Top 10 World War II action films of all time

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    Thanks guys, had a tough weekend with my Aunt passing, but I will definitely review and edit list on Monday… keep up the great discussion.


  • Sorry to hear about your Aunt YG.

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    @Private:

    Sorry to hear about your Aunt YG.

    Thank you Private Panic.

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    @CWO:

    @Young:

    @CWO Marc
    Is “The Bridge” better than any of your previous nominations?

    I agree that Downfall (Der Untergang) would be a good choice too, for the same types of reasons I gave for my four suggestions.Â

    I’ve seen Downfall and it’s a great film… although it doesn’t meet the criteria for battle scenes.

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    List has been updated, do you disagree?… explain what should be different.


  • @Young:

    I’ve seen Downfall and it’s a great film… although it doesn’t meet the criteria for battle scenes.

    I dunno…there are several scenes in which Hitler waves his hand over a map and orders virtually non-existent armies to crush the Soviet hordes with massive, all-destroying pincer movements.  Don’t those count as battles?  :lol:

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Young:

    List has been updated, do you disagree?… explain what should be different.

    I would say that I agree, although I cannot admit to having seen all the great WWII war films; especially many of the foreign ones that may exist. Any time you put together a greatest of all time list, there will be controversy and not everyone will agree, so I don’t expect that we will completely. I can make a case for the ones I have seen if it comes to that.

    Naturally, I have other WWII favorites which may or may not fall under the “war/battle film” category. Just to name a few:

    The Battle of Britain - another epic-style film with a big cast. This is a good war movie, with excellent battles scenes (primarily because they used the real airplanes!). But one thing I believe that really holds it back is its length and lack of a narrative climax. It has been some time since I watched it, but I recall it being drawn out and without (much of) a core story beyond the grand scale of the Battle of Britain. Midway had a similar format, but the film was tighter and the storyline was more focused on Charelton Heston’s character (and the relationship with his son).

    The Dirty Dozen - This is a totally screwball film and I think the only reason I kind of like it are because of the actors involved. Even as a war film it strays into morbidity.

    The Eagle Has Landed - I am not sure how many people actually know about this movie, which is based on a completely fictional novel. It stars Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall in a, again, fictional plot by the Germans to kidnap Winston Churchill from England. If you can stomach the craziness of the plot, which isn’t totally absurd, the actors involved make the film quite good, in my opinion. The story is fake, but interesting. Having watched it as a kid, I never questioned a very British Michael Caine playing a German officer.

    Memphis Belle - This is by far the best air war over Europe film that has been made to my knowledge. I am amazed how real it seems for having been made in the early 1990s. The actors are pretty darn good and the whole story feels accurate, engaging and well crafted.

    The Guns of Navarone - Lots of people deride this film for being completely made up and preposterous. Maybe so, but the cast is quite good and it is enjoyable at least because of their performance. I have always enjoyed it. It is also less of a battle movie and much more the sabotage/clandestine type.

    Flags of our Fathers - This too is less of a battle film and actually a pretty introspective analysis of the war on a small group of guys. I think Clint Eastwood did a great job with it.

    Letters From Iwo Jima - The Japanese counterpart to Flags of our Fathers. This was probably even better. I may even say it could go in the Top 10. For Americans especially, it provides a completely unique perspective of the war. It was highly moving and very well made. Clint Eastwood did an even better job here. Again the actors are great and it is extremely authentic; the whole film is basically in Japanese with english subtitles.

    Sands of Iwo Jima - No relation to the above except in subject matter. This is a totally classic John Wayne film and one of my favorites for sure. As a piece of gritty, realistic cinema it doesn’t really belong up in the Top 10. But in terms of war film classics it probably does.


  • @LHoffman:

    The Eagle Has Landed - I am not sure how many people actually know about this movie, which is based on a completely fictional novel. It stars Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall in a, again, fictional plot by the Germans to kidnap Winston Churchill from England. If you can stomach the craziness of the plot, which isn’t totally absurd, the actors involved make the film quite good, in my opinion. The story is fake, but interesting. Having watched it as a kid, I never questioned a very British Michael Caine playing a German officer.

    If you like The Eagle has Landed, you should have a look at “Went the Day Well?” – the film I mentioned previously – because they share a key plot element: English-speaking German paratroopers dressed as British soldiers infiltrating a small British town to carry out a potentially war-winning secret mission.

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    Great post Hoff, I’ll look it over in more detail later and see what can be done, I also loved Memphis Belle.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @CWO:

    If you like The Eagle has Landed, you should have a look at “Went the Day Well?” – the film I mentioned previously – because they share a key plot element: English-speaking German paratroopers dressed as British soldiers infiltrating a small British town to carry out a potentially war-winning secret mission.

    Thanks Marc, I will have to look into that.


  • I can see that this list is leaning towards BIG war movies - The Longest Day, The Battle of the Bulge, Midway, Guns of Navarone, etc.

    I do enjoy such movies, but would find it hard to describe any of them as great movies. Typically the human stories get swallowed up in the epic scale of the movie. For me the great war movies are driven by a compelling human story around which the action revolves, not the other way around.

