What War Movie Would You Show Your Son or Daughter?

[NevadaK]

This is heavily subjective, but here is my question.

The other day my son and I decided to watch Midway. My son is very much a film aficionado and I have a graduate minor concentration in film criticism so we usually watch movies with a sharp eye. Twenty minutes in, we both are under impressed by the movie and I made the comment that there were far better aviation war movies and we paused Midway to watch Twelve O'Clock High and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. One thing we both picked up on is that the soldiers/airman all acted like they new what war was and seemed invested differently than current actors do.

Made me wonder, if you were to recommend and aviation based war movie. What would it be and why?

 

[vikingBerserker]

During Combat: 12 O'Clock, Das Boot and Saving Private Ryan. Showing after the war its hard to beat The Best Years of Our Lives.
I might add All Quiet on the Western Front but I'd need to watch it again.

EDIT: Missed the aviation requirement. 12 O'Clock, and The Best Years of Our Lives

 

[tyrodtom]

Not a movie, but a BBC series, Piece of Cake.
Movies , 12 O'clock High, Battle of Britain,

 

[michaelmaltby]

"Stalingrad", "Das Boot", "Saving Private Ryan", "Catch 22" "How I Won the War" (Richard Lester;John Lennon), "Schindler's List" "The Cross of Iron" , "Attack" (Jack Palance)."

"... EDIT: Missed the aviation requirement."

Whaaat!!!

 

[Schweik]

Depends how old the kid. But if I have a child who might go into the military and is at an older age, late teenage years etc., I'd want them to have some idea what war is like.

"Come and See", "When Trumpet's Fade", "Cross of Iron", "Stalingrad", "The Longest Day", "Kelly's Heroes", (the original) "All's Quiet on the Western Front", "Path's of Glory", "The Winter War", "Das Boot", "Hamburger Hill", "Full Metal Jacket", "Apocalypse Now"

For aviation related, maybe "Dark Blue World", "Dunkirk", "The Dam Busters", and definitely every episode of the old show "Dogfights!"

and then maybe "Hell in the Pacific" just for fun.

 

[Colkid]

1.Command Decision (1948) Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Brian Donlevy, like 12 O'Clock high.
2. (12 )'clock High. 3. The Tuskegee Airmen (1995 TV Movie) 4. Old Midway 1976 5. Tora,tora, Tora,

 

[Schweik]

I wish there were more good airplane war movies but most of the old ones don't hold up that well and the newer ones are so "Hollywood" - they are kind of embarrassing. Even relatively good ones like Dunkirk are really pretty bad on the aviation stuff.

 

[swampyankee]

Paths of Glory, All Quiet on the Western Front, Patton, Das Boot, Enemy at the Gates, Shoa, Longest Day, possibly The Deer Hunter limiting it to the 20th Century.

 

[Schweik]

I saw the russian roulette scene in Deer Hunter when I was like 14, I think I was a little too young for that. Kinda freaked me out. Apocalypse now is another good one though probably best for when they are a little older.

 

[Colkid]

Paths of Glory, All Quiet on the Western Front, Patton, Das Boot, Enemy at the Gates, Shoa, Longest Day, possibly The Deer Hunter limiting it to the 20th Century.

They said Aviation movie.

 

[pgeno71]

The movie is dated, and so are the planes, but I like The Blue Max. It fits the aviation requirement. And, come on guys, as a child of the 80's, I am shocked and horrified no one has mentioned Top Gun. Let the comments fly.

 

[Zippythehog]

Battle of Britain
Dunkirk
12 O'Clock High
The War Lover (caution-naughty bits)
The Great Escape
Dawn Patrol
A Guy Named Joe
The Blue Max (caution-naughty bits)
30 seconds over Tokyo
Bridges of Toko-Ri
Strategic Air Command
Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
The original Midway (IN SENSOROUND!)
Hell in the Pacific
The Best Years of Our Lives

 

[soulezoo]

Zippy caught all of mine... so what he said. Along with Command Decision. Flying Tigers is ok too.

 

[NevadaK]

Some great suggestions all around! My son is 26 and not looking for a military career. If we are going to go outside of the WW2 time frame the Howard Hughes movie Wings has some amazing aerial scenes. Of course Hell's Angels has the amazing zeppelin battle. Its worth the effort to find the original release colorized version.

A couple of you have mentioned Dunkirk (on the good and bad side). Here is a bit of movie geekiness for you: Tom Hardy's call sign in the movie is Farrier. The call sign was written into the script as a reference to the old poem "For want of a nail, a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost..." Ultimately causing the loss of the war. A farrier shoes horses. It is the subtext to Tom Hardy's heroics.

 

[wlewisiii]

And, come on guys, as a child of the 80's, I am shocked and horrified no one has mentioned Top Gun. Let the comments fly.

Desperately looking for something nice to say, I can only come up with, "it's not quite as bad a Pearl Harbor"

 

[soulezoo]

I'm going to add, the Bridges of Toko Ri is excellent as it is one of the few films where you get to see jet fighters and helicopters in their infancy.

In my mind's eye, where the end of WWII saw some really beautiful piston engine aircraft made, the jets (aside from ME262) didn't look all that great to me. P-80 anyone?

At least not until F-86 and MiG 15.

 

[wlewisiii]

I'm going to add, the Bridges of Toko Ri is excellent as it is one of the few films where you get to see jet fighters and helicopters in their infancy.

In my mind's eye, where the end of WWII saw some really beautiful piston engine aircraft made, the jets (aside from ME262) didn't look all that great to me. P-80 anyone?

At least not until F-86 and MiG 15.

I love the P-80. It was near perfect for the time in that they stuck to simple and known structures while working with utter unknowns in the engine. It certainly looks (and flew) better than the P-59 or P84.

Though I do wish Lockheed had continued to work on the L-133 until the P-80 project had come up. Replace the 2 impractical engines with one or even two J-33? Ah, now that could have been interesting...

 

[Zippythehog]

I'm going to add, the Bridges of Toko Ri is excellent as it is one of the few films where you get to see jet fighters and helicopters in their infancy.

In my mind's eye, where the end of WWII saw some really beautiful piston engine aircraft made, the jets (aside from ME262) didn't look all that great to me. P-80 anyone?

At least not until F-86 and MiG 15.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but, I'm pretty sure it's all navy birds- no P-80s or F-86s that I can recall. However, I might not be able to remember them for the sight of Grace Kelley. She just keeps stealing the scene-even when she isn't in it...

 

[herman1rg]

For WW2 aviation films I would recommend

Battle of Britain

Tora! Tora! Tora!

 

[Schweik]

Dr. Strangelove is a good catch the aviation part of that, as in a strategic bomber raid and world war 3 was very well done.

Bridges of toko-ri I remember that when I think it was pretty good, were those f9f Panthers or f7f?

I haven't seen a lot of the old black-and-white war movies but I would love to see a good one. I've been really disappointed even by the later ones that I loved as a kid like Midway & Tora Tora Tora from the 70s and I don't think hold up very well today. Too much completely mismatched war footage and not very accurate replicas (T-6 Texan) and so on.

The Japanese did a film during the war with some very well done combat scenes using models and real footage:

it's one of the few that seems plausible to mw. Most of the air-to-air combat seems like so bad to me. I really like to know which one of the old films really hold up cause I'll go and watch them.

as much as I like p-40s I didn't think the flying tigers was very good for example.

Catch 22 I think was a little bit mixed as a film I liked the book better, but it had some pretty neat flying scenes with a lot of real b25 s.