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Throughout history, war has been processed, glorified, and protested through art. Ancient battle scenes stand as among the earliest artistic depictions in civilized society, used at the time for documenting wars won and for intimidating enemies. Since then, myriad impressions of wartime have been shared throughout every civilization and from virtually every perspective. Classic books like Ernest Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" stand as celebrated examples of anti-war works, while pieces like Diego Rivera's "The Nightmare of War and Dream of Peace" incited controversy.
Among the most powerful mediums artists have found to transmit and better understand the effects of war is film. To determine the best American war movies, Stacker compiled data on all American war movies to come up with the Stacker score—a weighted index split evenly between IMDb and Metacritic scores. To qualify, the film had to have an IMDb user score and Metascore, be American-made, and deal explicitly with the United State’s involvement in a war. Ties were broken by Metascore, and further ties were broken by IMDb user votes. These are the women and men of Hollywood who have stepped into the shoes of the greatest heroes in American history, both real and fictional.
Keep reading to see which war movies have made the list, how many came from Clint Eastwood, and which Stanley Kubrik titles crested the top 20.
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Amblin Entertainment #50. Fury (2014)
Director: David Ayer
Stacker score: 77.3
Metascore: 64
IMDb user rating: 7.6
Runtime: 134 minutes
Brad Pitt leads an ensemble cast in this World War II drama about a U.S. Tank unit deep in Nazi territory during the final days of the war. Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, and Michael Peña round out the tank’s crew.
Columbia Pictures #49. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Director: Barry Levinson
Stacker score: 77.3
Metascore: 67
IMDb user rating: 7.3
Runtime: 121 minutes
In “Good Morning, Vietnam,” comedic genius Robin Williams stars as irreverent DJ Adrian Cronauer, host of the country’s Armed Forces Radio Service station during the war. Laugh-out-loud funny, and occasionally soberingly realistic, Roger Ebert said that the role was “far and away the best work Williams has ever done in a movie.” It also remains one of the few examples of war-comedy on this list.
Touchstone Pictures #48. Flying Leathernecks (1951)
Director: Nicholas Ray
Stacker score: 77.3
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 6.5
Runtime: 102 minutes
A group of U.S. Marines falls under new command in the lead-up to the battle of Guadalcanal in “Flying Leathernecks.” Blatantly pro-war, it has often been said that the 1951 film was assigned to director Nicholas Ray, a known liberal who disagreed with the film’s political stance, so that he could essentially prove his loyalty during the Red Scare.
RKO Radio Pictures #47. The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Director: Arthur Hiller
Stacker score: 77.9
Metascore: 68
IMDb user rating: 7.3
Runtime: 115 minutes
As much a love story as it is a war movie, “The Americanization of Emily” sees Lt. Cmdr. Charles Edward Madison, an easy-living American soldier played by James Garner, fall for an Englishwoman, played by Julie Andrews, only to have their newly blossoming romance thrown into turmoil when he gets sent on a dangerous and senseless mission. Set in the time period just before D-Day, the film is based on a novel of the same name by William Bradford Huie.
Filmways Pictures #46. Catch-22 (1970)
Director: Mike Nichols
Stacker score: 77.9
Metascore: 70
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 122 minutes
An adaptation of Joseph Heller’s classic novel of the same name, “Catch-22” is a satirical, anti-war movie set during World War II. It follows a desperate pilot’s mission to be declared certifiably insane so that he can be discharged from combat. Released around the same time as “M.A.S.H.”—#20 on the list—“Catch-22” was not a commercial or critical success upon its debut, but has since found itself a cult following.
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Paramount Pictures #45. Tropic Thunder (2008)
Director: Ben Stiller
Stacker score: 77.9
Metascore: 71
IMDb user rating: 7
Runtime: 107 minutes
War and comedy are not often words heard in the same sentence, unless, of course, you are speaking about Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder.” The late ’00s movie follows a group of actors who head out into the jungle to make a film about the Vietnam War only to find that they must become the soldiers they’re pretending to be. The cast is packed with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Cruise, and Matthew McConaughey.
Dreamworks Pictures #44. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Stacker score: 78.5
Metascore: 60
IMDb user rating: 8.2
Runtime: 179 minutes
Stanley Kramer directed this fictionalized retelling of one of the Nuremberg trials in which four Nazi judges were held accountable for their crimes against humanity. A number of Old Hollywood stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, and Burt Lancaster star in the black-and-white film. However, it was a relative newcomer, Maximilian Schell, who walked away with an Oscar for his performance, reprising his role as Hans Rolfe from the story’s original “Playhouse 90” TV broadcast.
