The Greatest War Films Ever Made

War is hell, one that subjects its fighters to countless horrors and a relentlessly brutal experience that leaves far too many of its participants with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health problems if they are lucky enough to survive at all. For the average person living in our post-draft world, war is something distant that they seldom have to think about and can’t possibly imagine the shocking details of. The closest thing they have is the cinema.

War films have been around since the early days of film, and WW2 was rife with countless films being made around the world about the war as it was happening, many of which were propaganda films to get people to support the war effort. Today war films are rarer, but every year or so there is one that hits the zeitgeist, and for most people such films are the best look into the intense and horrifying realities of combat. Read on for four of the greatest war films of all time which will put you right into the action.

Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg reinvented the war film with his 1998 masterpiece “Saving Private Ryan.” The entire film is a moving and enthralling experience, but if there is a standout, it is the opening sequence which depicts the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day. Never before has a war sequence been shown with such vivid brutality and immersion, and it was a shock to audiences.

Beyond the immediacy of the filmmaking, though, the film still had heart, led by an affecting performance from Tom Hanks. The story of American soldiers going behind enemy lines to inform a paratrooper that his brothers were killed in action keeps the audience engaged and invested through the war sequences. It is no surprise that the film won numerous Oscars and was a major global hit.

Full Metal Jacket

While “Saving Private Ryan” was the first film to truly show how brutal war is, Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” which came out around a decade before, was the first to show how brutal basic training can be. The latter parts of the film take place on the battlefield in Vietnam, and as intense as those scenes are, it is the training scenes that linger on most in our memories.

R. Lee Ermey plays the drill sergeant, and it would surprise nobody who saw the film that he actually was a drill sergeant in real life. Ermey’s performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is simultaneously hilarious, horrifying, and haunting as he puts the young recruits through the ringer. The film opened up many eyes to the abuses that can go on in the military, and how such experiences can shape the lives of the recruits.

Inglourious Basterds

Though it does not take place on the battlefield, the WW2 set “Inglourious Basterds” deserves a slot on the list of great war films. Despite playing with history and not being entirely true to real events, it still manages to be a detailed portrait of wartime Europe with the tensions and complexities of the time vividly portrayed. While many war movies are often disturbing or depressing, this Quentin Tarantino film stands out for how much fun it is, featuring colorful characters and a compelling plot.

The story of a squad of Jewish American soldiers tasked with hunting nazis and taking down Hitler makes for great material, and the performances from the likes of Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz are a total treat, as are the visuals and the music. The film became Tarantino’s biggest hit yet, and it was also a major success at the Oscars, being nominated in every major category.

Apocalypse Now

While World War II films are often focused on exciting missions that the allies undertook to save the world from fascism, Vietnam films have a less rah-rah approach as they show the confusion and disillusionment that many soldiers had with the war that they were not even sure why they were fighting. The Vietnam war inspired many great cinematic works, but the greatest of them all is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now.”

The film loosely adapts Joseph Conrad’s famous work “Heart of Darkness,” transplanting the tale of 19th-century European colonialism in Africa to 20th-century American imperialism in Southeast Asia. The film is epic in scale, with some of the most stunning visuals ever captured on film, and it delves deep into the troubled psychological impacts of the war. On top of that, the film has one of the most fascinating production journeys of any film, and the documentary about the film’s production shows that filmmaking, like war, can be hell.