From Gulf War heists to time traveling in Dresden to beer-swilling pilots, to haunted veterans...
The war film comes in many forms, with the venerable cinematic institution being as plentiful throughout screen history as real-life conflicts have unfortunately proven to be throughout human history.
Some are psychedelic re-imaginings of the horrors of war, some are sharp comedies designed to lampoon its folly, and some are straight-up horror movies, comedies, and even heist films which use the trappings of the war movie genre to liven up proceedings.
The diverse array of war films here listed here have little in common with one another, but one thing that binds them all like a veritable band of brothers is how regrettably underrated these war flicks are. With that in mind, here are fifteen great war movies that slipped past most viewers upon their initial release.
15. Tigerland
Directed by the late, great Joel Schumacher, 2003's critically acclaimed financial flop Tigerland is a testament to the misunderstood director's versatility.
Taking a leaf from Stanley Kubrick's more insular and merciless Full Metal Jacket, this intense flick may technically be considered a Vietnam film but it's one which never leaves the US training camp where soldiers were prepared (read: desensitized) for the forthcoming slaughter.
A young Colin Farrell is superb as the heroic conscientious objector who makes it his mission to save his fellow privates from actually shipping out, and the film makes for one of Schumacher's most underrated cinematic outings in its harrowing story of a training camp which becomes hell on earth for our heroes.
14. Come and See
Released in 1985, director Elem Klimlov’s brutally disturbing and often surreal nightmare Come and See depicts the Nazi destruction of Belarus in deeply upsetting terms, utilising elements of both strict realism and magical realist interludes to illustrate the unimaginable horrors endured by civilians caught up in the conflict.
The viewer bears witness to the city's wholesale destruction through the eyes of an innocent corrupted by his experience, and even decades audiences will still be left as traumatised by this brutal cinematic onslaught.
The film uses strange imagery and staggeringly impressive production design to realize an immersive warzone which leaves the viewer with nowhere to hide and no choice but to, well, follow the title's ironic instruction.
13. War Inc
Released in 2008 and barely seen outside of the indie festival circuit, War Inc would be as beloved a cult curio as the likes of Grosse Point Blank and Hot Tub Time Machine in a more just world.
Not unlike the widely derided Southland Tales, this daring, John Cusack-starring war on terror satire deserved a far better reception for its bitter and bracing wit than it received. Yes, the story of an amoral arms dealer deciding to grow a soul and rebel against his corporate employers at the worst possible moment had been territory already traveled by the earlier Lord of War.
But technically Cusack's character is an assassin, not a gun runner. Besides, that satire didn't have a playing against type Hilary Duff as an amoral pop princess, did it?
12. Cross of Iron
Bloody and brutal, Cross of Iron was The Wild Bunch director Sam Peckinpah’s uncompromising addition to the war film genre, and boy did the infamously bleak director pull no punches here.
If The Magnificent Seven's gung-ho nationalist metaphor was decimated by The Wild Bunch's Vietnam allegory showing Americans as amoral opportunists killing and dying with no moral code, Cross of Iron was a necessary corrective to The Dirty Dozen's glamorisation of WWII heroism.
Where that flick depicted US soldiers as loveable roughnecks, willing to play dirty but ultimately well-meaning, Peckinpah's grim and unrelenting WWII drama is free from any romantic ideals of heroism or even basic human decency. So a realistic war film, then.
11. Buffalo Soldiers
Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix finally got the recognition he has long deserved earlier this year for his superb performance in Todd Philip's controversial comic book blockbuster Joker.
However the star had been excelling for decades before this, as evidenced by his note perfect starring role in 2001's blackly comic war film Buffalo Soldiers.
Phoenix plays a charming, amoral heroin smuggling soldier stationed in West Germany in Ned Kelly director Gregor Jordan’s criminally underrated savage anti-war satire. Although this flick may have suffered thanks to being released in the immediate, deeply reactionary aftermath of 9/11, it's well worth a revisit as a sharp satirical indictment of military adventurism.
10. Ice-Cold In Alex
Slow but nonetheless tense, 1958's Ice Cold in Alex is a British war thriller which boasts the best performance form veteran actor John Mills of Swiss Family Robinson fame.
Once more playing a castaway, though this time in far less funny straits, in this desert set thriller Mills is a beleaguered pilot attempting to corral together a crew of mismatched nurses and soldiers to escape the desert and finally enjoy his long-awaited ice-cold beer.
Surprisingly slow for a thriller, this one works up serious tension during its runtime until, like the later Wages of Fear, the viewer is left wishing everyone involved could make it out alive and enjoy one more cold one.
9. Jacob’s Ladder
Directed by Fatal Attraction helmer/ genre film legend Adrian Lyne, 1990's Jacob's Ladder is a unique and surreal Vietnam drama which more than makes up for the director's later, a deeply misguided update of Nabokov's Lolita. The Shawshank Redemption's Tim Robbins stars, inappropriately shaggy and disheveled form, as a brutalized, mentally shattered veteran who is haunted by flashes of terrifying demonic hospitals and faceless orderlies in this chilling and disturbing flick.