Roxlom Films Inc. #43. A Private War (2018)
Director: Matthew Heineman
Stacker score: 78.5
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 6.7
Runtime: 110 minutes
Rosamund Pike stars as Marie Colvin, an American journalist who devoted her life to covering the civil wars of some of the world’s most dangerous countries, in “A Private War.” The film does well what Colvin tried so hard to do in her reporting—that is, highlights the plight of the innocent victims of conflict—while also giving audiences an idea of the considerable risk war reporters put themselves in to bring them the truth.
Acacia Filmed Entertainment #42. Courage Under Fire (1996)
Director: Edward Zwick
Stacker score: 79
Metascore: 77
IMDb user rating: 6.6
Runtime: 116 minutes
One of the first war movies to tackle the Gulf War, “Courage Under Fire” follows an army officer who is tasked with determining whether or not a posthumous Medal of Honor should be awarded to a downed helicopter commander, all while dealing with his own demons. It stars Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan, who plays the fictional Capt. Karen Emma Walden, who, in the film, became the first woman to win the honor for valor in combat.
Fox 2000 Pictures #41. American Sniper (2014)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stacker score: 80.1
Metascore: 72
IMDb user rating: 7.3
Runtime: 133 minutes
Clint Eastwood brought the story of America’s deadliest sniper, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, to the big screen in 2014’s “American Sniper.” Starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, the movie not only underlines the impressiveness of Kyle’s life and wartime accomplishments, but also examines the way war can change even its toughest players.
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Warner Bros. #40. Cold Mountain (2003)
Director: Anthony Minghella
Stacker score: 80.1
Metascore: 73
IMDb user rating: 7.2
Runtime: 154 minutes
An all-star cast and the seven Oscar nominations for “Cold Mountain” secured its place as one of the best war movies of all time. The early ’90s movie follows a Confederacy deserter, played by Jude Law, as he journeys home to reunite with the woman he loves, played by Nicole Kidman. A sort of early-American “Odyssey,” the film is surprisingly historically accurate and deeply emotional.
Miramax #39. Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
Director: Allan Dwan
Stacker score: 80.7
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 100 minutes
Few battles have captured the American imagination like the one that took place on Iwo Jima during World War II. Dwan’s “Sands of Iwo Jima” is among the many retellings of the event, following a Marine platoon, led by John Wayne, from their time in basic training through their iconic raising of the American flag. A vast and absorbing saga, one Variety magazine critic complained that it was too sentimental and superficial, but, judging by its current IMDb user rating, fans seem to disagree.
Republic Pictures (I) #38. Casualties of War (1989)
Director: Brian De Palma
Stacker score: 80.7
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 113 minutes
The Washington Post called “Casualties of War” “one of the most morally complex movies about men at war ever made.” The film, which is about how war drags men down into barbarism, is a tough watch. Set during the Vietnam War, it tells the story of the incident on Hill 192, in which an American squad kidnaped, raped, and killed a young Vietnamese woman, despite the vehement objections of one of their own.
Art Linson Productions #37. Hell Is for Heroes (1962)
Director: Don Siegel
Stacker score: 80.7
Metascore: 76
IMDb user rating: 7
Runtime: 90 minutes
“Hell Is for Heroes” recalls a true, and, according to Variety magazine “tightly classified” incident from World War II in which the 95th Infantry Division was tasked with holding off an entire German company for two days while it waited for reinforcements to arrive. Steve McQueen stars in the movie, and, as rumor has it, his excellent performance wasn’t a product of method acting, but rather a real reflection of his anger at having to appear in the movie at all.
Paramount Pictures #36. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Director: Oliver Stone
Stacker score: 81.2
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 7.2
Runtime: 145 minutes
Tom Cruise stars in “Born on the Fourth of July” as Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam War veteran who, after being disenchanted with the country he literally laid down his body for, becomes an anti-war activist. Based on the memoirs of the real-life Kovic, the film was a commercial and critical success, winning several major awards including Golden Globes and Oscars. In particular, Cruise’s moving and honest performance garnered a wealth of praise, including glowing reviews from the likes of Roger Ebert.
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Ixtlan #35. Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Director: Spike Lee
Stacker score: 81.2
Metascore: 82
IMDb user rating: 6.5
Runtime: 154 minutes
Spike Lee tackles the experience of Black Vietnam War veterans in “Da 5 Bloods.” His epic follows four 60-something men who return to the South Asian country in search of the body of their fallen leader, played by Chadwick Boseman in one of his final roles, and the bars of gold they buried alongside him. Originally intended as a straightforward action caper, Lee retooled the movie to speak about the tension Black soldiers have often experienced as they’ve fought for America’s freedom while not being able to fully experience that freedom themselves.
