Twelve O'Clock High, Gregory Peck (Col Savage)and Dean Jagger (Maj Stovall)

Stovall being inquisitioned about stowing away on a mission:

Savage:  Did you hit anything up there, Harvey?
Stovall: Well sir, my glasses were frosted over, but I think I got a piece of one.

Savage:  Ours, or theirs?

Dean Jagger steals the show.  
Gregory Peck for president.

All Quiet on the Western Front, Bridge on the River Kwai, Dirty Dozen, Patton, Full Metal Jacket, Deer Hunter, Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Dirty Dozen, Great Escape & Stalag 17.

The Battle of the Bulge.  Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw. Great Film.  The guns of Navarone and The Great Escape are two other favorites.

Kelly's Heroes. Apocolypse Now. BraveHeart(you didn't specify 'Modern Wars'). 300.

I really like "We Were Soldiers".

When getting ready to go to Iraq in '05, our dipshit CPT tried to give the LTC Moore speech. He cracked up over that for the whole year.

Band of Brothers.

Several of 'em:

*Green Beret's
*Saving Private Ryan
*Black Hawk Down
*To Hell and Back
*Sands of Iwo Jima
*Midway
*Pearl Harbor
*D-Day
*Battle of the Buldge
*Dirty Dozen
*Kelly's Heros
*Force 10 From Navarone
*Where Eagles Dare
*The Guns of Navarone.
*yada yada yada

This thread is insensitive at best.  Thanks a lot!  Carry on, as I'm sure you will.  Yes, I'm overly sensitive.  My kid is an Afghanistan, lets not sensationalize war any more than it already is.

-- Modified on 2/10/2010 4:07:08 PM

..a movie, but a tv series...Hogan's Heroes!

gotta love Arnold fist fisting an alien, and Mac breaking the plastic razor against his skin. for pure silliness/entertainment value, i gotta go with Predator.

but for a serious film, with some measure of historical accuracy with a touch of hollywood shine, i have to go with "Glory."

All's Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Having been there I have not much taste for movies and such that glorify war. It is not a pretty thing at all. Nor glorious.

This book captures many aspects of the experience of war that are lost on modern civilian audiences....

but then again its not you that has a kid over there fighting.

Again, I know I am overly sensitive.  I dont expect any kind of restraint from you.

Great book.

Band of Brothers
We Were Soldiers
Platoon
Apocalypse Now
49th Parallel
The Children of Huang Shi

and that's not what this is about (well, maybe for some).

Before the 24 hour news cycle, we used to glorify war to garner support. Now we show it as reality TV.

I've been to Panama, the Balkans and the middle east. Many of these movies help to remind us of how horrible, pointless, necessary, hateful, well intentioned, "insert-your-adjective-here" war is.

It's the message, not necessarily the setting.

I understand your plight, and I cannot fathom how hard it must be to be a parent with a child in harms way. To me, that is all the more reason to remember how much war is a reflection of life and our values as humans.

We cannot celebrate and recognize what is great and good about us and at the same time ignore/deny what is the baser part of our nature.

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

Runner up:  Lawrence of Arabia.  (for the cinematography, mainly.)

On War, not as easy of a read as Team Yankee but good if you can get through it

Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars: with the Supplementary Books attributed to Hirtius

Best in the original tongue, but hey, I am a geek who has no life and I can mathematically prove that

Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

The greatest segue in movie history is when Harvey Stovall returns to Archbury after the wall and is walking on the now dormant tarmack and stops to remember and polish his glasses and it flashes back to 1942 as the grass starts blowing in the prop wash of a B-17.  

Other great War/Flying Flicks

Battle of Britain
The Blue Max
The Hunters
The Dawn Patrol
Strategic Air Command
Gettysburg
Gods and Generals
Waterloo (1971 w/Rod Steiger as Napoleon)

My .02

MVR

fought over there. My son once for 18 months and my son-in-law twice for a total of 2-1/2 years.

I never have liked war movies, not even the John Wayne ones...

My 10 favorites, continued, in order

12 O'Clock High
The Battle of Britain
The Enemy Below
Saving Private Ryan
We Were Solders
The Longest Day
The Guns of Navarone
Patton
Sahara
The Train

Especially in surround sound!  You can feel the rotor blades above your head as the bullets whiz by your ears.

Most everything else is little more than an advertisement to get youngsters used to the idea that war is somehow glamorous so they'll show up when some politician decides to fight.

and still not create jobs building the equipment!
I think it's all outsourced now!!!

As for my favorite war movie.....NONE!
Sorry...I just find them boring!  I take that back...I did like GI Joe!  Lots of great special effects, and not based on a real conflict where American kids were used as cannon fodder!

I will watch a war movie howver, if my other choices are a Western or a Chick Flick!