cinemadiso's - 20 War Films Worth Watching List

"Schindler's List" tells the incredible true story of the enigmatic Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust and whose lessons of courage continue to inspire generations.

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Francis Ford Coppola's stunning vision of man's heart of darkness revealed through the madness of the Vietnam War. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) receives orders to seek out a renegade military outpost led by the mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Willard's mission: "Terminate with extreme prejudice".

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Safe their picturesque chateau behind the front lines, the French General Staff passes down a direct order to Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas): take the Ant Hill at any cost. A blatant suicide mission, the attack is doomed to failure.

Covering up their fatal blunder, the Generals order the arrest of three innocent soldiers, charging them with cowardice and mutiny. Dax, a lawyer in civilian life, rises to the men's defense but soon realizes that, unless he can prove that the Generals were to blame, nothing less than a miracle will save his clients from the firing squad.

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One of the towering masterpieces of Japanese and world cinema, this three-part war epic has rarely been seen in the UK, at least partly because of its dauntingly gargantuan nine-hour length.

Director Masaki Kobayashi (Harakiri) was attracted to Junpei Gomikawa's source novel because he recognised himself in the character of the protagonist Kaji, an ardent pacifist who came of age during the aggressively militaristic 1930s and 40s. In part one, 'No Greater Love', Kaji is relocated to a mine-supervising job in Manchuria, where he is horrified by the use of forced labour. Part two, 'Road to Eternity', sees him conscripted into the Japanese army and forced to fight in the name of an aggressively imperialist cause. Part three, 'A Soldier's Prayer', deals with the consequences of Japan's defeat, not least for Kaji himself. Throughout, Kobayashi unflinchingly examines the psychological toll of appallingly complex decisions, where being morally 'right' risks outcomes ranging from ostracism to savage beating to death. As Kaji, Tatsuya Nakadai (Sanjuro) is in virtually every scene, providing a rock-solid emotional anchor - and a necessary one in Japan, where the film was hugely controversial for being openly critical of the nation's conduct during WWII. But it's this willingness to confront national taboos head-on that makes it such a lastingly powerful experience.

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Seen through the eyes of a squad of American soldiers, the story begins with World War II's historic D-Day invasion, then moves beyond the beach as the men embark on a dangerous special mission.

Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private James Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds, the men question their orders. Why are eight men risking their lives to save just one? Surrounded by the brutal realities of war, each man searches for his own answer - and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honour, decency and courage.

This true life story follows the struggles of T.E.Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in uniting the hostile Arab factions and leading them to victory over the ruling Turkish Empire during the First World War.

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Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece. Based on a true story from the acclaimed Bafta and Academy Award winning director Roman Polanski. They were degraded, they were hoarded up and they were sent to die.

A brave few fought back, but one man would not be beaten, would not be taken and would stay and hide. Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a brilliant Polish pianist, a Jew, escapes deportation. Forced to live in the heart of the Warsaw ghetto, he shares the suffering, the humiliation and the struggles, and manages to escape and hide in the ruins of the capital.

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Das Boot is a graphic and gripping tale that follows the daring patrol of U-96, one of the famed German U-Boats known as ‘The Grey Wolves’. Prowling the North Atlantic, they challenged the British Navy at every turn.

The crew abroad the U-96 is portrayed in a desperate life-and-death struggle, coping with life beneath the waves quickly gives way to terror when confronting the enemy...

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Guido - a charming but bumbling waiter who's gifted with a colourful imagination and an irresistible sense of humour - has won the heart of the woman he loves and created a beautiful life for his young family. But then that life is threatened by World War II...

and Guido must rely on those very same strengths to save his beloved wife and son from an unthinkable fate!

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A Jewish barber returns home after twenty-years within hospital walls to find his old shop not only dilapidated but marked with hateful graffiti. The source of this hatred is the regime of a tyrannical dictator which is persecuting the barber along with the rest of the Jewish community.

In one of his most ingenious strokes of artistry ever, Chaplin subverted the fears of the time with a visionary and undeniably moving satire of fascism and discrimination.

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In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard swept landscape of Nazi occupied Belorussia.

When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film's earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch black despair, 'The Ascent' finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war.

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Happy Halloween! Celebrate with Dora, Boots, and Little Monster in two night-time Halloween adventures, and then join Dora for a backpack and musical parade too!

Halloween Parade (2011)
On this night-time adventure, all of Dora's friends have their costumes, except Little Monster!

Help him find a costume so he can march in the Halloween Parade too!
Boo! (2003)
On Halloween, Dora and Boots discover a trick-or-treater who doesn't need a costume - Little Monster! Help them bring him home to the Monster House before the clock strikes 12.
The Backpack Parade (2008)
Everyone's packing their backpacks for the Backpack Parade! Backpack needs to sing her song to start the parade, but she can't stop sneezing. Will you and Dora help?
Dora, La Musico (2003)
The townspeople are having a musical parade, but when Senor Shush locks all of their instruments in a Music Box, Dora and Boots need your help to bring the parade to town!

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Train engineer Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is turned down when he tries to enlist in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War as his occupation is deemed too important.

When his train (The General) is stolen by Union soldiers so that it can be used to attack Confederate forces, only Johnny and his girl Annabelle Lee can save the train and warn the Confederates about an impending attack.

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When British P.O.W.'s build a vital railway bridge in enemy-occupied Burma, Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'.

Spectacularly produced, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Director. Even it's the theme song, an old WWI whistling tune, the 'Colonel Bogey March', became a massive worldwide hit. 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time.

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A superb ensemble cast falls in for action in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant saga about the Vietnam War and the dehumanizing process that turns people into trained killers.

Joker (Matthew Modine), Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin), Gomer (Vincent D'Onofrio), Eightball (Dorian Harewood), Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and more - all are plunged into a boot-camp hell pitbulled by a leatherlung D.I. (Lee Ermey) who views the would-be devil dogs as grunts, maggots or something less. The action is savage, the story unsparing, the dialogue spiked with scathing humor. 'Full Metal Jacket', from its rigors of basic training to its nightmare of combat in Hue City, scores a cinematic direct hit.