Top 25 War Films - My Picks

by MG William Flatt

This month I would like to take a departure from the serious and discuss what I like for fun, and that's war movies.  I love a good war flick!

I would like to say that this was an easy exercise, but it was definitely not the walk in the park that I thought it would be.  So many movies, so little time.  I even shared my rough draft list with a dozen or so co-workers, and found that there were some movies worth adding that I had forgotten about.

Originally this was supposed to be a "Top 10" list, but try as I may, I couldn't whittle my list to a mere 10.  I have a lot of reasons for picking the ones I did, but explaining why would take up 20 pages.  So without further ado, here we go!

25.  Red Dawn

24.  Bat 21

23.  The Last Castle

22.  Escape From Sobibor

21.  Full Metal Jacket (the first half)

20.  Windtalkers

19.  Behind Enemy Lines

18.  Breaker Morant

17.  Uprising

16.  Savior

15.  Tora! Tora! Tora!

14.  Tears On the Sun

13.  A Bridge Too Far

12.  The Thin Red Line

11.  Bridge on the River Kwai

10.  Blackhawk Down

  9.  Patton

  8.  The Rough Riders

  7.  Hamburger Hill

  6.  Das Boot

  5.  Enemy At the Gates

  4.  The Great Escape

  3.  Gettysburg / Gods and Generals

  2.  Saving Private Ryan

and...

  1.  We Were Soldiers

Command Briefs, January 2005

William Flatt, Senior Brigade Commander