Almost every great war film argues with the genre as a precondition for working inside it. The films that hold up over time aren't the ones that depict combat most accurately — though that helps — they're the ones that complicate the moral content the audience expects.
Our picks across a century of war cinema.
The picks
- Saving Private Ryan (1998) — Spielberg. The Omaha Beach landing rewrote what war could look like onscreen.
- Apocalypse Now (1979) — Coppola. Vietnam. The production was itself a small war.
- Paths of Glory (1957) — Kubrick. WWI court-martial. Banned in France for eighteen years for the unsentimental view of the French general staff.
- Full Metal Jacket (1987) — Kubrick again. Parris Island, then Hue. The Parris Island half is among the best opening hours in 1980s cinema.
- 1917 (2019) — Sam Mendes. WWI as a single-take film. Deakins's cinematography is the best argument for the gimmick.
- Come and See (1985) — Elem Klimov. Belarusian-set WWII film. One of the most harrowing films ever made; almost no one rewatches it.
- The Thin Red Line (1998) — Terrence Malick's Pacific-theatre poem. Released in the same year as Saving Private Ryan and forever compared against it.
- Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) — Clint Eastwood. The Japanese-perspective film paired with Flags of Our Fathers.
- The Hurt Locker (2008) — Kathryn Bigelow. Iraq bomb-disposal procedural. First Best Picture winner directed by a woman.
- Das Boot (1981) — Wolfgang Petersen. German U-boat submarine drama. The director's cut runs nearly three and a half hours and uses every minute.