Should have had at least an honorable mention to "The Dam Busters."

These are all good picks (and pics).

There are a half-dozen which should receive an honorable mention:

1. 'Mister Roberts' (1955) is a classic film which portrays what happens behind the front lines, specifically in the Pacific. The title character is eager to get into the fighting but is continually frustrated by his jealous and incompetent skipper. Hank Fonda & Jimmy Cagney!

2. 'The Enemy Below' (1957) Probably is the Allied counterpart to the German film 'Das Boot'. Robert Mitchum is the skipper of a US destroyer hunting a U-boat in the Atlantic. The two captains play a deadly cat and mouse game with each other until they meet one final time in a rather dramatic fashion. Curt Jurgens is the U-boat skipper. And for the snobs, this film is in color.

3. 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison' (1957) Deborah Kerr is a nun and James Mitchum is a marine who are trapped on an island and are forced to hide as the Japanese take over.

4. Jeffrey Hunter basically made a career starring in several war movies:
'The Longest Day' (1962), 'No Man is an Island' (1961), 'Hell to Eternity' (1960), and one film from early n his career, 'Sailor of the King' (1953), where Hunter as a marooned sailor holds off a damaged German raider which has sought shelter at a remote island.

5. IDK how Audie Murphy's bio-pic 'To Hell and Back' (1955) missed the cut, but there. Audie Murphy stars as himself as the Allies advance thru France heading for a show-down with the Reich.

6. For fans of later movies, 'The Big Red One' (1980) by Sam Fuller, starring Lee Marvin, is a look at how one unit fights its way from Africa, to Sicily and Italy, and beyond. Kind of a GI version of 'Patton'. Mark Hamill left his light saber at home for this one.

In Harm's Way captivates as soap opera but the mishmosh of the land campaigns on Guadalcanal and some of the naval actions off Leyte Gulf is mostly off target. When it comes to weapons and tactics, I find it one of the most laughable military movies ever made. Although it is about the US Navy, it fails to even mention the two naval forces that ultimately lead to victory- American superiority in producing aircraft carriers and naval aviators and the submarine blockade that starved Japan of war materials and fuel. The gunboats it celebrates were mostly used as floating AA batteries to protect the carriers it ignores.

I would also include..

1. "Twelve O'clock High"

http://veehd.com/search?q=]Twelve+Oclock+high

2. "Fighter Squadron"

http://veehd.com/video/4580061...

3. "Merrill's Marauders"

http://veehd.com/video/4506001...

4. "Task Force"

http://www.primewire.ag/watch-...

5. "Battle Cry"

http://veehd.com/video/2397938...

6. "A Walk in the Sun"

http://veehd.com/video/4510668...

7. "Hell is for Heroes"

http://veehd.com/video/4510535...

You've used so many films in other lists this one comes close to being random. Given the fact Hollywood films are fantasist, probably the film that's closest to some version of reality is The Best Years of Our Lives. It nicely balances gung-ho with pragmatism and questioning without being maudlin or anti-American in the way films about such subject matter have been for some decades now. The film never gives an answer, but instead stipulates there are causes worth dying for but never to the point those deaths shouldn't at least be measured and questioned.

I would point at one largely forgotten Steve McQueen film called Hell is for Heroes as being good to watch, although it was as panned by critics as Soldier in the Rain, another McQueen film I just love.

I have a nagging inclination to substitute The Big Red One for Patton They both cover roughly the same time span and operational areas. Everyone knows Patton -- it's a better movie -- but here's the thing: War from the POV of a general is not the same as the POV of guys who got lost/dirty/maimed fighting it. And, btw, Patton didn't see D-Day, but the characters in Big Red One sure as hell did. (Hey, kids! Want to learn why using a Bangalore torpedo while under enemy fire was so much fun? Look no further.)

Greetings:

I've long held that the Italian campaign, in spite of its being so hard and long fought is one of the overlooked parts of WW II. In his "The Day of Battle" history, Rick Atkinson pretty much confirmed that for me and for ever. The mountains, the weather, all that pasta, miseries in capital infantry letters.

Although this movie pretty much involves none of that, I still enjoy occasional re-viewings of "A Walk in the Sun". I don't remember the names of any of the actors or even the director, but as a way former infantryman,
it certainly dramatizes what it's like to go on an operation and have to deal with dangers within and with out.

No "They Were Expendable"? How about "Bataan"?

What about the movie Casablanca, with Claude Raines, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henried? Also, Key Largo, with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Sidney Greenstreet, and someone else whose name I have forgotten.

How about Flying Tigers? Tell the story of the americons fighting the axis before the US actually got involved.

Another good movie regarding the submarine combat in the Atlantic is "Das boot"

Nothing covering the Russian front?

It's a miniseries not a movie, but it's hard to beat Band of Brothers.

Saving Private Ryan for the Normandy invasion scene alone.

