The directors cut of Das Boot is available on DVD. Its a much longer film than the cinema release. Apparently it had been a mini-series in Germany and was cut down into a movie for international release. Well, the directors cut is kind of long, but it is a much better edit of the material than the original.
"Battle Cry" was also a fantastic book. I read it several years ago, before I ever saw the movie. It was written by Leon Uris, author of "Exodus".
What about Heartbreak Ridge...Colitus, Canoles (sp), Prophylactic, Ajax... My personal favorite is Full Metal Jacket, with Platoon as a close second. There are some great movies mentioned here. Men's Journal did a list of the Top 25 guy movies of all time. That was a great article, if you can go back and find it. Must have been in the last 6 months or so.
My criteria for evaluating war movies probably differs slightly from ya'lls. It seems ya'll still look at war movies like any other movie, evaluating plot, actors, story lines, dramatic contents, etc., etc. I like my war movies to be as historically accurate as possible, a kind of "docu-drama" so to speak. And plenty of these kind have been made and they are great. With that in mind, my ten best: 1. Saving Private Ryan- The most realistic war movie I have yet seen, despite the fact that it is not a "docu-drama." The opening D-Day sequence is not for the faint of heart, and I like the way they boiled the entire war down to what it meant for that one platoon and the one man, Ryan, and his family. Steven Spielberg's best movie, and he has done some good ones. 2. Tora, Tora, Tora- No, it didn't make a tremendous impression when it first came out, but if you want to know the REAL STORY of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor, this is a good one to watch. Of course, it was dramatized in parts, and there are long stretches of endless dialogue with little or no action, but it is definitely a history buff's kind of war movie. 3&4. Gettysburg/ Gods & Generals- A docu-drama much like Tora, Tora, Tora, based on the book "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara, and like the book, it is a dramatization of the key players in the Battle of Gettysburg. This movie is awesome, and it is done from a completely neutral perspective rather than a "North good, South evil" viewpoint. Martin Sheen is outstanding as Robert E. Lee, and the battle scenes using Civil War re-enactors are quite realistic. I also highly recommend the pre-quel "Gods and Generals." It is worth your time, but it's not quite as good as Gettysburg. 5. Glory- The story of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black infantry unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is done very well in this movie. This is the film that made Denzel Washington a star, but Matthew Broderick is also very good in his role as Regimental Commander, Lt. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. The final battle scene, where Shaw is killed and the regiment is slaughtered as they storm Ft. Wagner during the seige of Charleston is a spectacular but gut-wrenching sequence. my complete top ten would be: 6. Patton 7. Apocalypse Now 8. We Were Soldiers 9. The Lost Battalion 10. Midway (but only if you see it completely unedited, and in it's entirerity)
Among the older war movies "The Guns of Navarrone" and "The Great Escape" were good. Anybody ever see "To Hell and Back" starring Audie Murphey as himself?
All these are great movies, but we seem to have forgotten "The Longest Day", the D-Day movie featuring John Wayne and an extremely young Sean Connery. My list: 1. Savng Private Ryan 2. The Longest Day 3. The Patriot 4. Gladiator 5. Windtalkers