A big influence on the likes of the Silent Hill franchise, this is a Vietnam war flick which (spoilers!) never leaves the war zone in its nightmarish runtime, and is incredibly effective in portraying the existential horrors of war.
8. Stripes
Helmed by comedy legend Ivan Reitman, the 1980's Stripes took the "likable goofballs versus fuddy-duddy institutions" format of everything from Porky's to Animal House and remixed the formula so that said institution was the US military.
This goofy eighties comedy from Harold Ramis and Bill Murray saw the pair enlist in the military and set the blueprint for Ghostbusters a few years later, as the conceit is used as an excuse for all manner of silly comic set pieces and madcap shenanigans.
Less tightly scripted than the likes of Caddyshack, this anarchic comedy is nonetheless an underrated eighties war movie which takes itself lightly enough to move at a clip and is free from Private Benjamin's draggy third act diversions.
7. Slaughterhouse 5
Based on Breakfast of Champions author Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece of the same name, the bombing campaign in Dresden is the subject 1970's Slaughterhouse 5.
Only that's not quite true, as this trippy seventies “war film meets sci-fi satire” genre blender sees its protagonist Billy Pilgrim become unstuck in time and travel freely between periods of his lifetime. As a result, the viewer spends as much time deliberating over his chaotic love life and his interactions with a race of aliens building a human zoo as they do dwelling on the wartime atrocities he bore witness to.
Surprisingly, this approach makes the film's satirical wit all the more effective, as the conflict itself takes a backseat in this war film wherein bombs are merely a tragic fact of human existence. So it goes.
6. Catch-22
Another entry and another seventies adaptation of an infamously cynical but famously effective piece of anti-war literary satire.
This time it's Joseph Heller’s iconic novel Catch 22, which got a superb film adaptation well before George Clooney’s more recent miniseries reimagined its story.
Released around the same time as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H and almost ignored, as a result, this more unsparingly dark war comedy sees its hero faced with the absurdity of war and left with no choice but to laugh at its inanity. Almost as demented as Dr. Strangelove, but somehow even bleaker, this razor-sharp satire remains regrettably relevant to this day.
5. Hacksaw Ridge
Released in 2016 and marking a return to form for the director of The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s devastating and deeply moving anti-violence parable Hacksaw Ridge is a gripping true story and essential viewing for any war film fan.
The movie received a muted reception upon release, but the poignant and uplifting story of conscientious objector Desmond Doss deserved far broader acclaim.
Played to perfection by Andrew Garfield, Doss is portrayed as an ordinary man of extraordinary moral resolve and despite his heroism in saving the lives of over a hundred soldiers without ever carrying a weapon, it's his relatability which shines through in this triumphant piece of cinema.
4. The Keep
Directed by the helmer of Heat, of all people, The Keep is a singular war film, to say the least.
A haunted and haunting fairy tale set during WWII, the film follows a doomed set of German soldiers attempting to ransack a village only to be besieged by some sort of spectral monster.
Colourfully realized and boasting a beautiful score from the eighties dream-pop icons Tangerine Dream, this Gabriel Byrne vehicle is a strange, unsettling iteration of the war film genre.
Here the protagonists aren't heroes, the threat isn't coming from another army, and nothing is quite as it seems as Michael Mann brings his signature style and stunning visuals to this unmissable slice of WWII horror.
3. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Set during Ireland's War of Independence, social realist icon/ Kes helmer Ken Loach’s brutal drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a devastating and vital piece of war tragedy. Following the fortunes of a pair of brothers played by Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney who resist the violent, amoral occupation of Ireland by British thugs, this Palme d'Or winner never flinches away from depicting the horrific crimes committed by British forces in the name of imperial rule in Ireland.
A sobering and incendiary reminder of the country's troubling history of occupation and destruction, this stirring depiction of the Irish fight for freedom and self-determination is a moving testament to the power of cinema.
2. The Bridge At Remagen
Starring a who's who of sixties American cinema including the likes of Ben Gazzara, Robert Vaugh, and George Segal, The Bridge at Remagen is a consistently underrated WWII war drama which deserves a place in the pantheon alongside the likes of Bridge On the River Kwai and The Longest Day.
A fictionalised account of the Allies' final advance into Germany in the closing days of the years-long war, the film follows the fortunes of a group of soldiers tasked with capturing the eponymous bridge.
A vital supply line, the bridge comes to signify Nazi rule and it's up to a small, scrappy band to take the nation's power down in this thrilling drama.
1. Three Kings
Released in 1999, nowadays Three Kings is best remembered as "that film where George Clooney and David O. Russell got in a fistfight onset".
It's a shame too since the film is also an early vehicle for the acting talents of Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg, as well as a blackly comic heist thriller which doubles as a vicious satirical indictment of the Gulf war.
Here a trio of amoral soldiers uses the cover of the invasion as an excuse to loot gold, a potent metaphor for the war's thinly veiled motivation as an oil-rich land grab. The stylish flick is witty, darkly funny, and propulsive, making this one an unmissable addition to the underrated war film canon.
(Source: https://whatculture.com/film/15-great-war-movies-nobody-ever-talks-about?page=1)
