Paste's 100 Greatest War Movies
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War. What is it good for? Well, if nothing else, then a tidy template for cinema: conflict, clear protagonists and antagonists, heightened emotions, and a generally unpredictable, lawless atmosphere which—as per the western—has since the dawn of cinema offered an elastic dramatic environment in which filmmakers can explore men at both their best and worst. And make no mistake, the war movie is almost always about men.
It’s the most masculine of genres, the fact that armies have throughout history often been almost exclusively male seeing to it that men almost always dominate these things. It’s a genre that emphasizes action and existential angst. It’s also a malleable genre, and one that could broadly include all manner of films that we ultimately ruled out of the running in this list.
With this top 100, we’ve made the decision to include only movies whose wars are based on historical conflicts, so none of the likes of Edge of Tomorrow or Starship Troopers. We’ve picked films that deal with soldiers, soldiering and warfare directly, meaning wartime movies set primarily away from conflict, often told largely or exclusively from the civilian perspective—a category which includes such classics as The Cranes Are Flying and Hope & Glory, Grave of the Fireflies and Forbidden Games—didn’t make the cut. Post-war dramas, like Ashes and Diamonds and Germany, Year Zero, as well as films that go to war for only a fraction of the running time, such as From Here to Eternity and Born on the Fourth of July, were also excluded.
Some tough choices were made on what actually constituted a “war movie.” Resistance dramas feature in this list, but Casablanca doesn’t appear. Likewise Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped and Sidney Lumet’s The Hill. It was decided ultimately that the war was too much a peripheral element in these films. On the other hand, while both western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and biopic The Imitation Game feature war prominently, they, like Casablanca (a romance with noir and thriller elements) plus A Man Escaped and The Hill (both prison movies), belong more obviously to other genres. We’ve also decided not to include movies which focus on the Holocaust here; those are set to appear in another feature entirely.
Regarding the films that do feature here: our 100 hail from all over the world. These films were released as recently as last year and as far back as 1930. They range from comical to harrowing, action-packed to quietly introspective, proudly gung-ho to deeply anti-war. They are a diverse set of movies; they are also worthy of being called the 100 greatest war movies ever made.
Published May 2017
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16 new
All Quiet on the Western Front
1930, in 19 top lists Check -
9 new
La grande illusion
1937 — a.k.a. The Grand Illusion, in 30 top lists Check -
66 new
Sergeant York
1941, in 7 top lists Check -
67 new
Air Force
1943, in 2 top lists Check -
5 new
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
1943, in 16 top lists Check -
81 new
They Were Expendable
1945, in 4 top lists Check -
76 new
A Walk in the Sun
1945, in 4 top lists Check -
43 new
Battleground
1949, in 3 top lists Check -
90 new
Sands of Iwo Jima
1949, in 2 top lists Check -
22 new
Twelve O'Clock High
1949, in 4 top lists Check -
83 new
Fixed Bayonets!
1951, in 1 top list Check -
60 new
The Red Badge of Courage
1951, in 3 top lists Check -
61 new
The Steel Helmet
1951, in 2 top lists Check -
59 new
Stalag 17
1953, in 7 top lists Check -
41 new
The Dam Busters
1955, in 2 top lists Check -
65 new
Attack
1956, in 2 top lists Check -
18 new
The Bridge on the River Kwai
1957, in 32 top lists Check -
50 new
Kanal
1957, in 11 top lists Check -
45 new
Men in War
1957, in 4 top lists Check -
7 new
Paths of Glory
1957, in 26 top lists Check -
21 new
Ice Cold in Alex
1958, in 1 top list Check -
57 new
Run Silent Run Deep
1958, in 0 top lists Check -
48 new
Die Brücke
1959 — a.k.a. The Bridge, in 7 top lists Check -
36 new
Ningen no jôken
1959 — a.k.a. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love, in 13 top lists Check -
37 new
Ningen no jôken
1959 — a.k.a. The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity, in 12 top lists Check -
19 new
Nobi
1959 — a.k.a. Fires on the Plain, in 6 top lists Check -
47 new
The Guns of Navarone
1961, in 6 top lists Check -
38 new
Ningen no jôken
1961 — a.k.a. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer, in 12 top lists Check -
13 new
Ivanovo detstvo
1962 — a.k.a. Ivan's Childhood, in 12 top lists Check -
2 new
Lawrence of Arabia
1962, in 40 top lists Check -
51 new
The Longest Day
1962, in 6 top lists Check -
28 new
The Great Escape
1963, in 14 top lists Check -
46 new
The Train
1964, in 4 top lists Check -
88 new
Zulu
1964, in 8 top lists Check -
68 new
Von Ryan's Express
1965, in 1 top list Check -
8 new
La battaglia di Algeri
1966 — a.k.a. The Battle of Algiers, in 29 top lists Check -
70 new
The Blue Max
1966, in 0 top lists Check -
6 new
Csillagosok, katonák
1967 — a.k.a. The Red and the White, in 8 top lists Check -
29 new
The Dirty Dozen
1967, in 8 top lists Check -
55 new
Hell in the Pacific
1968, in 2 top lists Check -
39 new
Where Eagles Dare
1968, in 7 top lists Check -
11 new
L'armée des ombres
1969 — a.k.a. Army of Shadows, in 18 top lists Check -
42 new
Play Dirty
1969, in 0 top lists Check -
96 new
Kelly's Heroes
1970, in 0 top lists Check -
44 new
M*A*S*H
1970, in 21 top lists Check -
23 new
Patton
1970, in 13 top lists Check -
94 new
Waterloo
1970, in 2 top lists Check -
69 new
Overlord
1975, in 1 top list Check -
86 new
A Bridge Too Far
1977, in 3 top lists Check -
25 new
Cross of Iron
1977, in 3 top lists Check
Last updated on May 10, 2017; source