DeathByFilms
Films about wars can be the most action packed or heart wrenching thing you may watch all year, and we love ’em! so we compiled a list of all the modern war films from 1975 onwards, and filtered out the top 75 based on their IMDb ratings…. and here they are…
Directed by:
Jonathan Teplitzky
Main Cast:
Colin Firth, Jeremy Irvine, Stellan Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Tom Stokes
A victim from World War II’s “Death Railway” sets out to find those responsible for his torture. A true story.
Directed by:
Robert Zemeckis
Main Cast:
Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Camille Cottin, Jared Harris, August Diehl
At the height of World War II, in turbulent 1942, the fearless Wing Commander, Max Vatan, lands on the desert dunes of Morocco to meet with the Parisian member of the French Resistance, Marianne Beauséjour. After a botched attempt to eliminate an elusive target during a suicide mission in the heart of Casablanca, Max and Marianne flee to England intent on starting a family soon; however, heavy clouds of distrust and suspicion will burden their already difficult relationship, when Max receives a shocking call from the Secret Service Division. In disbelief–with a terrible task in his hands, and crushed under a devastating dilemma–Max must summon up the courage to seek for answers in the perilous streets of a bombarded London, regardless of the outcome. Now, amid duty and love, who shall live and who shall die?
Directed by:
Bryan Singer
Main Cast:
Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Carice van Houten, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp
In Nazi Germany during World War II, as the tide turned in favor of the Allies, a cadre of senior German officers and politicians desperately plot to topple the Nazi regime before the nation is crushed in a nearly inevitable defeat. To this end, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an Army officer convinced he must save Germany from Adolf Hitler, is recruited to mastermind a real plan. To do so, he arranges for the internal emergency measure, Operation: Valkyrie, to be changed to enable his fellows to seize control of Berlin after the assassination of Der Führer. However, even as the plan is put into action, a combination of bad luck and human failings conspire on their own to create a tragedy that would prolong the greater one gripping Europe.
Directed by:
Robert Harmon
Main Cast:
Tom Selleck, James Remar, Timothy Bottoms, Ian Mune, Bruce Phillips
The story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy.
Directed by:
John Irvin
Main Cast:
Ron Eldard, Zak Orth, Frank Whaley, Dylan Bruno, Devon Gummersall
In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.
Directed by:
Brian De Palma
Main Cast:
Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, Don Harvey, John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo
During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager. Based on the actual events of an incident on Hill 192 in November, 1966.
Directed by:
Keith Gordon
Main Cast:
Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Arye Gross, Ethan Hawke, Gary Sinise
Set in 1944 France, an American Intelligence Squad locates a German Platoon wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany’s final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight the other.
Original title: Krigen (Danish) Directed by: Tobias Lindholm
Main Cast:
Pilou Asbæk, Tuva Novotny, Søren Malling, Charlotte Munck, Dar Salim
Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus’ wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.
Directed by: David O. Russell
Main Cast:
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze
A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that’s destined to change everything.
Directed by: Samuel Fuller
Main Cast:
Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco, Kelly Ward
A veteran sergeant of World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivor Pvt. Griff, the writer Pvt. Zab, the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson, in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, and ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of war.
Directed by: Paul Katis
Main Cast:
Mark Stanley, Malachi Kirby, Ali Cook, David Elliot, Paul Luebke
British soldiers guarding the Kajaki Dam set out to rescue a three-man team after one of them loses a leg to a landmine.
Directed by: Angelina Jolie
Main Cast:
Jack O’Connell, Alex Russell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Miyavi
A chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II.
Directed by: Edward Zwick
Main Cast:
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, Allan Corduner
Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.
Directed by: Richie Smyth
Main Cast:
Jamie Dornan, Guillaume Canet, Mark Strong, Jason O’Mara, Michael McElhatton
Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a stand off with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Main Cast:
Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Logan Lerman, Jason Isaacs
After proving himself on the field of battle in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin wants nothing more to do with such things, preferring the simple life of a farmer. But when his son Gabriel enlists in the army to defend their new nation, America, against the British, Benjamin reluctantly returns to his old life to protect his son.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Main Cast:
Jeremy Irvine, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Kebbell,
Follows a young man named Albert and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches of World War One. Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend.
Directed by: Randall Wallace
Main Cast:
Mel Gibson, Greg Kinnear, Madeleine Stowe, Sam Elliott, Chris Klein
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.
Directed by: Robert Markowitz
During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the “Tuskegee Airman” for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Main Cast:
Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Tom Berenger, Kyra Sedgwick
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
Directed by: Jon Avnet
Main Cast:
Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria, David Schwimmer, Jon Voight, Donald Sutherland
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
Directed by: Michael Bay
An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.
