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Top War Films (#1-100)

Rank Title Year Director(s) War Overall
Rank
1 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 David Lean World War I 9
2 Apocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam War 13
3 Gone with the Wind 1939 Victor Fleming American Civil War 17
4 Schindler's List 1993 Steven Spielberg World War II 22
5 The General 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton American Civil War 45
6 Saving Private Ryan 1998 Steven Spielberg World War II 50
7 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957 David Lean World War II 57
8 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein Russian Revolution 74
9 The Deer Hunter 1978 Michael Cimino Vietnam War 85
10 The Grand Illusion 1937 Jean Renoir World War I 90
11 Braveheart 1995 Mel Gibson Wars of Scottish Independence 116
12 The African Queen 1951 John Huston World War I 120
13 Platoon 1986 Oliver Stone Vietnam War 122
14 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 William Wyler World War II 126
15 M*A*S*H 1970 Robert Altman Korean War 128
16 All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 Lewis Milestone World War I 146
17 Paths of Glory 1957 Stanley Kubrick World War I 152
18 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith American Civil War 161
19 The Great Escape 1963 John Sturges World War II 166
20 Ran 1985 Akira Kurosawa Fictitious Japanese civil war 185
21 Doctor Zhivago 1965 David Lean Russian Civil War 191
22 Das Boot 1981 Wolfgang Petersen World War II 194
23 Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini World War II 205
24 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo Algerian War of Independence 215
25 From Here to Eternity 1953 Fred Zinnemann World War II 220
26 The English Patient 1996 Anthony Minghella World War II 231
27 Andrei Rublev 1966 Andrei Tarkovsky Tatar Raid 236
28 Life Is Beautiful 1997 Roberto Benigni World War II 238
29 Patton 1970 Franklin J. Schaffner World War II 241
30 To Be or Not to Be 1942 Ernst Lubitsch World War II 248
31 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance Napoleonic Wars 264
32 Stairway to Heaven 1946 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger World War II 265
33 Full Metal Jacket 1987 Stanley Kubrick Vietnam War 275
34 Hiroshima mon amour 1959 Alain Resnais World War II 303
35 The Leopard 1963 Luchino Visconti Italian Unification 332
36 Barry Lyndon 1975 Stanley Kubrick Seven Years War 355
37 The Thin Red Line 1998 Terrence Malick World War II 357
38 The Great Dictator 1940 Charles Chaplin World War I 369
39 Henry V 1944 Laurence Olivier Hundred Years' War 375
40 To Have and Have Not 1944 Howard Hawks World War II 383
41 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Boer War, World War I, and World War II 390
42 Glory 1989 Edward Zwick American Civil War 395
43 Come and See 1985 Elem Klimov World War II 407
44 Ashes and Diamonds 1958 Andrzej Wajda World War II 444
45 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor World War I 461
46 Triumph of the Will 1935 Leni Riefenstahl Chinese Civil War 465
47 The Last of the Mohicans 1992 Michael Mann French and Indian War 468
48 The Pianist 2002 Roman Polanski World War II 470
49 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek 1944 Preston Sturges World War II 487
50 Zulu 1964 Cy Endfield Anglo-Zulu War 491
51 A Man Escaped 1956 Robert Bresson World War II 511
52 The Dirty Dozen 1967 Robert Aldrich World War II 518
53 Alexander Nevsky 1938 Sergei M. Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev Northern Crusades 523
54 Au Revoir, les Enfants 1987 Louis Malle World War II 534
55 Stalag 17 1953 Billy Wilder World War II 569
56 Gallipoli 1981 Peter Weir World War I 598
57 The Sorrow and the Pity 1969 Marcel Ophüls World War II 599
58 Downfall 2004 Oliver Hirschbiegel World War II 600
59 Farewell My Concubine 1993 Kaige Chen World War II and Chinese Civil War 601
60 The Longest Day 1962 Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki World War II 614
61 The Big Red One 1980 Samuel Fuller World War II 619
62 The Killing Fields 1984 Roland Joffé Cambodian Civil War 620
63 Gunga Din 1939 George Stevens Thuggee Uprising 623
64 The Tin Drum 1979 Volker Schlöndorff World War II 644
65 Three Kings 1999 David O. Russell Operation Desert Storm 663
66 Closely Watched Trains 1966 Jirí Menzel World War II 664
67 Army in the Shadows 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville World War II 736
68 Little Big Man 1970 Arthur Penn Indian Wars 742
69 Night and Fog 1955 Alain Resnais World War II 744
70 Forbidden Games 1952 René Clément World War II 766
71 Grave of the Fireflies 1988 Isao Takahata World War II 771
72 Born on the Fourth of July 1989 Oliver Stone Vietnam War 781
73 The Guns of Navarone 1961 J. Lee Thompson World War II 783
74 Hope and Glory 1987 John Boorman World War II 786
75 'Breaker' Morant 1980 Bruce Beresford Boer War 829
76 Empire of the Sun 1987 Steven Spielberg World War II 843
77 Mister Roberts 1955 John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy World War II 863
78 Black Hawk Down 2001 Ridley Scott Somali Civil War 866
79 Paisan 1946 Roberto Rossellini World War II 871
80 The Caine Mutiny 1954 Edward Dmytryk World War II 884
81 The Mirror 1975 Andrei Tarkovsky World War II 887
82 Sergeant York 1941 Howard Hawks World War I 919
83 Mrs. Miniver 1942 William Wyler World War II 949
84 The Shop on Main Street 1965 Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos World War II 956
85 Hail the Conquering Hero 1944 Preston Sturges World War II 975
86 In Which We Serve 1942 Noel Coward and David Lean World War II 978
87 Henry V 1989 Kenneth Branagh Hundred Years' War 984
88 The Travelling Players 1975 Theodoros Angelopoulos World War II 988
89 Underground 1995 Emir Kusturica World War II and Yugoslav Wars 996
90 Ballad of a Soldier 1959 Grigori Chukhraj World War II 997
91 Twelve O'Clock High 1949 Henry King World War II 1002
92 Chimes at Midnight 1965 Orson Welles Hundred Years' War 1016
93 War and Peace 1967 Sergei Bondarchuk Napoleonic Wars 1019
94 Where Eagles Dare 1968 Brian G. Hutton World War II 1037
95 Good Morning, Vietnam 1987 Barry Levinson Vietnam War 1040
96 The Train 1964 John Frankenheimer World War II 1043
97 Seven Beauties 1975 Lina Wertmüller World War II 1049
98 Foreign Correspondent 1940 Alfred Hitchcock World War II 1054
99 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 2003 Peter Weir Napoleonic Wars 1056
100 Hotel Rwanda 2004 Terry George Rwandan Genocide 1060
Go to the next 115 war films
This page was last modified on May 8, 2011