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1. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
directed by Stanley Kubrick
featuring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, James Earl JonesIn 1964, with the Cuban Missile Crisis fresh in viewers' minds, the Cold War at its frostiest, and the hydrogen bomb relatively new and frightening, ... More
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2. Apocalypse Now (1979)
directed by Francis Ford Coppola
featuring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Dennis HopperOne of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness ... More
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3. Cold Mountain (2003)
directed by Anthony Minghella
featuring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Eileen Atkins, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour HoffmanBased on the novel by Charles Frazier, Anthony Minghella's star-studded Cold Mountain is a sweeping tale set in the final days of the American Civil ... More
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4. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
directed by Stanley Kubrick
featuring Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian HarewoodStanley Kubrick's return to filmmaking after a seven-year hiatus, this film crystallizes the experience of the Vietnam War by concentrating on a ... More
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5. M*A*S*H (1970)
directed by Robert Altman
featuring Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Jo Ann Pflug, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen, Gary BurghoffAlthough he was not the first choice to direct it, the hit black comedy MASH established Robert Altman as one of the leading figures of Hollywood's ... More
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6. The Deer Hunter (1978)
directed by Michael Cimino
featuring Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, Christopher WalkenOne of several 1978 films dealing with the Vietnam War (including Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning Coming Home), Michael Cimino's epic second feature The ... More
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7. Apocalypse Now Redux (2001)
directed by Francis Ford Coppola
featuring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert HallFrancis Coppola had more than his share of production difficulties while shooting his epic-scale Vietnam War drama Apocalypse Now, including ... More
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8. The Thin Red Line (1998)
directed by Terrence Malick
featuring Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, James Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, George ClooneyThe return of director Terrence Malick to feature filmmaking after a twenty year sabbatical, this World War II drama is an elegiac rumination on man ... More
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9. The Great Dictator (1940)
directed by Charles Chaplin
featuring Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Billy Gilbert"This is the story of the period between two world wars--an interim during which insanity cut loose, liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was ... More
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10. Paths of Glory (1957)
directed by Stanley Kubrick
featuring Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne MorrisAdapting Humphrey Cobb's novel to the screen, director Stanley Kubrick and his collaborators Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson set out to make a ... More
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11. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
directed by Oliver Stone
featuring Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Kyra Sedgwick, Brian Larkin, Willem DafoeList of all editionsThe second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), ... More
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12. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
directed by Clint Eastwood
featuring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase, Shidou NakamuraList of all editionsAfter bringing the story of the American soldiers who fought in the battle of Iwo Jima to the screen in his film Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood ... More
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13. Kelly's Heroes (1970)
directed by Brian G. Hutton
featuring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, Donald SutherlandList of all editionsLike M*A*S*H and Catch-22, both released the same year, this military comedy takes place in an earlier war but is really a thinly disguised treatise ... More
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14. Casualties of War (1989)
directed by Brian De Palma
featuring Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, Don Harvey, John C. Reilly, John LeguizamoList of all editionsCasualties of War was based on a New Yorker article by Daniel Lang. This, in turn, was inspired by a true incident which illustrated the dehumanizing ... More
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15. War, Inc. (2008)
directed by Joshua Seftel
featuring John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Dan AykroydList of all editionsAn assassin posing as a trade-show producer fixes his crosshairs on a Middle Eastern oil minister while maintaining his cover by organizing a high ... More
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16. Before the Rain (1994)
directed by Milcho Manchevski
featuring Katrin Cartlidge, Rade Serbedzija, Grégoire Colin, Labina Mitevska, Silvija StojanovskaList of all editionsMilcho Manchevski's first feature film is a three-part story of the violence and political chaos tearing apart the newly independent nation of ... More
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17. Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
directed by Richard Attenborough
featuring Ralph Richardson, Meriel Forbes, Wensley Pithey, Ruth Kettlewell, Ian HolmList of all editionsOh! What a Lovely War is an every-man-for-himself adaptation of Charles Chilton's 1963 play, as staged in London by Joan Littlewood. The tragedy of ... More
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18. War of the Buttons (1994)
directed by John Roberts
featuring Liam Cunningham, Gregg Fitzgerald, Colm Meaney, John S. Coffey, Eveanna RyanList of all editionsRival groups of boys from two neighboring Irish villages engage in a running battle in this remake of the 1962 French movie of the same name, based ... More
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19. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
directed by Lewis Milestone
featuring Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Raymond Griffith, George "Slim" SummervilleList of all editionsOne of the most powerful anti-war statements ever put on film, this gut-wrenching story concerns a group of friends who join the Army during World ... More
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20. Stalingrad (1992)
directed by Joseph Vilsmaier
featuring Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel, Dana VávrováList of all editionsThis German battlefield drama, released on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the climactic 1943 defeat of the Nazi forces at Stalingrad in ... More
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21. Platoon (1986)
directed by Oliver Stone
featuring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Francesco QuinnList of all editionsOliver Stone's breakthrough as a director, Platoon is a brutally realistic look at a young soldier's tour of duty in Vietnam. Chris Taylor (Charlie ... More
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22. Hamburger Hill (1987)
directed by John Irvin
featuring Anthony Barrile, Michael Boatman, Don Cheadle, Michael Dolan, Don JamesList of all editionsThough the anti-war sentiments of Hamburger Hill come through loud and clear, the film is squarely on the side of those courageous, much-maligned ... More
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23. All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)
directed by Delbert Mann
featuring Richard Thomas, Donald Pleasence, Patricia Neal, Ian Holm, Ernest BorgnineList of all editionsYears after directing the classic Marty (1955), Delbert Mann became a creator of prestige TV movie projects, none more daunting than his adaptation ... More
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24. Grand Illusion (1937)
directed by Jean Renoir
featuring Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich Von Stroheim, Marcel Dalio, Dita Parlo, Julien CaretteList of all editionsFrequently cited as both one of the greatest films about war and one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion is an often ... More
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25. King of Hearts (1966)
directed by Philippe de Broca
featuring Alan Bates, Genevičve Bujold, Jean-Claude Brialy, Julien Guiomar, Micheline Presle, Pierre BrasseurList of all editionsThe French/Italian/British King of Hearts (Le Roi de Coeur) takes place during World War I, but it might as well have been the Vietnamese conflict so ... More







