To my mind, what makes a good war movie aside from the standard stuff that makes any movie good are two things: technical realism and a distinct lack of that American-style Hollywood bravado crap. A war movie without either of these disrespects the dead, because it is those who died, more than any other people who would want war shown as it really is: ordinary people like you and me on both sides thrust into extraordinary circumstances and forced to fight for their very lives. Most of us will never understand the term ‘fight for your life’ in a visceral way, but I think everyone needs to try if we ever hope to eradicate warfare.
If I say to someone that I enjoy watching war movies, I am typically branded as someone who enjoys action and gore. I would like to dispel that notion as completely misguided. I don’t watch war movies to revel in gore. I watch them to remind myself of the true misery and suffering that war is. I think too many people do not have an appreciation of this, and more people should. They see a statistic concerning the number of dead after a battle and it doesn’t occur to them that very few of those dead would have been killed instantly. More often than not they suffered an eternity of agony and fear, pathetically crying out to their mother, father, wife, husband, sister, brother, child an impossible three thousand miles away before finally, mercifully perishing. I feel that watching ‘good’ war movies helps to remember the unfortunate people I will never know that were crushed in the machinery of war. It’s my way of honouring their memory and, ironically, reinforcing in my mind the need for tolerance and peace everywhere. So, with the unabashed intention of promoting that purpose I enthusiastically recommend the following movies:
- Das Boot
- Gallipoli
- Band of Brothers
- We Were Soldiers
- Saving Private Ryan
- The Thin Red Line
- Schindler’s List
- The Pianist (added Aug. 5, 2003)
- Apocalypse Now
I vacillated over including Apocalypse Now in this list because it’s not really a war movie in the sense that the others are. It’s more of a psychological thriller that takes place within the context of the Vietnam war. But still, in this movie there are glimpses of the nature of war in terms of the confusion and degradation that it promotes. Similarly Schindler’s List is not a combat war movie, but it takes an unflinching look at the civilian hardships brought on by war, in this case the incarceration and forced labour of the Jews during World War II. Plus it’s a true story.
Do you have any that you’d recommend? I’d love to know what they are, because I’m always on the lookout for more. With the preponderance of war movies out there, you’d think that there would be more worth watching. Alas, Hollywood has been more interested in rah-rah “we’re great” Americanism in past years than of representing the truth. Here’s to hoping that the future of war movies tends more toward Saving Private Ryan than The Dirty Dozen.