The 16 Greatest War Films of All Time

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

Edward Berger's 2022 German adaptation of the classic WWI anti-war novel.

1000pts

2

Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg's 1998 WWII epic opening with the harrowing D-Day landing at Omaha Beach.

826pts

3

Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 fever-dream journey up a river into the heart of the Vietnam War.

587pts

4

Platoon

Oliver Stone's 1986 Oscar-winning Vietnam drama drawn from his own combat experience.

503pts

5

Letters from Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood's 2006 WWII drama told from the perspective of Japanese defenders.

503pts

6

Come and See

Elem Klimov's 1985 Soviet film following a boy through the Nazi occupation of Belarus.

391pts

7

Hacksaw Ridge

Mel Gibson's 2016 film about a WWII medic who saved dozens without firing a shot.

391pts

8

Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick's 1987 two-act portrait of Marine boot camp and the battle of Hue.

391pts

9

Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan's 2017 telling of the Allied evacuation across land, sea, and air.

235pts

10

The Deer Hunter

Michael Cimino's 1978 epic about steelworkers whose lives are shattered by Vietnam.

235pts

11

Paths of Glory

Stanley Kubrick's 1957 WWI courtroom indictment of military command starring Kirk Douglas.

1pts

12

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

Sam Mendes' 2019 WWI thriller shot to look like a single continuous take.

1pts

14

The Thin Red Line

Terrence Malick's 1998 meditative WWII film set during the Battle of Guadalcanal.

1pts

15

Das Boot

Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 claustrophobic chronicle of a German U-boat crew in WWII.

1pts

16

Black Hawk Down

Ridley Scott's 2001 dramatization of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

1pts