The Movieforums Top 100 War Movies Countdown

HINTS BREAKDOWN


20: Petrie made it fairly obvious.


19: Famous bike scene.


One point for JiraffeJustin and John-Connor.

The Great Escape was #30 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1960s. The Cranes are Flying was #98 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1950s and then jumped up to #28 on the MoFo Top 100 Foreign Films.

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The Cranes are Flying is a masterpiece. Urusevsky's cinematography, Kolatazov's direction. Simply a stunning piece of cinema that I would give my right arm to watch in a theatre. It was my number 4.

The Great Escape is fun but not particularly in contention for my list.

Been about 5 years since I saw Cranes, still fresh enough to toss it a vote.

Been too long since I last saw The Great Escape but I know I'm a fan.

2. Ballad of a Soldier (#68)
8. From Here to Eternity (#30)
9. The Deer Hunter (#25)
14. Red Angel (#100)
16. Waltz with Bashir (#45)
17. Underground (#43)
20. Johnny Got His Gun (#97)
22. The Best Years of Our Lives (#21)
24. Wings (#79)
25. The Cranes are Flying (#20)

I like The Great Escape. I could've included it on my list, but like I've said, in most cases I went with more conflict-driven films rather than ones like Schindler's List, The Pianist, or this one that are not set in the frontlines. I also haven't seen it in a while, but it's a pretty good film. I remember being surprised by how it goes from a fairly light tone to a very bleak one in the last act.

I haven't seen The Cranes Are Flying.


Seen: 34/82
Ballot: 10/25

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The Great Escape was on my list at number eighteen (eight points). Of that era's class of big budget, all-star WWII flicks they don't get more fun than John Sturges' P.O.W. tale. He accomplished a similar feat with his Western The Magnificent Seven, made three years earlier and also featuring Steve McQueen, Charles Coburn, and Charlie Bronson (#24 on the MoFo Top 100 Westerns) and featuring another rousing score by Elmer Bernstein. Though based on a real mass prison break, the movie is very short on history or correct details but happily long on character, humor, and excitement. There's probably a decent film to be made using more of the actual facts, but it sure couldn't be any more fun or cool.

I have half of the remaining eighteen titles on my ballot, which will make twenty of my choices, when all is said and done.

HOLDEN'S BALLOT
7. Fires on the Plain (#59)
9. Army of Shadows (#29)
10. Waltz with Bashir (#45)
11. The Pianist (#23)
14. MASH (#39)
15. Rome, Open City (#37)
16. Letters from Iwo Jima (#60)
17. The Battle of Algiers (#24)
18. The Great Escape (#19)
19. The Ascent (#33)
21. The Killing Fields (#69)
25. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (DNP)

I expect very few surprises are left.

Seen: 38 / 81
Never heard of: 18 / 81
1-ptrs seen: 7

So to follow up with Holden's predictions, if Cranes got in, which one will be left out? I would say Spartacus, since probably most people didn't consider it as a war film. I think the others are spot on.

Been being to post this for a bit, just haven't had the time to respond.

Guns of the Navarone is absolutely a great film - one of Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn's best, which is really saying something. It's one of those World War 2 ensemble pieces where a rag tag group of experts are gathered together to go on a deadly and impossible mission behind enemy lines and take out the Nazis ala The Dirty Dozen. It's a fun, fun action/war film with some wonderful character interactions and dramas. I like it so much, it was my number 13.


As for Barry Lyndon - it didn't make my war films list, as it didn't even cross my mind to include it. It's also one of my top 10 films, of all time. It's beautiful, haunting, and the classical music it samples choreographed to the on screen action is just some of the best ever committed to film. It's got wonderful characters that are distinctive in personality and quirky and they just stay with you. It's deep and bitter satirical narration bleeds into your ears and just keeps you glued. Like a live action storybook painting comes to live that absolutely pulls you into its world for three hours and you just let go. It's by far my favorite Kubrick film... easily, and Kubrick is my third favorite filmmaker of all time. A lot of people have questioned Ryan O'Neal's performance, but I think it's perfect for the character. Yes he's droll, somewhat monotone, and dry, but that's the point. He's not playing his character from Paper Moon. He's playing scoundrel and rogue and a con-artist, who is very sympathetic. The pacing is perfect as the character travels from Ireland all across mainland Europe during the Seven Years War in the mid 1700s and goes from poverty, to military service to riches to being broke, crippled, and desolate. It does everything a film should do and more.

However, I didn't think of it as a war film, despite IMDB having it on there. Make no doubts, I have zero issue for people considering it a war film and in fact I cannot argue that it isn't a war film.

But, to my mind the war aspect of it, is more incidental to the story rather than the focus or a result of the story. War and military service is just something the character happens to go through and happens to be going on in the background, but it's not the focal point, nor is the consequence of war necessarily the focal point. Again, war... to my view of the film, is incidental to the story, so it didn't cross my mind. Similarly to how despite taking place during Vietnam, I did not consider Forrest Gump to be a war film, and also having played out the Battle of Little Big Horn, I did not consider Little Big Man to be a war film... if that was the case, I would have likely revised my list to include all three as war movies:

Barry Lyndon
Forrest Gump
Little Big Man

It does bring to mind a good question and discussion on how and why and what we classify as war films.

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RAN could be in that category, too. Obviously a masterpiece, maybe less obviously a "war movie", for MoFo voting purposes?

Is Kubrick going to have four titles in the top eighteen or is Kurosawa going to show?

We gonna find out soon enough!

Neither of these is on my ballot. I have never seen Cranes and I can't believe the Great Escape is not on my list. What an eminently watchable movie. I can't tell you how many times I have seen it. I never pass it by. What was I thinking? I am definitely making a revised list for my own edification.

@KeyserCorleone, when do you post the hints?

I had The Great Escape @ # 11, it borders on being just a bit too methodical in its storytelling but with all that is there I couldn't not include it higher up on my ballot.


Cranes I remember being good but not great.

Tomorrow sometime.

Ran was the other one I had in mind as not making it for that reason (I love the film and it never occurred to me to vote for it!), but since it is more well received than Spartacus, I think it has a slightly bigger chance of making it than Spartacus.