    For that reason I would rate The Train, Downfall (Hitler was a human), Ice Cold in Alex, etc above any of those action first movies. I can see that I am in a minority though!

    In fact, why does a great WWII movie need to have any action at all? If it portrays a compelling story of people caught up in these terrible events then it is a great WWII movie. Schindler’s List, The Pianist (actually does have some battle scenes) and The Hill fall in to this category. These are far greater films than those listed in my first paragraph. Now I am probably in a minority of one! :-)

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Private:

    I can see that this list is leaning towards BIG war movies - The Longest Day, The Battle of the Bulge, Midway, Guns of Navarone, etc.

    I do enjoy such movies, but would find it hard to describe any of them as great movies. Typically the human stories get swallowed up in the epic scale of the movie. For me the great war movies are driven by a compelling human story around which the action revolves, not the other way around.

    For that reason I would rate The Train, Downfall (Hitler was a human), Ice Cold in Alex, etc above any of those action first movies. I can see that I am in a minority though!

    In fact, why does a great WWII movie need to have any action at all? If it portrays a compelling story of people caught up in these terrible events then it is a great WWII movie. Schindler’s List, The Pianist (actually does have some battle scenes) and The Hill fall in to this category. These are far greater films than those listed in my first paragraph. Now I am probably in a minority of one! :-)

    I don’t think you are in the minority… I too like the more focused, smaller scale war movies. It’s just that YG’s definition of War Movie for the purposes of this survey was to relegate them more to the big scale, battle-focused war films. It is just one aspect to focus on.

    Like I said, depending on how you see them or care to define them, movies I suggested like Flags of Our Fathers, The Eagle has Landed and even Guns of Navarone may not fit under the present definition of War Film.


  • @LHoffman:

    YG’s definition of War Movie for the purposes of this survey was to relegate them more to the big scale, battle-focused war films. It is just one aspect to focus on.

    All of which is fine Hoff. It’s YG’s thread. :-)

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    @Private:

    @LHoffman:

    YG’s definition of War Movie for the purposes of this survey was to relegate them more to the big scale, battle-focused war films. It is just one aspect to focus on.

    All of which is fine Hoff. It’s YG’s thread. :-)

    I will redefine the topic title, it just helps eliminate grey areas this way… perhaps when we finalize this list, we can make a new one for more dramatic WW2 films.


  • @Young:

    I will redefine the topic title, it just helps eliminate grey areas this way

    “Top 10 World War II battle films of all time”

    I’m not sure this solves the problem.  The Guns of Navarone isn’t a film about a battle, it’s about an infiltration and sabotage mission by a small group of soldiers; there’s very little combat in it.  Arguably, you can say the same thing about Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, which depicts the planning, execution and aftermath of the Doolittle Raid – and which does so mostly from the perspective of just one of the bomber crews.  Their actual combat time over Japanese soil lasts just a few minutes.  Das Boot likewise devotes relatively little time to combat – especially if you go by the full-length German mini-series version.

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    I would rather take those titles off the list than redefine the criteria at this point. I disagree somewhat with Das Boot, it’s such a long film that battle minutes seem short in comparison, but the majority of the film places the crew on the front lines in the Atlantic theater making the suspense minutes feel like battle minutes.


  • @Young:

    I would rather take those titles off the list than redefine the criteria at this point. I disagree somewhat with Das Boot, it’s such a long film that battle minutes seem short in comparison, but the majority of the film places the crew on the front lines in the Atlantic theater making the suspense minutes feel like battle minutes.

    I object very strong to take Das Boot off of that list!!
    If you have no idea about submarine warfare then Das Boot is the closest what you can get to have a mindset of it.
    Das Boot is historically accurate.
    It gives you the right impression.

    Before you take out das Boot, you may better kick out saving ryan.
    Historically inaccurate, gives you a wrong impression and the movie makers didn’t even spend time and money to come up with a real looking Tiger Tank.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Young:

    I would rather take those titles off the list than redefine the criteria at this point. I disagree somewhat with Das Boot, it’s such a long film that battle minutes seem short in comparison, but the majority of the film places the crew on the front lines in the Atlantic theater making the suspense minutes feel like battle minutes.

    I would agree with YG’s reasoning. Das Boot is very much a battle type war film in my mind because it involves a crew in their machine on the front lines in the fighting. It is not a Battle of the (blank) movie, but there seem to be relatively few of the grand scale battle films out there. Saving Private Ryan has its moments, but it isn’t really a film about a single battle either. The single battle narratives, absent of a main character with a story arc, seem to have been out of vogue in Hollywood for a long time; probably since the 1970s.

    Das Boat could also be considered a war drama given how intimate the setting is. I vote we keep Das Boat in this list.

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    Check this list to see if you missed any:

    http://www.timeout.com/london/film/50-best-world-war-ii-movies

    Has anyone here seen Come and See?

    For a more mainstream list (warning! Contains Pearl Harbor!):

    http://www.imdb.com/list/ls052642566/

    But remember that The Dam Busters is just a rip-off of Star Wars:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M

    List of TV shows has to start with:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfxvLmrwqw

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    @Flashman:

    But remember that The Dam Busters is just a rip-off of Star Wars:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M

    :lol:

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