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks #34. The Big Red One (1980)
Director: Samuel Fuller
Stacker score: 81.8
Metascore: 77
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 113 minutes
A semi-autobiographical film for director Samuel Fuller, “The Big Red One” follows a group of sharpshooters as they fight their way across Europe during World War II. Fuller, a veteran of the 1st Infantry Division, independently produced the film, which he largely shot in Israel and completed on a miniscule budget. Despite not being a box office hit or a major award winner, the film managed to attract a small, but devoted, following that has ensured its continued success.
Lorimar Productions #33. The Messenger (2009)
Director: Oren Moverman
Stacker score: 81.8
Metascore: 77
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 113 minutes
There are aspects of war, like the next-of-kin notifications that take place when a soldier has died in combat, that are rarely thought about or discussed. In Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger,” Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are tasked with delivering this devastating news, and the film follows the relationships they develop with the surviving loved ones they encounter. A definite tear-jerker, “The Messenger” was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and SAG Award in 2010.
Oscilloscope #32. Mister Roberts (1955)
Directors: John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan
Stacker score: 82.3
Metascore: 72
IMDb user rating: 7.7
Runtime: 123 minutes
With one of the most notable war movie casts in history, it seems as though “Mister Roberts” was always destined for greatness: It was originally a book, then a play, and became a TV series after the success of the film. Henry Fonda plays Doug Roberts, a Navy cargo ship lieutenant stationed far from the action of World War II, who takes care of his crew while trying to get transferred to an active post—away from the overbearing commander of his ship. James Cagney plays the hated captain, William Powell plays the ship’s doctor in his final cinematic role, and Jack Lemmon earned an Oscar for his work as a reluctant sailor.
Warner Bros. #31. Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stacker score: 82.3
Metascore: 79
IMDb user rating: 7
Runtime: 135 minutes
The counterpoint to “Letters From Iwo Jima,” “Flags of Our Fathers” tells the story of the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Marines, focusing particularly on the six who raised the American flag on the small island. While not as successful as its companion, the film, which stars Ryan Phillippe, Paul Walker, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, John Slattery, and Jamie Bell, among others, was still described as an “American masterpiece” by one critic from the Chicago Sun-Times.
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Dreamworks Pictures #30. Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Director: Dalton Trumbo
Stacker score: 82.9
Metascore: 71
IMDb user rating: 7.9
Runtime: 111 minutes
Decidedly different in tone than any other film on this list, “Johnny Got His Gun” is much more of an anti-war film than it is a war film. The depressing story follows Timothy Bottoms, an 18-year-old who enlists during World War I only to lose his arms, legs, sight, hearing, and ability to speak, essentially finding himself trapped in his own body. While the film’s message is an important one, the grim tale didn’t attract legions of fans, and likely would have been widely forgotten if not for its presence in the music video for Metallica’s song “One.”
World Entertainment #29. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Director: Robert Aldrich
Stacker score: 82.9
Metascore: 73
IMDb user rating: 7.7
Runtime: 150 minutes
The standard war movie gets a criminal twist in “The Dirty Dozen.” Twelve of the Army’s worst convicts are brought together in World War II, forming a ragtag unit charged with parachuting into a French chateau. Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and John Cassavetes are just a small sampling of the film’s star-studded cast, and it’s been lauded on a number of American Film Institute’s best-of lists—including America’s Most Heart-Pounding Movies.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer #28. Rescue Dawn (2006)
Director: Werner Herzog
Stacker score: 82.9
Metascore: 77
IMDb user rating: 7.3
Runtime: 120 minutes
Christian Bale stars as Dieter Dengler, one of only seven American soldiers who managed to escape from Vietnamese prisoners-of-war camps and survive, in “Rescue Dawn.” The drama was based on one of Herzog’s own films, “Little Dieter Learns to Fly,” a documentary he’d completed several years earlier about the same subject. While not a box office hit by any stretch of the imagination, the film was Herzog’s highest grossing picture to date, pulling in $5.5 million in the United States, and was a critical success.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) #27. Black Hawk Down (2001)
Director: Ridley Scott
Stacker score: 83.4
Metascore: 74
IMDb user rating: 7.7
Runtime: 144 minutes
The evolution of “Black Hawk Down” is fairly extensive. It began as a 29-part series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, became a bestselling book by Mark Bowden, and then a Ridley Scott movie. The story follows a 1993 raid in Somalia as Army Rangers attempt to capture two rogue militia commanders, with Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor leading an impressive ensemble cast.
