War and Anti-War Films
"War and Anti-War Films" often acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting or conflict (against nations or humankind) provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. Typical elements in the action-oriented war plots include POW camp experiences and escapes, submarine warfare, espionage, personal heroism, "war is hell" brutalities, air dogfights, tough trench/infantry experiences, or male-bonding buddy adventures during wartime. Themes explored in war films include combat, survivor and escape stories, tales of gallant sacrifice and struggle, studies of the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and intelligent and profound explorations of the moral and human issues.
Listed below are all the very best of this genre. Scroll yer heart out....
Red Angel (Blu-ray) (1966)
7.8/10
Starring: Ayako Wakao
During the Sino-Japanese War, a young army nurse gives sympathy to her patients and falls in love with an impotent doctor who's addicted to morphine. Read more
Coach To Vienna (Blu-ray) (1966)
Director: Karel Kachyna
Starring: Iva Janzurová
A WW2 story of a young Austrian soldier running from the Russian army and a woman whom he forces to come along in order to save his wounded mate. Read more
Air America (1990)
5.7/10
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr, Nancy Travis
Two pilots (Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr.) fly the unfriendly skies over Cambodia during the Vietnamese war. The Thai locations are beautiful, the... Read more
Lion Of The Desert (1981)
8/10
Director: Moustapha Akkad
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger
This epic movie gives an absorbing portrait of the 1929-31 war in the North African deserts of Libya when the Bedouin troops on horseback faced the ta... Read more
Reach for the Sky (1956)
7.3/10
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Starring: Kenneth More, Muriel Pavlow, Alexander Knox
A well told account of British pilot Douglas Bader (Kenneth More) who overcame the loss of both legs, to become one of the most remarkable fighter ace... Read more
All The King's Men (1999)
7.1/10
Director: Julian Jarrold
Starring: David Jason, Maggie Smith, Patrick Malahide
An all-star cast, including David Jason and Maggie Smith, portrays this most poignant and mysterious event of the first World War - the disappearance... Read more
Hornblower 3: The Duchess and the Devil (1999)
8.2/10
Director: Andrew Grieve
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Robert Lindsay, Cherie Lunghi, Christopher Fulford, Ronald Pickup
Epic in scale and full of action, adventure, suspense and romance, the Hornblower series is based on C S Forester's classic maritime adventures - the... Read more
The Wild Geese (1978)
6.8/10
Director: Andrew V McLaglen
Starring: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy Kruger, Stewart Granger
Their home is the battlefield. Their calling is war. Their only loyalty is to each other. They are the Wild Geese, fifty crack mercenary paratroops co... Read more
1915 (1982)
7.3/10
Starring: Scott McGregor, Scott Burgess, Sigrid Thornton, Jackie Woodbourne, Bill Hunter,...
Boyhood friends Walter and Billy have formed a pact - if one enlists in England's war so will the other. Split between the young men as they go off t... Read more
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
6.9/10
Director: Rene Clement
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Jean-Pierre Cassel, George Chak...
Star-heavy WWII epic set in the closing days of the Nazis' rule of Paris. The allied advance is almost upon the capital of France. The French Resistan... Read more