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The 16 Greatest War Films of All Time

By YPB Team

Sweeping battlefield epics, intimate survival dramas, and unflinching anti-war statements span a century of conflict on screen. Which one hits hardest?

  1. All Quiet on the Western Front — ranked #11
    All Quiet on the Western Front
    Edward Berger's 2022 German adaptation of the classic WWI anti-war novel.
    1000pts
  2. Saving Private Ryan — ranked #22
    Saving Private Ryan
    Steven Spielberg's 1998 WWII epic opening with the harrowing D-Day landing at Omaha Beach.
    826pts
  3. Apocalypse Now — ranked #33
    Apocalypse Now
    Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 fever-dream journey up a river into the heart of the Vietnam War.
    587pts
  4. Platoon — ranked #44
    Platoon
    Oliver Stone's 1986 Oscar-winning Vietnam drama drawn from his own combat experience.
    503pts
  5. Letters from Iwo Jima — ranked #55
    Letters from Iwo Jima
    Clint Eastwood's 2006 WWII drama told from the perspective of Japanese defenders.
    503pts
  6. Come and See — ranked #66
    Come and See
    Elem Klimov's 1985 Soviet film following a boy through the Nazi occupation of Belarus.
    391pts
  7. Hacksaw Ridge — ranked #77
    Hacksaw Ridge
    Mel Gibson's 2016 film about a WWII medic who saved dozens without firing a shot.
    391pts
  8. Full Metal Jacket — ranked #88
    Full Metal Jacket
    Stanley Kubrick's 1987 two-act portrait of Marine boot camp and the battle of Hue.
    391pts
  9. Dunkirk — ranked #99
    Dunkirk
    Christopher Nolan's 2017 telling of the Allied evacuation across land, sea, and air.
    235pts
  10. The Deer Hunter — ranked #1010
    The Deer Hunter
    Michael Cimino's 1978 epic about steelworkers whose lives are shattered by Vietnam.
    235pts
  11. Paths of Glory — ranked #1111
    Paths of Glory
    Stanley Kubrick's 1957 WWI courtroom indictment of military command starring Kirk Douglas.
    1pts
  12. The Bridge on the River Kwai — ranked #1212
    The Bridge on the River Kwai
    David Lean's 1957 epic about British POWs forced to build a railway bridge in Burma.
    1pts
  13. 1917 — ranked #1313
    1917
    Sam Mendes' 2019 WWI thriller shot to look like a single continuous take.
    1pts
  14. The Thin Red Line — ranked #1414
    The Thin Red Line
    Terrence Malick's 1998 meditative WWII film set during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
    1pts
  15. Das Boot — ranked #1515
    Das Boot
    Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 claustrophobic chronicle of a German U-boat crew in WWII.
    1pts
  16. Black Hawk Down — ranked #1616
    Black Hawk Down
    Ridley Scott's 2001 dramatization of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.
    1pts

#movies639#war4#classics474

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Comments

Apocalypse Now and Platoon are long and verbal; the quietest entry runs 106 minutes with barely any dialogue and no battle to win: https://youpick.best/articles/christopher-nolan-ranked-many-ways https://youpick.best/articles/how-many-ways-to-rank-matt-damon

YP
ypb-team·Aug 21·
0/1000
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