APOCALYPSE NOW: Best War Movie Ever Made

This classic by Francis Ford Coppola is inarguably the best war film ever put into celluloid. And definitely the best Vietnam War film. It has that quality which all good war flicks have: Timelessness. It was made decades ago but it appeals to the present generation as it did to the earlier generation.The...

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Best War Movies: 'LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA"

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMAClint Eastwood directs the untold story of Japanese soldiers defending their homeland against invading American forces during World War II. With little defense beyond sheer will and the terrain of Iwo Jima itself, the tactics of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe of The...

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Best War Films: "HURT LOCKER"

THE HURT LOCKERWar is a drug. Nobody knows that better than Staff Sergeant James, head of an elite squad of soldiers tasked with disarming bombs in the heat of combat. To do this nerve-shredding job, it’s not enough to be the best: you have to thrive in a zone where the margin of error is zero, think...

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Best War Films: BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI"

THE BRIDGE ON RIVER KWAIDirector David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that...

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Best War Films: "BRAVEHEART"

BRAVEHEART Mel Gibson fights for the independence of Scotland from English ruleA stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson.He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a...

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Best War Films: "GLORY"

GLORYOne of the very best films about the Civil War, this instant classic from 1989 is also one of the few films to depict the participation of African American soldiers in Civil War combat. Based in part on the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, the...

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Best War Films: "FULL METAL JACKET"

FULL METAL JACKETStanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made...

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Best War Films: 'SAVING PRIVATE RYAN'

SAVING PRIVATE RYANSteven Spielberg's new picture, one of his best, is a sandwich. The meat of the tale concerns a bunch of U.S. Army Rangers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), who are sent into Normandy to rescue Ryan (Matt Damon), the sole survivor of four brothers. On either side of this bold...

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Best War Films: 'ENEMY AT THE GATES'

ENEMY AT THE GATESLike Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of Stalingrad--re-created in epic scale, as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques...

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Best War Films: 'BLACK HAWK DOWN'

 BLACK HAWK DOWNRidley Scott's Black Hawk Down conveys the raw, chaotic urgency of ground-force battle in a worst-case scenario. With exacting detail, the film re-creates the American siege of the Somalian city of Mogadishu in October 1993, when a 45-minute mission turned into a 16-hour ordeal...

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Best War Films: DEFIANCE

DEFIANCEDaniel Craig (James Bond: Quantum of Solace) stars as Tuvia Bielski, an ordinary citizen turned hero, in this action-packed epic of family, honor, vengeance and salvation. Defiance is a riveting adventure that showcases the extraordinary true story of the Bielski brothers, simple farmers –outnumbered...

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Best War Movies: THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMASThe innocence of childhood savagely collides with the Holocaust in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) knows that his father is a soldier and that they have to move to a new house in the country... a house near what he thinks is a farm. But his father...

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Most Popular War Movies: SCHINDLER'S LIST

SCHINDLER'S LISTAlthough he will forever be identified with pop culture classics such as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg has never made a film greater than this searing drama about a Nazi industrialist who saved more than 1,000 Jews from certain...

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