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Top War Films (#1-100)

Rank Title Year Director(s) War Overall
Rank
1 Casablanca 1942 Michael Curtiz World War II 3
2 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 David Lean World War I 9
3 Gone with the Wind 1939 Victor Fleming American Civil War 15
4 Apocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam War 16
5 Schindler's List 1993 Steven Spielberg World War II 21
6 The General 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton American Civil War 44
7 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957 David Lean World War II 52
8 Saving Private Ryan 1998 Steven Spielberg World War II 56
9 The Deer Hunter 1978 Michael Cimino Vietnam War 73
10 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein Russian Revolution 77
11 The African Queen 1951 John Huston World War I 92
12 The Grand Illusion 1937 Jean Renoir World War I 105
13 Braveheart 1995 Mel Gibson Wars of Scottish Independence 111
14 Platoon 1986 Oliver Stone Vietnam War 112
15 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 William Wyler World War II 114
16 M*A*S*H 1970 Robert Altman Korean War 122
17 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 Lewis Milestone World War I 137
18 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith American Civil War 145
19 Paths of Glory 1957 Stanley Kubrick World War I 154
20 The Great Escape 1963 John Sturges World War II 170
21 From Here to Eternity 1953 Fred Zinnemann World War II 173
22 Doctor Zhivago 1965 David Lean Russian Civil War 176
23 Ran 1985 Akira Kurosawa Fictitious Japanese civil war 189
24 Patton 1970 Franklin J. Schaffner World War II 200
25 The English Patient 1996 Anthony Minghella World War II 219
26 Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini World War II 220
27 To Be or Not to Be 1942 Ernst Lubitsch World War II 225
28 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance Napoleonic Wars 227
29 Das Boot 1981 Wolfgang Petersen World War II 231
30 Andrei Rublev 1966 Andrei Tarkovsky Tatar Raid 234
31 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo Algerian War of Independence 253
32 Life Is Beautiful 1997 Roberto Benigni World War II 256
33 Stairway to Heaven 1946 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger World War II 260
34 Full Metal Jacket 1987 Stanley Kubrick Vietnam War 289
35 Hiroshima mon amour 1959 Alain Resnais World War II 292
36 To Have and Have Not 1944 Howard Hawks World War II 342
37 The Leopard 1963 Luchino Visconti Italian Unification 343
38 Glory 1989 Edward Zwick American Civil War 359
39 Henry V 1944 Laurence Olivier Hundred Years' War 364
40 Barry Lyndon 1975 Stanley Kubrick Seven Years War 382
41 The Great Dictator 1940 Charles Chaplin World War I 387
42 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Boer War, World War I, and World War II 390
43 The Thin Red Line 1998 Terrence Malick World War II 410
44 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek 1944 Preston Sturges World War II 437
45 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor World War I 461
46 Ashes and Diamonds 1958 Andrzej Wajda World War II 463
47 Alexander Nevsky 1938 Sergei M. Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev Northern Crusades 466
48 Come and See 1985 Elem Klimov World War II 467
49 The Last of the Mohicans 1992 Michael Mann French and Indian War 470
50 Triumph of the Will 1935 Leni Riefenstahl 484
51 A Man Escaped 1956 Robert Bresson World War II 494
52 Pan's Labyrinth 2006 Guillermo del Toro Spanish Civil War 500
53 Zulu 1964 Cy Endfield Anglo-Zulu War 504
54 Au Revoir, les Enfants 1987 Louis Malle World War II 519
55 The Pianist 2002 Roman Polanski World War II 530
56 Stalag 17 1953 Billy Wilder World War II 535
57 The Dirty Dozen 1967 Robert Aldrich World War II 536
58 The Sorrow and the Pity 1969 Marcel Ophüls World War II 556
59 Gunga Din 1939 George Stevens Thuggee Uprising 562
60 The Killing Fields 1984 Roland Joffé Cambodian Civil War 572
61 The Big Red One 1980 Samuel Fuller World War II 591
62 Farewell My Concubine 1993 Kaige Chen World War II and Chinese Civil War 592
63 The Longest Day 1962 Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki World War II 607
64 Throne of Blood 1957 Akira Kurosawa Fictitious Japanese civil war 629
65 The Tin Drum 1979 Volker Schlöndorff World War II 631
66 Three Kings 1999 David O. Russell Operation Desert Storm 637
67 Gallipoli 1981 Peter Weir World War I 650
68 Downfall 2004 Oliver Hirschbiegel World War II 689
69 Forbidden Games 1952 René Clément World War II 704
70 Little Big Man 1970 Arthur Penn Indian Wars 727
71 Closely Watched Trains 1966 Jirí Menzel World War II 729
72 Army in the Shadows 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville World War II 730
73 Grave of the Fireflies 1988 Isao Takahata World War II 739
74 Queen Christina 1933 Rouben Mamoulian Thirty Years' War 740
75 The Caine Mutiny 1954 Edward Dmytryk World War II 750
76 Born on the Fourth of July 1989 Oliver Stone Vietnam War 761
77 Mister Roberts 1955 John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy World War II 762
78 Les Vampires 1915 Louis Feuillade 787
79 The Guns of Navarone 1961 J. Lee Thompson World War II 803
80 The Mirror 1975 Andrei Tarkovsky World War II 809
81 Night and Fog 1955 Alain Resnais World War II 819
82 Mrs. Miniver 1942 William Wyler World War II 820
83 The Shop on Main Street 1965 Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos World War II 826
84 Hope and Glory 1987 John Boorman World War II 848
85 'Breaker' Morant 1980 Bruce Beresford Boer War 856
86 Paisan 1946 Roberto Rossellini World War II 859
87 The Travelling Players 1975 Theodoros Angelopoulos World War II 860
88 Empire of the Sun 1987 Steven Spielberg World War II 909
89 Sergeant York 1941 Howard Hawks World War I 910
90 1900 1976 Bernardo Bertolucci World War I and World War II 934
91 Twelve O'Clock High 1949 Henry King World War II 942
92 In Which We Serve 1942 Noel Coward and David Lean World War II 955
93 Chimes at Midnight 1965 Orson Welles Hundred Years' War 969
94 Black Hawk Down 2001 Ridley Scott Somali Civil War 978
95 Underground 1995 Emir Kusturica World War II and Yugoslav Wars 982
96 Hail the Conquering Hero 1944 Preston Sturges World War II 991
97 Henry V 1989 Kenneth Branagh Hundred Years' War 996
98 War and Peace 1967 Sergei Bondarchuk Napoleonic Wars 997
99 Good Morning, Vietnam 1987 Barry Levinson Vietnam War 1000
100 Seven Beauties 1975 Lina Wertmüller World War II 1017
Go to the next 108 war films
This page was last modified on June 13, 2010