davidh's - Top 10 - Vietnam War Films List

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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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Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young, naive American who, upon his arrival in Vietnam, quickly discovers that he must do battle not only with the Viet Cong, but also with the gnawing fear, physical exhaustion and intense anger growing within him.

While his two commanding officers (Oscar-nominated Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe) draw a fine line between the war they wage against the enemy and the one they fight with each other, the conflict, chaos and hatred permeate Taylor, suffocating his realities and numbing his feelings to man's highest value...life.

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When Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken) are captured by the Vietcong, they are forced to play Russian Roulette by their brutal captors, who make bets on their survival.

The experience of capture leaves them with terrible physical and spiritual wounds, and when Michael returns to Saigon to fulfill an old promise to one of his friends, he makes an unexpected, horrific discovery. Also featuring astonishing performances from Meryl Streep as the woman both Michael and Nick fall in love with, and John Cazale as their unhinged and insecure friend Stan, 'The Deer Hunter' is widely acknowledged as one of cinema's great masterpieces and contains some of the most memorable scenes in film history.

On the 11th May 1969, troops of the 101st airborne division engaged the enemy at the base of Hill 937 in the Ashau Valley. Ten days and eleven bloody assaults later, the troops who fought there called it Hamburger Hill.

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Sunday 14 November, 1965 at 10.48am, Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) and his regiment of 400 men touch down at Landing Zone X-Ray in the la Drang Valley, a place in Vietnam known as "The Valley of Death".

They find themselves surrounded by over 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and the ensuing battle becomes one of the most savage in US history.

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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.

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Tom Cruise delivers a riveting and unforgettable portrayal of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Academy Award winning masterpiece.

Based on a true story, the acclaimed film follows the young Kovic from a zealous teen who eagerly volunteers for the Vietnam War, to an embittered veteran paralysed from the mid-chest down. Deeply in love with his country, Kovic returned to an environment vastly different from the one he left, and struggled before emerging as a brave new voice for the disenchanted.

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Witness to a vile crime, Private Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is forced to stand alone against his fellow soldiers and commanding officer Sergeant Meserve (Sean Penn). A powerful and charismatic man pushed over the edge of barbarism by the terror and brutality of combat.

With sweeping scope, action and raw power, master filmmaker Brian De Palma creates a devastating and unforgettable tale of one man's quest for sanity and justice amidst the chaos of war.

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Robin Williams shakes up 1965 Saigon as irreverent, non-conformist deejay Adrian Cronauer. Imported by the army for an early a.m. radio show, Cronauer blasts the formerly staid, sanitized airwaves with a constant barrage of rapid-fire humour and the hippest tunes from back home.

The GI's love him - but the top brass is outraged! Riddled with side-splitting comic bombshells and studded with hot '60's hits, the film depicts Cronauer's raucous Saigon adventures and a world gone mad.

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A patrol gets lost in the central highlands of Vietnam and finds itself in deep trouble. This is seen through the eyes of "MoPic" (Byron Thames), the patrol's cameraman. But the cameraman is not simply recording the action, but trying to make a documentary that can be used as a training film.

The six members of the reconnaissance unit share their diverse experiences, both individually and collectively with bullets shooting around them while MoPic shoots the film. The crew battles for their lives, hoping to return with the film to be able to tell the world of the horrors of war. What could go wrong?...everything.