Revolution Studios #26. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stacker score: 84
Metascore: 69
IMDb user rating: 8.3
Runtime: 153 minutes
While it’s not rooted in reality, per se, this impactful Quentin Tarantino movie tells the story of a revenge plot against the Nazis with Jewish soldiers taking the lead. Brad Pitt stars, with Christoph Waltz stealing the show as a Nazi colonel trying to stop the soldiers from achieving their goals. The film did extremely well at the box office and earned a variety of Oscar nominations for best motion picture, best director, and more.
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Universal Pictures #25. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
Director: Mel Gibson
Stacker score: 84
Metascore: 71
IMDb user rating: 8.1
Runtime: 139 minutes
Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge” tells the story of a pacifist American Army medic in World War II who serves without a weapon and vows to never hurt or kill an enemy soldier. Andrew Garfield plays the lead in the movie, which is based on the 2004 documentary “The Conscientious Objector.” While it didn’t win any major awards, the movie was nominated for Best Motion Picture at both the Oscars and Golden Globes.
Cross Creek Pictures #24. The Longest Day (1962)
Directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck
Stacker score: 84.5
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 7.8
Runtime: 178 minutes
There are almost too many stars in the cast of this massive World War II epic, which tells the story of D-Day from both the Allied and Axis perspectives. Richard Burton, Sean Connery, John Wayne, and Robert Mitchum are just a few of the biggest names in the black-and-white classic, which is notorious for its extensive roster of extras and unique storytelling—told from multiple perspectives in native tongues with subtitles.
Twentieth Century Fox #23. Three Kings (1999)
Director: David O. Russell
Stacker score: 84.5
Metascore: 82
IMDb user rating: 7.1
Runtime: 114 minutes
George Clooney, Spike Jonze, Mark Whalberg, and Ice Cube star in this film about four soldiers who, in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, set out to find a trove of gold that’s been hidden by Saddam Hussein’s troops. As much an action movie, in the vein of “Indiana Jones,” as a war movie, “Three Kings” was a box office smash, earning more than $107 million at the box office worldwide.
Warner Bros. #22. Lifeboat (1944)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stacker score: 85.1
Metascore: 78
IMDb user rating: 7.6
Runtime: 97 minutes
Tallulah Bankhead stars in this mid-career experiment from Alfred Hitchcock, about a group of survivors who find themselves trapped in a lifeboat with the German captain of the U-boat that sank their passenger freighter. Novelist John Steinbeck wrote the original version of the story, which was refined by Hitchcock before production began. The finished story was intended to make a statement about the necessity of Allied unification during World War II, but instead was panned thanks to audiences’ beliefs that it was too sympathetic to the German character, and verged on Nazi propaganda.
Twentieth Century Fox #21. The Thin Red Line (1998)
Director: Terrence Malick
Stacker score: 85.1
Metascore: 78
IMDb user rating: 7.6
Runtime: 170 minutes
At nearly three hours long, Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ autobiography takes viewers deep into the South Pacific’s Guadalcanal Campaign in World War II. Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, and Jim Caviezel starred, with smaller parts played by George Clooney, John Cusack, and Woody Harrelson. “The Thin Red Line” marked Malick’s first return to film since the 1978 film “Days of Heaven,” and he wound up with Academy Award nominations for both writing and directing.
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20th Century Fox #20. M.A.S.H. (1970)
Director: Robert Altman
Stacker score: 85.1
Metascore: 80
IMDb user rating: 7.4
Runtime: 116 minutes
One of the most celebrated war films of all time, this dark comedy won the top award at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, earned Oscar nominations for best picture and best director, and was a box office smash for 20th Century Fox. Donald Sutherland, Sally Kellerman, Elliott Gould, Robert Duvall, and Tom Skerritt led the all-star cast—and the film’s TV adaptation famously became one of the most popular programs of the 1970s.
Aspen Productions #19. The Quiet American (2002)
Director: Phillip Noyce
Stacker score: 85.1
Metascore: 84
IMDb user rating: 7
Runtime: 101 minutes
“The Quiet American” is at once a story of a love triangle and an examination of the way Americans set the stage for their involvement in the Vietnam War. A young CIA operative played by Brendan Fraser arrives in the South Asian country in order to conduct what essentially amounts to a terrorist attack that is designed to sway public opinion about the country’s involvement in the fighting. Along the way, he falls in love with a Vietnamese woman who is also involved with an English journalist, played by Michael Caine, who then acts on his own jealousy to alter the course of the trio’s lives forever.
