Just watched this,its basically Armageddon set in 1917.Except with plucky northerners.
1 Like
I’ll be out in the car 
1 Like
The Last Vermeer is very good
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The Eagle has Landed just started on BBC 2 there.A stone cold classic.Caine Sutherland Duval, even JR Ewing makes an appearance
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Platoon over on TG4. Poor scheduling to put it up against the Eurovision.
Guy Pearce is maybe the actor of this generation?
FILM
The 40 best war films of all time — ranked by experts
From defence secretary Ben Wallace to historian Tom Holland, our panel selects the greatest war movies to mark the release of Oppenheimer
From left: Where Eagles Dare, 1968; Lawrence of Arabia, 1962; The Hurt Locker, 2008; All Quiet on the Western Front, 2022
REX; ALAMY; JONATHAN OLLEY
Reviews by
,
and Tim Glanfield
Sunday July 16 2023, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
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What’s the best war film of all time? Ahead of the director Christopher Nolan’s epic Oppenheimer, about the dawn of the nuclear age, we asked a team of experts including the defence secretary Ben Wallace and the podcast historian Tom Holland.
From blood and guts in Vietnam to bitter satires and films telling the stories of forgotten victims, our panel picked movies that moved, shocked and mesmerised them. But what came out on top?
Here we rank the Top 40 — but do you agree? Have we missed out a classic? Tell us about your favourite in the comments below. We will add the most popular movie that we’ve missed…
The judges
Top row: Paul Verhoeven, Dutch film-maker behind Basic Instinct and RoboCop ; Edward Berger, director of All Quiet on the Western Front; Tom Holland, historian and The Rest Is History podcaster; Peter Bowker, playwright behind World on Fire (returns tonight on BBC1); Sebastian Faulks, novelist. Bottom row: Emma Thomas, producer of Dunkirk and Oppenheimer; Max Hastings, military historian; Louise Callaghan, Middle East correspondent for The Sunday Times; Ben Wallace, the defence secretary; Christina Lamb, chief foreign correspondent of The Sunday Times; Al Murray, comedian who co-hosts the hit Second World War podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk and co-wrote Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image the Musical, currently running in London’s West End.
George MacKay in 1917
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40. 1917 (2019, Apple TV)
Inspired by the stories told to the director Sam Mendes by his grandfather about his part in the First World War, the movie takes place after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich. The film follows the story of two British soldiers, Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), in their mission to call off a doomed attack. The film, which also features Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch, is noteworthy for its directorial style that gives the impression of one long continuous shot.
John Huston’s Escape to Victory
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39. Escape to Victory (1981, Prime Video)
Is it a war film or is it a sports film? Cinephiles will argue that it’s both. And yes, this jaunty Anglo-American-Italian film may lack the gravitas of some of the Oscar winners on this list, but it makes up for that with an uplifting story of football surviving against all odds during the Second World War. The cast is perhaps as unlikely as the storyline, with Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine joined by Pelé and Bobby Moore as prisoners of war who form a team and hatch an audacious escape plan.
Apocalypto
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38. Apocalypto (2006, Prime Video)
It’s certainly not for everyone. Directed by Mel Gibson, the movie charts the destruction of a 16th-century Central American tribe’s jungle by Mayan raiders. The film was co-scripted with Farhad Safinia, an Iranian-born, British-educated, first-time screenwriter, and it is performed by a cast of Native American and Mexican dancers. There’s human sacrifice, heads impaled on spears and hearts ripped from bodies. Certainly not for the faint-hearted but, as Quentin Tarantino said, it’s a “masterpiece”.
Viola Davis in The Woman King
ILZE KITSHOFF/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT
37. The Woman King (2022, Sky/Now)
Viola Davis is the impressive lead in this African epic. Set in the 19th century, it is the true story of the female Agojie warriors, who defended the west African kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) from neighbouring tribes and Portuguese slave traders. It’s an impressive mix of exhilarating action sequences and stirring, intimate moments. More importantly, it’s a history that took far too long to be told.
Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic in Born on the 4th of July
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36. Born on the Fourth of July (1989, C4 Streaming)
Oliver Stone’s antiwar drama is based on the autobiography of the Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic. It tells the harrowing story of a young man who enlists in the Marines and serves in Vietnam. This hard-hitting portrait of military life, the treatment of veterans and the futility of war earned Stone an Oscar for best director and Tom Cruise a nomination for best actor.
Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Brad Pitt, Michael Pena and Jon Bernthal in Fury
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35. Fury (2014, Netflix)
Brad Pitt takes centre stage in David Ayer’s action-packed film about a US Second Armored Division tank crew who find themselves in the bloody final battles of the Second World War. “The part that I recognised from every conflict I’ve ever covered is the dead-eyed brutalisation of the soldiers,” says Louise Callaghan, the Sunday Times Middle East correspondent. “Too tired to be scared, blind to death and horror: still laughing in joy at their survival, even if it’s just for a moment.”
Mel Gibson in Braveheart
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34. Braveheart (1995, Disney+)
Directed by and starring Mel Gibson, this epic drama set in 1280 Scotland won Oscars for best picture and best director, and was a global hit at the box office. Telling the brutal story of William Wallace’s First War of Scottish Independence against King Edward I of England, the movie may have been criticised for historical inaccuracies, but it made up for it with a compelling love story and some of the most ferocious battle scenes on film.
Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun
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33. Empire of the Sun (1987, Apple TV+)
With Steven Spielberg helming the picture and a script written by Tom Stoppard based on JG Ballard’s novel, this coming-of-age story in the Far East during the Second World War is magnificent. A young Christian Bale stars as Jim, a privileged expat schoolboy separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. He has to grow up fast on the streets and in internment camps as the war rages around him.
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube in Three Kings
WARNER BROS/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
32. Three Kings (1999, Apple TV)
Set after the Gulf War, David O Russell’s black comedy mixes war, heists and action to deliver a compelling story starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze. The story follows disillusioned American servicemen, sent to Iraq to tie up loose ends in the aftermath of the war. They set off on a mission to get rich quick and discover gold hidden during the uprisings against Saddam Hussein.“This film now feels oddly prophetic,” the screenwriter Peter Bowker adds.
Waltz with Bashir
ARTIFICIAL EYE
31. Waltz with Bashir (2008, Prime Video)
How can animation be so beautiful and yet so terribly haunting? It brings to life the dreams and traumatic personal memories of Israeli soldiers who fought against the Palestinians in the 1982 Lebanon war. Using his own memories as a soldier, the director Ari Folman creates something unique and memorable.
Rod Steiger in Waterloo
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30. Waterloo (1970, Sky Store)
Shot in the Soviet Union using Red Army guards as extras, Sergei Bondarchuk’s film is a blockbuster recreation of the battle that shaped Europe, starring Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington and Rod Steiger as Napoleon. It still holds the record for the highest number of costumed extras in any film. “It seems unbelievable, when you watch aerial shots of squares forming and cavalry charges breaking all around them, that this is not CGI,” the historian Tom Holland says. “A film as epic in scale as the battle that inspired it.”
Fionn Whitehead in Dunkirk
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29. Dunkirk (2017, Prime Video)
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the film tells of the mass evacuation of troops from northern France in 1940 from the perspectives of land, sea and air. This powerful and beautifully crafted film captures the magnitude of a pivotal historical event through soaring cinematography and music. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won three. It features an impressive ensemble cast, including Jack Lowden, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy. Watch closely and you’ll spot Harry Styles in his film debut.
David Niven and Kim Hunter in A Matter of Life and Death
ALAMY
28. A Matter of Life and Death (1946, ITVX)
Originally suggested by the British government to help to foster a special relationship between the UK and the US, this audacious weepie is a wonderful collaboration between the director Michael Powell and the writer-producer Emeric Pressburger. David Niven plays a charismatic Second World War RAF pilot and the star-crossed lover of a US radio operator (Kim Hunter). “Tender, lovely and daring to say that love will always triumph,” Peter Bowker says.
Chimes at Midnight
ALAMY
27. Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (1966, Apple TV)
Orson Welles’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays is not often thought of as a war film, but that’s exactly what it is, Tom Holland argues. Made with a small budget, the film stars Welles as the lecherous, obese Falstaff and John Gielgud as the guilt-ridden Henry IV. An elegy for Merrie England and an often-ignored masterpiece, it is as epic as any of Welles’s best films. “Almost 60 years on, the film’s rendering of medieval battle has still not been bettered,” Holland says.
Willem Dafoe in Platoon
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26. Platoon (1986, Sky Store)
Want a realistic depiction of war? Look no further — this was directed by a former infantryman in Vietnam. The gonzo film-maker Oliver Stone transformed his own memories into a bloody, breathtaking feature starring Charlie Sheen as a reckless misfit. It’s best remembered for the enduring image of Willem Dafoe’s dying sergeant collapsing to his knees and thrusting his arms to the sky. The movie inspired copycats such as the drama series Tour of Duty and endless spoofs (see Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder).
