My movie review partner Benn Farrell and I have dedicated the month of May to those brave souls who have fought and died for the country and continue to serve it in the US Military. I was born into a military family. My father was in the US Air Force from the 1960’s to the early 1970’s. He also served in the civil service from 1982 until he retired 20 years later. Because of that I got to travel from Texas to Colorado to Washington and back to Colorado again. My grandfather on my dad’s side was a doctor and won the Bronze Star in World War II. He was a Battalion Aide Station doctor who was forced to go into the field to drag wounded soldiers back to the station because his medics were all wounded. The soldiers he saved were all close to a German machine gun nest. He was in the Italian campaign but I never found out the specifics. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a soldier in World War I in France but I never knew what he did and where he fought. I myself thought several times about joining the military but I was able to play football and have it pay for college. I did try to enter the Air Force Academy but failed. I soon washed out of football and college and I regret not joining the military at that time even though I was overweight it would have done me a world of good.
Back to the top five list I approached this as war movies that I love. For me it was important for the movies to show realism in the film. Not necessary the bloody violence of what war can do to the human body but realism in terms of military formations, accurate planes, ships, tanks, Calvary charges…etc. While the story and characters can be fictionalized I would like to see the events as accurate as possible. For example Saving Private Ryan is a fictional story about saving Private Ryan but the events surrounding their adventures are in real historical events like the D-Day Invasion and the things that happened on Omaha Beach. However the movie Inglorious Basterds is fictional characters surrounded by fictional events in a very Tarantino way so that movie will not be included in this list. This is due to my love of history and in particular military history. I would love to be a professor in Military History. Alas I have to make money so I am not. Anyway, here is a list of my Top 5 Favorite United States Armed Forces Movies. This was a very difficult list to make and I hope you like it. For Benn’s list go here.
No. 5 – Fury (2014)
This movie was a joy to watch for me and I wasn’t expecting it. I wanted to see this at the movie theater but it slipped out of theaters before I could see it. When I finally got it to rent I loved everything I saw. The atmosphere of this film was dark and dirty. The battle scenes were hardcore, probably the bloodiest since Saving Private Ryan. The story revolves around a US Tank crew four of which have been together for 3 years who are breaking in a new gunner who was never trained in a tank. The opening ten minutes is wonderful in that it shows the horrors of what one man has to do to another when fighting a war. Then right after that it shows the man breaking down, falling to one knee, in order to try and come to grips with what he just did to that enemy soldier he killed. My favorite line in the movie comes from when Wardaddy, played by Brad Pitt, is showing Norman, played by Logan Lerman, a room full of Nazi party people who all committed suicide before they were capture by the US Army. Norman up to that point had a hard time coming to grips with killing the enemy and having a naïve view of it and when Norman asks Wardaddy why he is showing him this room Wardaddy respond, “Ideas are peaceful, history is violent.” I would love to post this saying on every anti-war rally in the world. Like I said the action is very good and very real. Although I am not aware of a tank unit doing what they did so the battles were fictitious in nature but do not detract from my enjoyment of the movie. I have lots to say about the film and you can find what I like in my review which you can find here.
No. 4 – Gettysburg (1993)
This movie isn’t for everyone and I know that. The original release was over 3 hours long and the Blu-ray version is about 4 and half hours long. But for me this is a visual feast for the military historian in me. The production is utterly wonderful to see and for me it’s all about the attention to detail. Of course the producers were smart because they hired hundreds and hundreds of Civil War reenactors to recreate the battles in the film. Because of this the movie is great in showing exactly how battles were fought during this time in history. There was no blood shed like in Fury and Saving Private Ryan but the deaths seemed real and the hospital scene after the battle on Little Round Top was quite convincing. The movie was from the Confederacy’s point of view for the most part and that alone is interesting because how often do we get the losers side of a story. As I said in my review for the movie which you can find here, the battles are portrayed quite accurately in terms of the close contact the opposing sides had at each other during battles.
In case you can’t tell what this movie is about by the title, Gettysburg is about the Battle of Gettysburg fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania July 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July 1863 during the American Civil War. The result of the battle was that the Union won its first major battle against the Confederate Army and while it took 2 more years for the war to end the battle started the shift towards ultimate victory for the Union. After the battle one of the most famous speeches in American History, The Gettysburg Address, was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln.
I am a fan of the film because it ignored the urge to Hollywood up this film by adding the need to attract a female audience with a non-existent love story, like the movie Pearl Harbor, the producers wanted to stick true to the source material and present the battle as accurate as possible and that is why it’s on my Top 5 list.
