Other Crap

American Legion votes Saving Private Ryan best war film

Oh, why not. It has a good case, although I find it kinda artificial after the brilliant D-Day landing sequence.

Assuming that the two great cable series (The Civil War and Band of Brothers) are not eligible, I'd say the top groups look something like this. These are in no special order.

Part One: The best war films based upon their portrayals of war. (But I'm just guessing, because I don't know jack about war.)

• Alexander (Yes, I know it is not a great movie. Indeed, it kinda sucks. But it is a tremendous WAR movie. The mammoth battle sequences, especially when filmed from above, are incredible.)
  
• Saving Private Ryan
  
• Patton
  
• War and Peace (joint US/USSR version)
  
• Apocalypse Now
  
• Enemy at the Gates. (This should have been a great, great movie, but faltered. Like Saving Private Ryan, it has a brilliant opening sequence that had me flinching and ducking. The film also has a great mano-a-mano showdown within a city in rubble, and some fascinating looks at history and politics. If only it hadn't layered in a hokey love story.)
  
• Black Hawk Down
  
• The Lost Battalion
  
• Pork Chop Hill
  
• Children of Men (war sequence only, of course)
  
• Letters from Iwo Jima /Flags of our Fathers
  
• We Were Soldiers (Great Book. Written by a general, but with astounding eloquence. The movie - not as good, but still worthwhile.)
  

Note: I have never seen Hamburger Hill, and I haven't seen The Longest Day since I was a kid. Maybe they belong on the list.

Part Two: the best war movies in which the war itself is more offscreen, is portrayed romantically or satirically, or is peripheral to the story:

• Paths of Glory
  
• 300
  
• Barry Lyndon
  
• Bridge on the River Kwai
  
• The Great Escape
  
• Duck Soup
  
• The Deer Hunter
  
• Gone With The Wind
  
• M*A*S*H
  
• Casablanca
  
• Schindler's List
  

Part Three: A bunch of films which could be on either list, I suppose:

• Full Metal Jacket
  
• Platoon
  
• Glory
  
• Lawrence of Arabia