Mosul
REX
25. Mosul (2019, Netflix)
A gripping thriller that follows an elite squad of Iraqi soldiers as they battle to take their city back from Islamic State. “It’s strange watching a film about a war that you covered, characters that you’ve met,” Louise Callaghan says. “What this film gets right is the look, the feel of Mosul. Every frame rings so true that it makes me feel slightly sick, just as the battle did.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
ALAMY
24. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Sky/Now)
Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic featuring orcs and hobbits may not be an obvious choice for a list of war films but, as the historian Tom Holland argues, it’s a film that features “a multitude of scenes that patently derive from Tolkien’s own experiences in the First World War. It is the most influential fictional meditation on the two world wars ever written.”
MAS*H
REX
23. MAS*H (1970, Prime Video)
This black comedy came out at a “fascinating moment in the history of America’s attitude towards foreign wars”, Sebastian Faulks says. “Caught between full-on patriotism, such as The Longest Day, and motiveless nightmare like Apocalypse Now.” Set in a tented army surgical hospital during the Korean War in the early 1950s but clearly intended as a commentary on the Vietnam War, Robert Altman’s film is a countercultural classic that is “a bit Animal House in parts, but it has charm”, Faulks adds.
Ran
ALAMY
22. Ran (1985, ITVX)
A fan of Succession? Then you’ll recognise the Oedipal power dynamics in this King Lear-inspired war film set in feudal Japan. Epic and elegant, the movie, nominated by Tom Holland, tells of an elderly warlord who foolishly divides his kingdom between his three sons — and clearly, things don’t go well. Instead of endless CGI fights, we get blockbuster cavalry charges with hundreds of horses. Who needs Marvel movies?
Son of Saul
SONY PICTURES
21. Son of Saul (2015, ITVX)
A harrowing Hungarian film you only need to see once — but absolutely shouldn’t avoid. A Sonderkommando was a death camp inmate forced, on pain of death, to burn the bodies of Holocaust victims. This is the story of one of them — and Laszlo Nemes’s film makes sure we shall never forget the horrors.
20. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, Netflix)
Edward Berger’s remake of a classic German novel works because it brings the visceral horror of the trenches to the screen. In a first for a German subtitled drama, it won seven Baftas and four Oscars last year as western audiences watched the war in Ukraine unfold and found the inevitable echoes in history.
Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove
REX
19. Dr Strangelove (1964, Prime Video)
Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War black comedy stars Peter Sellers in three different roles. A US air force general orders a pre-emptive attack on the Soviet Union and what follows is a savage satire of an age when the theory of mutually assured destruction was all that stood between us and the apocalypse. It is perhaps one of the finest comedies ever made.
Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare
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18. Where Eagles Dare (1968, Sky Store)
Clint Eastwood Clint Eastwood kills more people in this Second World War blockbuster than in any of his cowboy classics. The body count stands at more than 100 as the film reaches its climax and Eastwood can’t keep his hand off his machinegun trigger. This audacious adventure film about a mission to rescue an Allied soldier in the snow-capped German Alps is Steven Spielberg’s favourite war movie. Quentin Tarantino is a huge fan too. Who would dare remake it?
Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory
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17. Paths of Glory (1957, Amazon Freevee)
Aged 29, Stanley Kubrick made his most emotional film. Based on a true story, it stars Kirk Douglas as a heroic French infantry officer trying to defend those being scapegoated for the failure of a suicidal assault on the Western Front. Winston Churchill was a fan, yet it was banned in France for almost two decades, and in Spain for three because of its criticism of the military.
Steve McQueen in The Great Escape
ALAMY
16. The Great Escape (1963, Apple TV)
Steve McQueen stars in this patriotic recreation of the biggest mass breakout of Allied prisoners of war. Sixty years on it has become an unlikely Christmas classic. “Larky, factually inaccurate, a bit silly, but with half a dozen unforgettable scenes,” Sebastian Faulks says. “Beneath its Hollywood proficiency, it hints at a certain stubborn Allied resistance against the odds. And it’s just so enjoyable.”
Full Metal Jacket
REX FEATURES
15. Full Metal Jacket (1987, Apple TV+)
Stanley Kubrick’s inventive, visually arresting and deeply troubling Vietnam War film is a cult classic. The much-quoted script and the director’s refusal to shy away from the brutality of the military and the horrors of war cement this as one of the very best. It is a movie of two halves — with new recruits being put through their paces in training before arriving on the battlefields of Vietnam.