Dang, I was sure Kelly's Heroes and he Incredible Mr. Limpet would have made the top 10. : )

I really like Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and a very young Clint Eastwood and Enemy at the Gates with Ed Harris and Jude Law as well as The Great Escape, Steve McQueen, James Rockford, several other big name stars. Also The Dirty Dozen. Schindler's List I think also has to be on a 10 Best WWII movies. Probably my most favorite is The Longest Day, about the D-day invasion.

Greetings:

At the risk of abusing your hospitality site-wise, something has occurred to me in thinking about WW II movies that I would like to share.

Growing up in the Bronx of the '50s and '60s, there were any number of WW II based war movies, coming and going, both in the local double-feature theaters and on all those new-fangled television sets. As a growing boy, I pretty much always found them of significant interest and when my local peers would decide that this or that day would be a WW II day a good bit of the action in those movies would be emulated be it to a boyish degree.

Many years later, when my own military draft was, as they used to say, "impending", my father engaged me is several serious discussions about service in the military, about what I could expect and what I should avoid. Until then, my father had been mostly circumspect about any details of his own experiences as one of Mr. Browning's Automatic Riflemen in the Pacific Theater, but then a new priority had emerged.

The result of all these things was a kind of ample preparation for all those infantry experiences in my immediate future, certainly more than one might expect from one of today's week-long business seminars.

Which brings me to my point. With today's dearth of military themed movies (and with most of those including some degree of Progressive subversion) and with such a small percentage of our population having any military experience of their own, are we in danger of having a cultural deficit in regard to mentally and physically preparing our young men for service in our nation's military branches?

I realize that your list is intended to be US-centric, but I would nominate Conspiracy, which tells the story of the Wansee Conference. It is based upon actual notes smuggled out by one of the participants and starts Kenneth Branagh in an exceptionally chilling portrayal of Heydrich. It is the best possible portrayal or Hannah Arendt's line about the banality of evil. A bonus is Stanley Tucci as the fastidiously precise murderous bureaucrat Eichmann.

Likewise, Downfall is worth watching. Everyone has seen the re-subtitled scenes and parodies, how about watching this meticulously recreated recreation of Hitler's final days in that bunker?

"!2 O'Clock High" and "Longest Day" are the best WWII movies.

On Further Review the list sucks.

Here is a better list that tells the story in rough WWII chronological order:

1. Tora Tora Tora.
2. Wake Island
2. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
3. The Gallant Hours
4. Twelve O'Clock High
5. The Enemy Below
6. The Longest Day
7. Go For Broke
8. A Bridge Too Far
9. The Great Raid
10. The Enola Gay (1952 Version)

Why not "The Longest Day"?

After all, getting that collection of talent for one project is remarkable, in & of itself. Or is Cornelius Ryan out of favour these days?

1) Missing is 12 O'clock High.
2) Patton, while a good movie, spends more time Whitewashing Omar Bradley than it does Biographing George Smith Patton III

Here's my top ten WWII movies. A Walk in the sun is my number 1 because it suggests what pretty much every combat infantryman experienced. All you know is what's 100 or so yards around you. All you have is the little picture.

My top war movie is a forgotten Sam Fuller cheapie ($104,000) made in the early 1950's set during the Korean War: "The Steel Helmet." It has a great opening few scenes. If you haven't seen it, it's worth your 85 minutes.

l. A walk in the Sun
2.The story of GI Joe
3. Schlinder's List
4. Heaven knows Mr. Allison
5. Screaming Eagles
6. I was an American Spy
7. Saving Private Ryan
8. Patton
9. Twelve O'Clock High
10. Beachhead

As I recall Judgment at Nuremburg wasn't about the trial of the highest-ranking Nazis. Lancaster played a judge on trial in that one.

How is it that both "To Hell and Back" and "The Battle of San Pietro" are missing? As for "In Harm's Way" it's fiction with bad production values.

Tora, Tora, Tora! The definitive Hollywood WWII movie, technically correct in every detail except one, there were no sailors jumping over the side of the Battleship Nevada. We see the detailed plans being crafted for the attack, the rehearsals, the lack of White House security, competent men working to decipher Japanese intentions, the outstanding work of the harbor picket destroyer, which was manned by a reserve crew, incompetent commanders who repeatedly ignored warnings from radar operators and the destroyer, our Navy actually fired the first shot of the war when a reservist crew hit and sank a Japanese submarine attempting to penetrate the defenses. A mess steward who manned an antiaircraft machine gun after all of the gun crew had been killed around it. Dorie Miller, a man not permitted a combat role because of his skin color.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
And Nagumo failing to persist when obliterating the Pacific fleet was in his grasp.

My late father was a WWII vet and did not like most WWII movies since he told me they glorified combat. My father was very "old school" and was hardly the touchy feely type. He took me to see "Apocalypse Now" (my first R rated movie) and liked the combat scenes since they were brutal and senseless and stripped away the "John Wayne glory BS" from war.