Miramax #18. Fail Safe (1964)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Stacker score: 85.6
Metascore: 75
IMDb user rating: 8
Runtime: 112 minutes
Set during the Cold War, “Fail Safe” is a high-stakes tale about an accidentally ordered U.S. Thermonuclear strike on the Soviet Union that must be stopped at all costs, lest a full-blown war break out. The Sidney Lumet film is based on a novel of the same name by Eugene Brudick and Harvey Wheeler that was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film, which exudes a sense of panic from open to close that is amplified by its lack of musical score, was a box office flop in the ’60s but has since become something of a cult classic.
Columbia Pictures #17. Glory (1989)
Director: Edward Zwick
Stacker score: 86.2
Metascore: 78
IMDb user rating: 7.8
Runtime: 122 minutes
Denzel Washington won his first Oscar for his role in this Civil War film about one of the first all-Black regiments in American history. Matthew Broderick plays Capt. Robert Shaw, a white colonel in charge of a group of Black volunteers for the Union Army. The group deals with racism and prejudice within their own Army as they fight against the Confederacy and the evils of slavery on the other side. The film enjoyed massive critical success: New York Times film critic Vincent Canby called the cast “superior” and correctly predicted that Washington was “on his way to a major screen career.”
TriStar Pictures #16. They Were Expendable (1945)
Directors: John Ford, Robert Montgomery
Stacker score: 87.3
Metascore: 86
IMDb user rating: 7.2
Runtime: 135 minutes
Released on the fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, “They Were Expendable” tells the loosely based-on-real-life tale of a PT boat squadron that is tasked with the near-impossible act of protecting the Philippines from Japanese invasion during World War II. A grim picture, the movie stars John Wayne—who was infamous for his own lack of service, Robert Montgomery, and Donna Reed. Upon its release, the film was a critical success, but not a box-office hit, perhaps because its realistic depiction of events hit too close to home for too many.
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) #15. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stacker score: 87.8
Metascore: 76
IMDb user rating: 8.3
Runtime: 116 minutes
The penultimate film of Stanley Kubrick’s career, “Full Metal Jacket” details the process of a Marine from boot camp through his combat deployment in Vietnam. As opposed to the war movies of the mid-20th century, this film paints war as an excruciating ordeal that can barely be survived. Matthew Modine stars alongside Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Baldwin, and R. Lee Ermey.
Warner Bros. #14. Lincoln (2012)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stacker score: 87.8
Metascore: 86
IMDb user rating: 7.3
Runtime: 150 minutes
One of America’s most beloved presidents gets the Spielberg treatment in this sprawling two-and-a-half-hour biopic that tracks Abraham Lincoln’s presidency during the final days of the Civil War. Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for his work as the commander in chief; the rest of the cast featured big names including Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.
DreamWorks Pictures #13. From Here to Eternity (1953)
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Stacker score: 89
Metascore: 85
IMDb user rating: 7.6
Runtime: 118 minutes
“From Here to Eternity” stars Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra as soldiers stationed in Hawaii in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack. It won eight Oscars in 1954 and was added to the National Film Registry for its tremendous cultural significance. It was Sinatra’s only Academy Award win for his acting work.
Columbia Pictures Corporation #12. Stalag 17 (1953)
Director: Billy Wilder
Stacker score: 90.6
Metascore: 84
IMDb user rating: 8.0
Runtime: 120 minutes
“Stalag 17” was originally a hit Broadway play, but it found a much wider audience when Billy Wilder turned it into a film starring William Holden. The plot revolves around a group of American pilot prisoners-of-war being held in a German prison camp. Holden won the Academy Award for his role as J.J. Sefton, the camp’s resident wheeler-and-dealer who’s happy to barter with anyone—including the German guards.
Paramount Pictures #11. The Deer Hunter (1978)
Director: Michael Cimino
Stacker score: 92.3
Metascore: 86
IMDb user rating: 8.1
Runtime: 183 minutes
“The Deer Hunter” is another film about the ravages of war on a soldier’s psyche after the battle is over. This time it’s Vietnam, with Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage playing three deeply scarred men. The American Film Institute named it one of the best movies in American history, and Academy Awards voters agreed. They named the movie best picture in 1979 and gave Meryl Streep her first Oscar nomination.
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Universal Pictures #10. The Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges
Stacker score: 92.8
Metascore: 86
IMDb user rating: 8.2
Runtime: 172 minutes
While it didn’t pick up any major awards, “The Great Escape” has been recognized as one of the greatest war movies of all time. Set in a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, it tells the story of a multinational group of high-level military prisoners that makes a concerted effort to escape. Steve McQueen leads the international cast, which includes James Garner, James Coburn, and Richard Attenborough.