Ashes and Diamonds
REX
14. Ashes and Diamonds (1958, YouTube)
When the Polish director Andrzej Wajda was 13 years old his homeland was invaded first by Nazi stormtroopers, and then two weeks later by Stalin’s Red Army. His father, along with thousands of other captured Polish army officers, was murdered by Soviet troops in a mass execution. Wajda channelled this trauma into a mesmerising trilogy. In this beautiful third film a resistance fighter (the cool Zbigniew Cybulski) is troubled with his task of assassinating an incoming commissar. “It is a study of both the savagery and the cruel irony of war. Humanity is always at the heart of everything Wajda does,” Peter Bowker says.
The Hurt Locker
JONATHAN OLLEY
13. The Hurt Locker (2008, Prime Video)
In a sea of male directors, Kathryn Bigelow stands out with this gutsy movie about a three-man bomb disposal unit on the streets of Baghdad. Tense and stomach-churning, this is a world where even the smallest mistake means certain death. “The scenes as they defuse bombs are heart-in-mouth,” Christina Lamb says. “It has the most powerful moment I have ever watched in a war film — one that involves the cereal aisle of an American supermarket.”
The Bridge on the River Kwai
ALAMY
12. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Apple TV)
Few actors have been more suited to a starring role in a British war film than Alec Guinness. Partly because he could borrow from his service in the invasion of Sicily during the Second World War but also because he brought a stiff-lipped Britishness to any performance. He plays a commanding officer in David Lean’s epic about the cruel treatment of British PoWs in Japanese-occupied Burma. It’s gripping, flawlessly acted and ends with a bang. “This is in my top two war movies,” the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven says.
Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter
ALAMY
11. The Deer Hunter (1978, iPlayer/ITVX)
This gritty Vietnam War classic follows a group of American steelworkers from Pennsylvania, before and after their tour of duty. A heart-rending reminder of the war that split America, it stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep in her first big role. It is best remembered for a controversial scene in which the Viet Cong forces the captives to play Russian roulette. “The Deer Hunter brilliantly captures the fact that most American GIs had no passport. The Mekong Delta was their first experience of ‘abroad’,” Sebastian Faulks says.
Come and See
ALAMY
10. Come and See (1985, YouTube)
Elem Klimov’s Russian epic has become a test: “Are you brave enough to see it?” The year is 1943, Nazis are occupying Belarus and a boy joins the resistance. The results are unflinching — people are burnt alive in a barn. This is war as hell, and most war films feel like cartoons in comparison. “The frenzy of the sound and image, and the age in our young hero’s eyes, truly made me feel the unbearable stress the film-maker wanted me to feel,” Edward Berger says. “I don’t know any other movie so without compromise.”
Schindler’s List
REX
9. Schindler’s List (1993, Apple TV)
The mind still boggles at how, in the year Steven Spielberg released Jurassic Park, he also did this — the gruelling, definitive Holocaust movie, starring Liam Neeson as the German businessman who saved thousands of Jews. “I saw it in the cinema and was so moved,” says Emma Thomas, producer of Dunkirk and Oppenheimer. “Honestly, I felt disgusted. Most war movies deal with the immediacy of what it’s like to be a soldier, but this speaks to the appalling things that people do to other people. Sometimes war is an absolute necessity, if we’re to put a stop to such inhumane behaviour.”
Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia
ALAMY
8. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Netflix)
Almost every superlative has been applied to David Lean’s story of the maverick TE Lawrence, who united the Arab tribes in a guerrilla campaign against the Turks in the First World War. Peter O’Toole oozes charisma, the desert is sumptuously shot and the action scenes are on a scale that Hollywood has rarely matched. Putting aside Anthony Quinn’s fake Arab nose and Alec Guinness’s “blackface”, it is a masterpiece that stands up after six decades. “I love this film, it’s one of my favourites,” Paul Verhoeven says. (At 210 minutes, the film on Netflix has an old-fashioned “intermission” halfway through so you can make a cup of tea.)
Sean Connery in A Bridge Too Far
REX
7. A Bridge Too Far (1977, Sky Store)
Has a film ever had a better cast than Richard Attenborough’s Second World War blockbuster? Its roll call of 1970s A-listers includes, deep breath, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins and James Caan. All of which are on hand to recreate the disastrous Allied push for Arnhem in 1944. “Like the doomed operation it portrays, this film is bloated and flawed but worth it anyway. The parachute landing sequences are unmatched,” Al Murray says.
Woody Harrelson in The Thin Red Line
REX
6. The Thin Red Line (1998, Disney+)
Watch closely and you’ll spot George Clooney, John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, Adrien Brody and John Cusack. Released in the same year as Saving Private Ryan, which showed guts hanging out of soldiers and bodies strewn on beaches, Terrence Malick offered this penetrating study of the internal thoughts of troops at war in the Pacific. Do combat soldiers really sit about thinking like Kierkegaard? Who knows. But what a unique look at conflict this is.
