Given the reaction I got (in my inbox) to this post about British films, I'm asking for trouble here, but then you know me - a hardy soul. Over the weekend I watched Channel 4's programme on the top 100 war movies, as voted for by their viewers. Thus prompted, I have chosen my own top 10. Let me say, as before, that the list is constructed on the basis of what I have seen, which films I can remember and how well, and so forth. I have also excluded from consideration several excellent films considered by C4 to be war movies, but which I don't think of as mainstream in the genre: for example, The Pianist, Casablanca, Dr Strangelove. Here's my top 10, the first three ranked, the rest in alphabetical order:
Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977)Now, do your worst; tell me how wrong I am.
Paths Of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001)
The Bridge On The River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977)
The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967)
The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963)
Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)