Mirisch Company #9. Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stacker score: 92.8
Metascore: 89
IMDb user rating: 7.9
Runtime: 141 minutes
A companion piece to “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters From Iwo Jima” is a Japanese-language film about the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, told from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers who fought it. The Clint Eastwood picture stands apart from the war movie crowd because it’s not a story of hard-fought victory, but rather one of inevitable defeat, the type of story rarely seen on the big screen. It was clearly a take that resonated with critics and audiences alike, as demonstrated by the film’s box office success and nomination for several prestigious awards including the best picture at the Academy Awards.
Dreamworks Pictures #8. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Stacker score: 93.4
Metascore: 95
IMDb user rating: 7.4
Runtime: 157 minutes
“Zero Dark Thirty” chronicles America’s decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda terrorist leader who is believed to have been the instigator behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Upon its release, some viewers criticized the film for its gruesome depiction of torture, calling it pro-torture propaganda and arguing that it should have been left out of the story; while others defended the scenes’ inclusion on the basis that the events in question were factual. Additionally, the film was praised for the realism of its concluding scenes of the Navy SEAL unit’s raid on bin Laden’s compound, which it derived from top-secret information revealed by former CIA Director Leon Panetta at a ceremony in 2011.
Columbia Pictures #7. Patton (1970)
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Stacker score: 93.9
Metascore: 91
IMDb user rating: 7.9
Runtime: 172 minutes
American war hero Gen. George Patton is the subject of this award-winning film that cleaned up at the Oscars in 1971—with statues going to the film for best picture, best director, best screenplay, and best actor for George C. Scott’s role as the general. Scott actually rejected the award in one of the Oscars’ biggest scandals. The film follows Patton’s rise to legendary status as he takes on larger and larger military theaters, emerging victorious in all of them.
Twentieth Century Fox #6. The Hurt Locker (2008)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Stacker score: 93.9
Metascore: 95
IMDb user rating: 7.5
Runtime: 131 minutes
“The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow made history when she became the first woman to win the Academy Award for best director in 2010. The film also won for best picture and made lead actor Jeremy Renner a bona fide star. The film is about a bomb squad soldier in the Iraq War who breaks from standard Army protocol in bomb-diffusing situations, alienating himself from his fellow soldiers.
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Voltage Pictures #5. Platoon (1986)
Director: Oliver Stone
Stacker score: 95.6
Metascore: 92
IMDb user rating: 8.1
Runtime: 120 minutes
Oliver Stone first made his mark as a major director with this story of an ill-prepared platoon during the Vietnam War. The first of Stone’s Vietnam trilogy—“Heaven & Earth” and “Born on the Fourth of July” round out the trio—“Platoon” is an anti-war movie that shows the horrific side of combat. The cast features Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, and Charlie Sheen; and the movie went on to win best picture and best director at the Oscars.
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Hemdale #4. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stacker score: 97.8
Metascore: 91
IMDb user rating: 8.6
Runtime: 169 minutes
“Saving Private Ryan” stars Tom Hanks as the leader of a World War II Army unit on a search and rescue mission. The group—played by a top-notch ensemble cast that includes Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, and Ed Burns—is tasked with going behind enemy lines to save a soldier whose brothers have already lost their lives to the war. The film earned five Academy Awards.
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Amblin Entertainment #3. Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stacker score: 98.3
Metascore: 94
IMDb user rating: 8.4
Runtime: 147 minutes
The cast alone is reason enough to watch this exotically dark war film, with Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and Marlon Brando all taking turns wowing the audience. Coppola had already earned acclaim as the director of “The Godfather,” and “Apocalypse Now” solidified his reputation as an A-list director. Based on Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness,” but set during the Vietnam War, the film involves an Army captain who’s sent to Cambodia to remove a rogue officer who has taken over a local tribe.
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Zoetrope Studio #2. Gone With the Wind (1939)
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood
Stacker score: 98.3
Metascore: 97
IMDb user rating: 8.1
Runtime: 238 minutes
At almost four hours long, “Gone With the Wind” is a sprawling epic film about the downfall of a well-to-do Southern family. Set in Georgia during the Civil War, the adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel set all kinds of box office records. Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh starred in the picture that took home 10 Oscars in 1940.
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer #1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stacker score: 100
Metascore: 97
IMDb user rating: 8.4
Runtime: 95 minutes
Considered one of the best films of all time, this Kubrick classic is a satire on war and nuclear oblivion. Peter Sellers and George C. Scott star in the rare comedy of Kubrick’s canon. While it didn’t win any Academy Awards, it was nominated in all of the major categories in 1965.