Das Boot
ALAMY
5. Das Boot (1981, Sky Store)
Who would want to be a sailor trapped inside a German U-boat just 10ft wide and 150ft long? The director Wolfgang Petersen captures the boredom, tension and claustrophobic horror of that experience in this story of the war beneath the north Atlantic. It feels like a documentary and won six Oscar nominations — unheard of for a foreign film until All Quiet on the Western Front. “This is superb story-telling,” Max Hastings says, “lacking only the appalling stench 30m down to make it entirely credible.”
The Battle of Algiers
REX
4. The Battle of Algiers (1966, Prime Video)
The communist Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo’s extraordinary dramatisation of the bloody fight for Algerian independence was so realistically filmed that many viewers thought it was a documentary. It was not; it was a remarkable re-enactment that places the viewer at the heart of a conflict between Algerian fighters and French colonial occupiers between 1954 and 1962 with ordinary people trapped between “terrorists” and “torturers”. It uses black-and-white film in newsreel style, with thousands of Algerian extras, many of whom had lived through the real Battle of Algiers. “This is the best war film I have ever seen,” Sebastian Faulks says. “This type of film-making has frequently been imitated but never matched. It says a lot that is still shocking about terrorism and torture. A masterpiece in every way.”
The Dam Busters
REX
3. The Dam Busters (1955, Sky/Now)
A story of triumph against the odds, this film immortalised one of the most daring RAF missions. Directed by Michael Anderson and starring Michael Redgrave, it recreates the bouncing-bomb attack on dams in the Ruhr region in 1943. The jaunty Dam Busters March lives on as an unofficial anthem sung in football grounds whenever England plays Germany. The historian Max Hastings says this is “authentic British heroism portrayed by a cast that really believed in it all”. The comedian Al Murray adds: “It’s in black-and-white but don’t be fooled, this showed what it really took to beat Nazi Germany.”
Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan
ALAMY
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998, Prime Video)
Is there a better opening to a movie than the first 27 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s D-Day film? It’s a blood-and-guts recreation of troops landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy, with hand-held cameras that capture the raw terror of war. What follows is a spectacular rescue mission, led by Tom Hanks’s ranger, to save a missing soldier (Matt Damon). Searing, heartbreaking — and a tribute to those who gave their lives. The playwright Peter Bowker calls it “gripping from beginning to end”. The defence secretary Ben Wallace adds: “It shows the sheer violence of war and loneliness of command, and exposes the importance of communications to the home population in wartime.”
1. Apocalypse Now (1979, ITVX)
The maverick film-maker Francis Ford Coppola transformed Joseph Conrad’s colonial-era novel Heart of Darkness into a tale of revenge set in wartorn Vietnam and Cambodia. Originally intended as a documentary-drama, the production stories have become legendary in their own right — Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack, a distressed Coppola threatened to kill himself in the face of the financial chaos and Marlon Brando had a bust-up and almost came to blows with his co-star Dennis Hopper. Yet out of such disarray came a masterpiece — even though there are four versions (the first assembly, 289min; the cinema release, 153min; the director’s cut, 182min; and a redux cut, 202min). Cinephiles still argue over which is best, but Apocalypse Now is the benchmark by which all war films are judged. Edward Berger, the director of All Quiet on the Western Front, says: “At 18, this was the first film that I didn’t understand logically. I just felt it. I love this film so much for not trying to tell us a story, but for trying to capture the essence of war — it succeeds in depicting its illogical madness.”
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Waterloo 30?? They can get fucked.
Escape to Victory better than 2017. Fuck off. The Longest Day not making the list. Fuck off
The Lord of the Rings in there(nothing wrong with it in itself a great movie) a fantasy film, no Gettysburg or Tora Tora Tora just a shambles.
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A terrible list
Lord of the rings as a war film FFS
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Ice cold in Alex.
The wind that shakes the barley.
Could we call Casablanca a war movie?
LOTR can fro!! Great film but in a list of war movies, c’mon. When the meat sweats set in on the 27th December and I can’t move off the couch it’s The Longest Day and Tora Tora Tora that get me through it…
Inglorious bastards should be on the list
I don’t care for war films much but at least they got number 1 right.
Dr. Strangelove is great but I don’t know is it really a war film.
No 1 should be Patton
1 Like
Out last night. Going out tonight.
Ideal time to lie on the couch and watch Force10 From Navarone
2 Likes
That’s living.
1 Like