No. 3 – Tora, Tora, Tora (1970)
I love this movie for many of the same reasons I love Gettysburg and the reason why I am not a fan of Pearl Harbor. This is the movie I wanted Pearl Harbor to be but with up to date special effects. Tora, Tora, Tora is again a relatively accurate portrayal of the political events that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 and that forced the United States into World War II. This movie was told from both sides of the battle but I would guess from the American interpretation of the historical events. The movie took the time to not only discuss the reasons for the Japanese choosing this option and the intelligence equipment that was used to crack the code. Also the movie showed the ordeal and the mistakes made by the U.S. Pacific commanders made about deploying their forces and the failure of command in Washington D.C. in keeping the Pacific commanders in the loop of current intelligence. This was probably the biggest reason for the success of the attack. At any rate the movie takes the time to show all of this and it makes the historical nerd in me quite happy.
The attack itself was great to watch and much more realistic, I am sorry to say, than the movie Pearl Harbor. The attack had the proper kind of planes on the ground and in the air and quite possibly the biggest difference is that in Tora, Tora, Tora, the US response during the attack was accurately shown, which was about nothing. We did manage to get two P-40’s in the air and they shot down a few planes before they themselves were shot down. They did survive the battle but they didn’t do what the Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett’s character did in Pearl Harbor. Plus Tora, Tora, Tora ended on a down note with an upbeat quote from the Japanese Admiral who planned the attack and not with the stars of the movie taking part in the Doolittle Raid.
The reason why this movie is higher on the list than Gettysburg is because Gettysburg down time between the battles had a lot of character development, necessary mind you, but it slowed the story down a little too much. To see my full review of Tora, Tora, Tora, click here.
No. 2 – Patton (1970)
This is the second best war movie for me even though it breaks a few rules that I have established above. The battle scenes especially in Africa were a little too fake for me in that I saw way to many soldiers getting shot and then dropping to their knees, dropping their weapons, spinning around and then falling down dead. I am also not too sure the battles happened the way they were portrayed in the film. The battles themselves were good to watch but the movie itself was dated in terms of similarities between this film and other war movies of the era.
The reason why this movie is on this list is that I believe the portrayal of General Patton by actor George C. Scott is one of the best performances you will ever see. He won an Academy Award for this portrayal of the controversial General. The movie is about General George Patton from his time taking over the 7th Army in North Africa and Sicily. Then it shows how he loses command over an incident where he slapped a private for being afraid to go back into battle. On the verge of losing his job and being sent home, he is given a second chance and is given command of another army and goes on to great achievement and glory on the battlefield including commanding his forces to break through the German lines during the Battle of the Bulge in Christmas 1944. The German military command considered him the greatest general for the allies.
As I said, the portrayal was one of a kind. He was able to bring the character to life in such a way I have a hard time of not seeing George C Scott’s face whenever I see a picture of Patton. Those who knew Patton say that his voice was nowhere near like Scott’s voice but the mannerisms were somewhat similar. Plus a bonus for me was that in high school I had a history teacher named Mr. Smith, can’t remember his first name, who served under Patton. He told me the story of when he was with Patton as his unit crossed the Rhine River and Patton stopped and got out of his jeep and relieved himself into the Rhine River. That’s the kind of man he was and that is what made him a great general…he had no F’s to give. You can read my review of Patton here.
No. 1 – Saving Private Ryan (1998)
This movie had me in the first 30 minutes in the film. I have jumped a lot in my days at horror movies but I have never been generally scared at any sitting of any film. That all changed when I saw Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene and the attack on Omaha Beach. I had never seen anything like that before in any movie. The movie theater felt like a battle zone and it almost felt like the bullets were zooming past you. I remember seeing some older gentleman in the movie theater, normally way too old to see a movie like that, and I heard them talking about it after words. I went up to them and asked if they were veterans and they said they were and I asked if that first scene was close to the real thing. They told me no, not at all. But it was the best portrayal a movie has ever shown.
This movie is an example of the kind of courage you need in battle. More than 2000 men died on Omaha beach that day and even though other movies tried to give an example of what it was like, The Longest Day for example, this movie put you there and while I have always respected the men who fought for our country this movie only deepened it. I will never know if I have the kind of courage the men and women have in today’s military have to have in order to the jobs they do in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. I would like to think I would have the training and the will power. But I will never know.
Saving Private Ryan is a movie about a group of Rangers that are looking for a soldier with the 101st Airborne named Private Ryan who jumped into France the night before the D-Day invasion which was June 6, 1944. The group was sent to find the soldier because the soldier had three brothers all of whom had died in on various battlefields, including D-Day itself. Ryan was getting an honorable discharge from the military because of the loss of his brothers. The Rangers job was to go and find this “needle in a haystack.”
The movie is an ensemble cast of pure brilliance. The movie cast was led by Tom Hanks and had Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Tom Sizemore, Paul Giamatti, Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis Farina and a host of others. The movie was directed by Stephen Spielberg and I feel that this is his second best movie next to another movie about World War II, Schindler’s List. It seemed to me that everyone was perfectly cast especially Hanks as the Captain of the Rangers and Sizemore as his Sargent. They made the downtime between battles meaningful and the movie seem quick. In fact the movie was way to fast and I wished it would have kept going to see the survivors continue on in the war.