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Columbia Pictures Corporation
The Best Nineties Movies
a statue of a man: There's more to the decade than 'Speed'. But not much more © - There's more to the decade than 'Speed'. But not much more
Looking back from here, the Nineties feels like a blusteringly upbeat time of techno-optimism: the Iron Curtain unravelled, a decrepit post-Thatcher Tory government gradually crumbled, and our commuting problems were solved by the rise of the wheely trainer.
The films we went to see, though, point to something different. Look at the 20 biggest films of the decade and two themes emerge: disasters and space. You've got Armageddon, Titanic, two Jurassic Parks and Twister; and you've got Star Wars Episode I, Independence Day and Men in Black. Plus there's The Sixth Sense, which was pretty disastrous for Bruce Willis' Malcolm Crowe. There's definitely some end-of-the-century queasiness there, and a sense that something's not quite right.
Compare that to the Noughties (fantasy and superheroes) or the Eighties (adventure blockbusters plus a grab-bag of family films and Rain Man). Even considering James Bond's resurgence and Disney's second golden age, the Nineties box office points to a particularly Gen X strain of nihilism and angst. The Matrix, The Truman Show and Fight Club all pulled at the seams of reality and asked whether the job, the car, the white picket fenced house was worth it. This might be the most Nineties trait of all, though: moaning about the house you can afford and the car you don't feel guilty about because nobody's that bothered about global warming or international terrorism or credit defaults yet.
It was a decade when blockbusters got bigger and so did the conglomerates which gobbled up the studios that made them, but there were loads of interesting indies around too while British cinema enjoyed a Danny Boyle- and Richard Curtis-led resurgence. These are some of the best films of the decade which perhaps, more than most others, predicted our own.
Speed (1994) Keanu Reeves holding a camera: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Not just the Nineties' most Nineties film star's best film, but the most Nineties film of the Nineties. Post-Die Hard lone wolf good guys ruled the action blockbuster, and Keanu Reeves' close-cropped hot-headed cop Jack is the loneliest of lone wolves. He and his more sober buddy Harry foil an attempted ransom plot, but the mastermind behind it (a delightfully unhinged Dennis Hopper, fresh from playing President Koopa in Super Mario Bros) has a plan to get his own back. He's stolen a bus, and if it goes below 50 miles an hour, it's going to explode. It's a story with a simple message: ignore everyone's advice and do the most stupid thing you can think of in any situation, because even the most cautious among us can be unceremoniously exploded in their prime. And pray silence please for the best/dumbest line in any Nineties action film: "Cans! It was just cans!"
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Trainspotting (1996) a man sitting on a bench: nineties movies © - nineties movies
I will argue to my dying breath that Danny Boyle's debut Shallow Grave is at least the equal of Trainspotting, but given Shallow Grave didn't singlehandedly keep Freshers' Week poster salesmen gainfully employed for two decades it'd be an act of Begbie-esque dumb violence to ignore Trainspotting. We can break it down into its constituent parts and try to riddle out why it's still so potent: Brian Tufano's hard, flat compositions; the fantasy sequences into the worst toilet in Scotland and down into an overdose; John Hodge's sly, dry script; a storming, gorgeous soundtrack featuring Underworld, Blur, Pulp and Elastica. There's something alchemical about it though.
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Toy Story (1995) nineties movies © - nineties movies
It's odd to think that cinema could be wholly different if one pitch meeting for The Brave Little Toaster had gone differently. As it is, John Lasseter got a firm no and the sack not long after, and he ended up co-founding Pixar. You've definitely heard this said before, but it's worth restating: Toy Story completely redrew what was possible with computer animation. After a tortuous, stop-start production which nearly killed Pixar – at one point, while recording his lines, Tom Hanks pointed out that script changes had turned Woody into "a jerk" – Toy Story proved feature-length computer animations weren't just possible, but as capable of telling expressive, moving stories as hand-drawn animation had. From here, there's a straight line through Shrek, Ice Age and Avatar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Princess Mononoke (1997) a close up of a womans face: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Studio Ghibli's environmentally minded blockbuster follows the prince of a medieval Japanese village who, injured in a fight with a god of the forest, has to head into the god's habitat to find a cure. He finds a lot more on the way than he bargains for: humans are destroying the natural world which the gods have always lived in to mine and make guns, and, understandably, the gods aren't happy. Hayao Myazaki made sure every one of the 144,000 cels of Princess Mononoke were up to scratch, and redrew bits of around 80,000 of them; you can feel that intensely personal connection right through this lush, epic romance, and that's what sets it apart even among Ghibli's greatest works.
