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Saturday, March 14, 2015

101 War Films I Must See Before I Die

War. War never changes. War. Huh. What is it good for? What if they held a war and nobody came? What if you watched 101 war movies described by Steven Jay Schneider as those you must see before you die? Well, I suppose if you did that, you could claim to have seen at least 101 war movies, many of them pretty solid entertainment, some of them, perhaps, important enough to nudge the world toward peace - or more war.

Here are 101 war films on Schneider's list; the films I've seen so far are highlighted in bold text.

The Birth of a Nation
The Battle of the Somme
The Big Parade
The General
Napoleon
Wings
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Grand Illusion
The Great Dictator
Buck Privates
Sergeant York
49th Parallel
To Be or Not to Be
Mrs. Miniver
In Which We Serve
Went the Day Well?
Rome, Open City
A Matter of Life and Death
Sands of Iwo Jima
The Red Badge of Courage
The Cruel Sea
Stalag 17
From Here to Eternity
The Dam Busters
Hill 24 Doesn't Answer
Throne of Blood
Kanal
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Cranes Are Flying
Paths of Glory
Ice Cold in Alex
Ashes and Diamonds
Ballad of a Soldier
Two Women
The Guns of Navarone
Ivan's Childhood
The Longest Day
Lawrence of Arabia
The Great Escape
Zulu
Dr. Strangelove
The Shop on Main Street
The Battle of Algiers
Closely Watched Trains
The Dirty Dozen
Where Eagles Dare
Hell in the Pacific
Oh! What a Lovely War
Army of Shadows
Battle of Britain
MASH
Patton
Catch-22
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Lacombe Lucien
The Eagle Has Landed
Cross of Iron
A Bridge Too Far
The Deer Hunter
Apocalypse Now
The Big Red One
Gallipoli
Das Boot
The Killing Fields
Ran
Come and See
Salvador
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
Hope and Glory
Empire of the Sun
Good Morning, Vietnam
Grave of the Fireflies
Glory
Europa, Europa
The Last of the Mohicans
Stalingrad
Schindler's List
Land and Freedom
Welcome to Sarajevo
Regeneration
Life is Beautiful
Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line
Three Kings
Ride with the Devil
Divided We Fall
Devils on the Doorstep
Dark Blue World
No Man's Land
Enigma
Black Hawk Down
The Pianist
Master and Commander
Brotherhood
Downfall
Hotel Rwanda
Merry Christmas
Black Book
The Counterfeiters

That's 38 out of 101, less than half of those recommended by the 1,001 folks, but still a pretty fair representation of the genre; I would wager that I'll have far fewer "You've never seen..?" comments than my previous posts. Grand Illusion, Downfall, Master and Commander, All Quiet on the Western Front, Sands of Iwo Jima and 49th Parallel are the war films I'm most interested in seeing next; a few of them are waiting on my movie shelves.


2 comments:

Jeff Shyluk said...

OK, I'll bite: you've never seen "Three Kings?". I'd say it's the best war movie ever made. Great acting, script, cinematography, soundtrack. Horror, humour, satire, defiance, action, truth, even the out-takes deserve awards.

Jeff Shyluk said...

Also: very surprised that Letters From Iwo Jima isn't on that list. I doubt that you could watch Downfall without watching Letters From Iwo Jima.