This war movie is the movie that all other war movies get compared to from the past and the future. I will always grade any future movie I witness against this film in terms of action, character development, and truth to the history, and authenticity. This film is a true film that I believe gives justice to all those who have served past and present. My full review can be seen here.
Honorable Mentions –
I have more than my five standard honorable mention list so I won’t say as much as I should but just explain briefly as to why I like the film.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Until the movie Fury came out, I would have argued that this was the best war movie since Saving Private Ryan. I liked the realism of the film and the battle scenes were quite amazing. The movie had an ensemble cast and they all were very good in it. The movie is about the events that surround the U.S. Marines and Special Forces attempt to capture a warlord in the city of Mogadishu, Somalia. At the beginning of the fight two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and the marines were in a fire fight to try and save the guys in the helicopters and themselves until help could arrive. The reason why this movie didn’t make my top five is probably my favoritism of my study of World War II and how amazing I thought Fury was as a film. This film is right up there.
Glory (1989)
Until Gettysburg came along this little film was in my eyes the best film about the American Civil War. It showed the violence of technology that Gettysburg didn’t really show and had the same authenticity that Gettysburg had in portraying actual battle. The reason why I like Gettysburg more for this category is that Glory talks about a specific unit in the war and the prejudices an all African American regiment had to overcome even though they were fighting with men who were supposedly trying to set them free. In terms of how the movies are overall, I believe that Glory is the better movie. Denzel Washington received an Academy Award for his role as a former runaway slave who decided to join the fight against those who once owned him. This is a great movie and there is nothing wrong with it but didn’t make it on pure semantics that are my own.
We Were Soldiers (2002)
This is only one of two Vietnam War movies on my list and I am somewhat conflicted because of the men who fought in that War probably had put up with more coming home than any American Soldier had in history. Through no fault of their own they came home losers of a war. The politics of the country had gone to hell by the time these men made it back so they weren’t looked at favorably and neither was the government. I don’t like most war movies about Vietnam because there is always an opinion by the director or writer that makes some American the bad guy. We Were Soldiers does not do that. This gives an honest look at the first battle between US forces and the North Vietnamese Army which was a victory for the US. Which happened a lot over the course of the war but in general people don’t know that but that is the politics again. If you haven’t seen this film but have seen others like Platoon I would think you should take a look at this to see another side of the war.
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
This film is about a failed attempt to end World War II before Christmas 1944. It involved at the time the largest paratrooper drop in history where U.S. and British paratroopers were dropped in three towns in The Netherlands that were occupied by the German Army and secure the bridges so the British 2nd Army can capture the three towns and provide a point of attack into Northern Germany. The attack did not succeed and a lot of troops, particularly British troops, were killed and wounded. The reason why I like this film is that it is made in much the same what as the other large ensemble cast movies had been made up to this point. The battle scenes were good and it goes without saying that these men were heroic. The reason why it doesn’t make my top five is because the ones I have on the list are better films and even though American forces did participate in this operation it was largely a British Operation with British soldiers. My review of this film is here.
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
All those things I said about Vietnam movies that weren’t like We Were Soldiers can be represented in this film. I am a fan of it because I believe it gives a fair portrayal of both the good and the bad parts of the war. There was heroism and honor in the fighting but there was also the thing that made the war the least appealing of all the wars the US has fought in. It also is really the only Stanley Kubrick film I like. While this movie is good it never would have made my list of Top 5 but it is good enough to see if you haven’t. The movie follows a select few men who go through basic training in the Army and then sent over to Vietnam towards the end of the war. The movie deals mostly with the basic training of the men being sent over and some of the negative effects that training come have. The movie does show some stuff in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive that turned the tide of the war against in opinion at home. What people don’t know is that after the initial losses sustain by the Americans and South Vietnamese forces the U.S. regained what it had lost and destroyed the Viet Cong to a point it wasn’t a fighting force for the next few years. This movie shows some of those battles. It’s a good movie but too negative for me.
Lone Survivor (2013)
This is my only film entry of the current wars the U.S. have been in since the 9/11 attacks. Mostly because since most of Hollywood has been against the wars from the beginning, even after 9/11, I don’t believe you get an honest portrayal of them. This movie and American Sniper are the exceptions. I have this movie on the list because it deals with more of an actual battle then American Sniper does even though that film has some intense stuff and does show the affects those battles have on the soldier which is important. I chose Lone Survivor because of the story around a group of men and what happened to them and what they overcame. The movie is about a group of men who are sent to kill or capture a high ranking Taliban leader in the mountains of Afghanistan. Once there they realize that the troops surrounding the leader are much larger than they were originally told and have to leave. Before they do so they run into a patrol and they have to fight it out. The men are forced into a bad position and all but one are killed. The movie does a great job of showing the trials of this new area of modern warfare and showed what happened to these men. It is a good movie to see if you haven’t.
This is my list that I consider the best movies about the US Army in battle. I know there are more things involved other than fighting but I wanted to honor the brave people who join the military and make sure and point out the things they have to endure during the battles.
The official BBMC Blog for Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts 