Top Ten War Movies

For about a year I have been toying with publishing a listing of my all-time Top Ten war movies.

I have read countless books and stories about war and and the consequences of war. But rarely does a great motion picture result from the publication of a great book. For instance, Michener's The Bridges at Toko-Ri is a compelling novel. The movie (while worth seeing) is hardly a epic film.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of great motion pictures about war and the trouble with this is that it's hard to whittle the list down to ten and only ten.

So what I have done is to have enlisted the vast resources of the professional and technical staff here at The Platz to scribble a list on a yellow legal pad of all the war movies I could recall that fit my exacting criteria. When I had nothing better to do I would reconvene all of those vast resources and revisit the list from time to time. Movie titles would be added and deleted and the collection of motion pictures would expand and contract and then we would start the process all over again.

Voila!

Wouldn't you know it. After an entire year of grueling effort I have compiled the list.

I feel like a one man Academy of Motion Picture Sciences.

Anyway, here are my exacting criteria for qualifying for the list:

1. It has to be a theater release. For example, HBO's Band of Brothers series might have easily made the Top Ten but it was a made for cable production and therefore it's not on the list.

2. Any qualifying motion picture had to have been watched by me for the first time in an actual theater. Video, DVD and cable doesn't count.

3. The central theme has to be combat. For instance, Gone with the Wind was not necessarily an epic film about the War Between the States - or as it is known in the south - the War of Northern Aggression. It was a treacly Hollywood embellishment of southern life before and after the war. Besides, that war occurred outside my 100 year parameter. (Refer to #4 below)

4. Only wars from the last one hundred years count. Therefore, something like Braveheart, Glory or anything about the Norman Conquest is off the table.

5. Extra points for leaving a lasting impression. Yes, I know that's very subjective but I'll elaborate as I proceed.

Check-in tomorrow for the first weekly installment.