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Clueless (1995) Stacey Dash, Alicia Silverstone standing on a sidewalk: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Cher Horowitz is queen bee at her Beverly Hills high school, but after her stepbrother Josh points out that she's a bit shallow she takes on a new, healing outlook. After matching up two lonely heart teachers, she starts her biggest project: turning new girl Tai into a social climber, just like her. Things do not pan out as hoped. Amy Heckerling's diamante-bright reimagining of Emma is packed with great, great lines – the best of which, for the record, is "Isn't my house classic? The columns date all the way back to 1972" – and skewers high school movies while becoming the quintessential example.
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The Truman Show (1998) Jim Carrey wearing a hat: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Jim Carrey's arrival as a dramatic actor became not just a film, but a treatise on surveillance, a parody of consumerism, an existential tract and the name of a recognised psychological disorder. Truman is an ordinary man bouncing through a superficially contented life, not realising that he's living in a gigantic TV studio as the star of the world's most popular show.
The Truman Show doesn't miss any chance to play with both the idea of a whole universe that's constructed specifically for TV and the universe which forms around it in the outside world. It's full of deeply satisfying touches but the smartest, I think, is the rockabilly version of '20th Century Boy' by T Rex which we hear at Truman's high school dance; in a few seconds, you can guess that his world is one where the youth revolution and the counterculture never happened. Slowly, though, the truth begins to dawn on him.
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Ed Wood (1994) Bill Murray et al. Sitting at a table: nineties movies © - nineties movies
The story of Hollywood's most relentlessly unsuccessful director is a heartwarming one in Tim Burton's hands. Ed Wood was responsible for some of the most endearingly shoddy stinkers in all of cinema – Plan Nine from Outer Space, Night of the Ghouls, Glen or Glenda – and Burton's biopic follows him as he attempts to break into Hollywood and assembles a rag-tag bunch of has-beens and no-hopers around him as he makes his unremittingly awful pictures. It's very funny, but it's also a sincere and hopeful film about the power of dreams.
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Beau Travail (1999)
A retired army man recalls his days commanding a section of the French Foreign Legion stationed in Djibouti. That's kind of as much plot as you're likely to need or get in Claire Denis' Beau Travail, loosely based on Herman Melville's Billy Budd: this is one to lie back and luxuriate in rather than trying to riddle out. It's absolutely gorgeous, sweaty and sensuous and pretty inscrutable, but moving all the same. It's about jealousy and revenge, but it's also about how cinema works as a way of making you feel things without telling you to.
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Malcolm X (1992) Denzel Washington wearing sunglasses and a suit and tie: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Spike Lee's biopic of the civil rights leader follows the full span of his life, from his tough upbringing in rural Michigan to his assassination. Lee wasn't initially involved, but after a huge blowback against the white director Norman Jewison attempting to tell the story of an icon of Black America he got the gig. "If Norman actually thought he could do it," Lee recalled later, "he would have really fought me. But he bowed out gracefully." As sure-handed as Lee's direction is, this is all about Denzel Washington's astounding performance as Malcolm X.
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Paris is Burning (1990) Angie Xtravaganza, Octavia St. Laurent, Dorian Corey, Willi Ninja posing for the camera: nineties movies © - nineties movies
Thirty years after its release, it's striking how many parts of queer and trans culture and the New York ball scene which Paris is Burning showcases have become part of the cultural mainstream. For instance, there's the scene where Dorian Corey explains shade: "I don’t have to tell you you’re ugly… I don’t have to tell you because you know you’re ugly. That’s shade." While its legacy has been chewed over by everyone from bell hooks to Judith Butler, this documentary's power is in its willingness to get out of the way of the people and performers who made the ball scene such an important and potent expression of sexuality and identity.
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The Watermelon Woman (1996) a man and a woman sitting on a couch: nineties movies © - nineties movies
This multi-hyphenate rom-com-drama-mockumentary was at least a decade ahead of its time: documentary director Cheryl Dunye plays Cheryl, a director who's making a documentary about a forgotten actor from the Thirties. She becomes fascinated by a Black actor who turned up in 'mammy' roles and whose only on-screen credit is 'the watermelon woman', and decides to track her down. It's become a cornerstone of queer cinema, and a funny, touching indictment of who gets to make the history that we think we know.
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Hard Boiled (1992) Chow Yun-Fat holding a gun: nineties movies © - nineties movies
This is the cop action film which other cop action films are intimidated by. It starts with a shoot-out in a Hong Kong teahouse and gets bigger and more gnarly from there. Jaded and angry after losing a colleague, 'Tequila' Yuen is ordered off the case. Meanwhile, an undercover cop has infiltrated another gang, and he and Tequila team up to try to take them down. There follows a lot of double-crossing, even more wild shoot-outs, and some of the best action scenes ever filmed. John Woo was the main man in the Hong Kong action films which transformed the way that people beat each other up forever.