to death on most of the forums i've been on. But i decided to make it anyway, and i don't really have a good reason, other than really liking war films. also to see if there's any i'd missed out on.So, what's your favourite war film (or tv series) that you've seen so far?

My favourite of all time is definately The Thin Red Line. To me, that's more than just a war flick. I loved the interesting characters and the poetic/philosophical overtone. Though i realise it's the sort of film that's not to everyone's taste. One of the rants I often go on (lol) is how TTRL got robbed of attention due to SPR. SPR certainly had some impressive battle scenes (though the omaha beach landing was too short imo), but i thought the characters were pretty dull and one-note. Also, the story seemd a bit contrived. Uh oh, i'd better stop now before i get too far into the rant.

Also, i recently saw Generation Kill for the first time, and thought it was awesome. Like TTRL it's very character driven, and the shootout scenes seemed quite realistic (often being at longer distances).

Some other's i like are; Stalingrad, The Dirty Dozen, Letter's From Iwo Jima, Apocolypse Now, Big Red One, Cross of Iron, Patton, Jarhead, Gallipoli, Breaker Morant and Come & See.

Letter's From Iwo Jima was a pretty good one. The few WWI movies I saw with the other side's perspective. You actually feel for the Japanese soldiers.

Blackhawk Down is one of my all time favorites

The Unit and Ultimate Force are my favorite TV series

The Unit, 24, Over There, and Special Ops Mission are my favorite war TV shows.

Favorite war movies include Black Hawk Down, Tears of the Sun, The Hunt for Eagle One and The Hunt For Eagle One: Crash Point (the latter two I plan to screencap after I finish Street Fighter, if I can ever find the damned DVD...), all the Behind Enemy Lines films, The Final Countdown, Full Metal Jacket, and Under Heavy Fire.

I also like ones such as Gladiator, Troy, 300, etc., but I figured you meant more modern war movies.

Letters from Iwo Jima and Black hawk Down.

I also loved the short battle scenes in War of the Worlds (2005), even though that wasn't a war movie.

I'm really fond of "Where Eagles Dare". I've seen it over a dozen times now, probably more than any other war movie in my DVD collection. I know WWII movies are done to death, and that it's highly unrealistic (so much so that Clint Eastwood dual-wielding MP40s barely raises an eyebrow), and the plot is often incoherent. But it's one of those movies that makes me realize just how much good use of setting/location and cinematography can bring a movie to life. The Schloss Adler is really the star of "Where Eagles Dare" - putting Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton together is just a bonus.

Ugh, such a copout! I went into that movie expecting to see an epic battle between the aliens and the military. And I was terribly disappointed. What's even more retarded is that they actually did storyboard more action involving the military, and yet Spielberg decided not to film it.

I think there should be a law in Hollywood that if you're going to get two branches of the U.S. armed forces to cooperate on your film, they should get lots of use in the action scenes.

At least Micheal Bay knows how to adequately exploit the military in his movies

Yeah, I liked them too. Like MT said, it's a real shame the military didn't get more screen time. But at least human weapons put a couple of those SOB Tripods into the dirt this time around, unlike the original where we were totally pwned the whole movie through. And the scene at the end when those 82nd troopers (at least I think they were supposed to be 82nd) were blowing the shit out of that dying Tripod with Javelins and Gustavs was one of the coolest ever.

True, and seeing the military fighting the Decepticons was pretty much the only good thing about the "Transformers" movies.

Yeah, but come on. The Army and Marines loaned Spielberg Abrams tanks, Paladin howitzers, and LAV-25s, plus their crews. How does he use them? They're in one scene where they drive by in a convoy, and another where they're all lined up on a hill and then charge across (and we don't even get to see them shooting at the tripods). If the DoD gave me that much hardware, I would make extensive use of it, the way that Bay did in "Transformers 2". Showing soldiers firing Javelins just doesn't equate with what could have been.

Unfortunately, the story theme of War of the World didn't even justify the loan from the military. It was supposed to be the perspective of Tom Cruise and his family. They could have not even used the military at all or even called them for loans.

Actually, it did show the Marines firing, just the Tripods were "hidden" in a giant cloud of smoke or whatever.

Yes, there could have been more, but what was in there was still pretty cool, though.