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1917
Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of Skyfall, Spectre and American Beauty, brings his singular vision to this World War I epic. At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them.
The Ascent
Tracks two Byelorussian peasant soldiers - one on the path to redemption, the other to hell - as they try to evade Nazi forces suring World War II.
The Big Red One
Named for the insignia of the First Infantry Division, this World War II combat film follows a handful of young GIs and their sergeant as they battle their way from North Africa through Sicily, Omaha Beach and Belgium to the ultimate horror of the concentration camp at Falkenau, Czechoslovakia.
Breaker Morant
Three Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers. Based on a play and true story.
Come and See
When young Florya willingly joins a group of Partisans fighting the Nazis in Byelorussia, U.S.S.R., he little suspects that he is plunging through the looking glass. Separated from his comrades during a paratroop attack and struck deaf by German artillery, Florya - in the company of Glascha, a beguiling peasant girl - wanders a battle-scorched Russian purgatory of prehistoric forests and man-made slaughter. Florya's journey takes him and us through a gallery of exquisitely poetic imagery and brutal human atrocity.
Fires on the Plain
In this Japanese anti-war film, acts of cannibalism bring home the terrifying brutality of war. Japanese troops are in retreat in the Philippines. Supplies run out and discipline crumbles.
The Hurt Locker
US Army Staff Sergeant Will James, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge comprise the Bravo Company's bomb disposal unit stationed in Baghdad. James is the tech team leader. When James arrives on the scene, Bravo Company has thirty-nine days left on its current deployment. It will be a long thirty-nine days for Sanborn and Eldridge whose styles do not mesh with their new leader. James' thrill of the dismantlement seems to be the ultimate goal regardless of the safety of his fellow team members, others on the scene or himself. On the other hand, Sanborn is by the books: he knows his place and duty and trusts others in the army to carry out theirs as well as he. Eldridge is an insecure soldier who is constantly worried that an error or misjudgment on his part will lead to the death of an innocent civilian or a military colleague. While the three members face their own internal issues, they have to be aware of any person at the bomb sites, some of who may be bombers themselves.
L'armée des ombres / Army of Shadows
A civil engineer who is one of the French Resistance's chiefs is given away by a traitor and interned in a camp.
La Grande Illusion
During World War I, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German POW camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are sent to a seemingly impenetrable fortress which seems impossible to escape from.
Last of the Mohicans
An epic film based on the classic novel by James Fenimore Cooper about the French & Indian War and a white frontiersman raised by Indians.
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Based on a true story of author Laurens van der Post's experiences as a WWII prisoner of war.
Paths of Glory
During WWI, a French battalion is ordered on a suicide mission that is likely to fail. When it does, the general that planned the mission selects three soldiers from the battalion to be executed for cowardice, and selects their leader as their attorney.
Saving Private Ryan
In the last great invasion of World War II, a squad of American soldiers embark on a special mission... to find Private Ryan. Faced with impossible odds, surrounded by the brutalities of war, each man searches for his own answer and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honor, decency and courage.
Image from Dunkirk from indiewire.com at https://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/dunkirk-christopher-nolan-cinematography-imax-1201904502/
Image from Inglourious Basterds from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/patakk-art-patakk-6w2JeNcQe99SM
Image from Dunkirk from indiewire.com at https://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/dunkirk-trailer-christopher-nolan-tom-hardy-1201812804/
Image from 1917 from latimes.com at https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-01-16/roger-deakins-sam-mendes-1917-key-scene
Image from 1917 from collider.com at https://collider.com/1917-movie-cut-scene-explained/
Image from Paths of Glory from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/filmstruck-xTgeJ4KU54QvoyRpi8
Image from All Quiet on the Western Front from wondersinthedark.wordpress.com at https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/
Image from Paths of Glory from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/stanley-kubrick-paths-of-glory-james-b-harris-cEEla0ohPDsju
Image from The Ascent from sensesofcinema.com at http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/soviet-cinema/1977-ascent-larisa-shepitko/
Image from Fires on the Plain from twitter.com at https://twitter.com/edward2046/status/959785009065406465
All Quiet on the Western Front
Seven patriotic German youths go together from school to the battlefields of World War I. The center of this drama is a young man who goes from being an enthusiastic war endorser to battle-weary veteran.
Andrzej Wajda; Three War Films.
In 1999, Polish director Andrzej Wajda received an Honorary Academy Award for his body of work: more than thirty-five feature films, beginning with A Generation in 1955. Wajda’s next film, Kanal, the first ever made about the Warsaw Uprising, won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes and launched Wajda on the path to international renown, a status secured with the release of his masterpiece, Ashes and Diamonds, in 1958. These three groundbreaking films helped usher in the Polish School movement and have often been regarded as a trilogy. But each boldly stands on its own—a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the struggle for personal and national freedom. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this director-approved edition, with new transfers of all three films and extensive interviews with the filmmaker and his colleagues.
Apocalypse Now
A soldier travels upriver from Vietnam into Cambodia to kill a colonel who has gone mad and is planning unauthorized attacks by his native troops. Features both the original cut and the Redux version.
The Battle of Algiers
Dramatizes the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed.
Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a movie commemorating the failed uprising of 1905, a mere 20 years after the actual incident. Eisenstein duly hails as heroes the people whose actions were regarded as traitorous in 1905. It began when sailors on the Potemkin protested that the meat they were being fed was maggot infested. In response, the commander ordered that ten random sailors to be executed by firing squad, at which the crew turned on the officers and killed them all. The oppressed people of Odessa joined the revolt to show their rejection of the czarist regime--which sent Cossack troops--who then mowed down both rioters and innocent citizens without mercy. The film was banned at various times in the US and France, and for a longer time than any other film in British history; even Stalin banned it, at a time when mutiny was against the party line. It remains remarkable for the way it builds tension over a brisk 69 minutes, and in the right setting with the right audience, can still reveal its inflammatory power.
The Bridge
The first major antiwar film to come out of Germany after World War II, as well as the nation's first postwar film to be widely shown internationally, even securing an Oscar nomination. Set near the end of the war, it follows a group of teenage boys in a small town as they contend with everyday matters like school, girls, and parents, before enlisting as soldiers and being forced to defend their home turf in a confused, terrifying battle.
The Captain
A German army deserter finds an abandoned Nazi captain's uniform in the final weeks of World War II. Emboldened by the authority the uniform grants him, he amasses a band of stragglers who cede to his command despite the suspicions of some. Citing direct orders from the Fuhrer himself, he soon takes command of a camp holding German soldiers accused of desertion and begins to dispense harsh justice.
Che; Part One, the Argentine Partie Un, L'Argentin
On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro sails to Cuba with eighty rebels. One of those rebels is Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, an Argentine doctor who shares a common goal with Fidel Castro - to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Che; Part Two, Guerrilla Partie Deux, Guérilla
On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro sails to Cuba with eighty rebels. One of those rebels is Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, an Argentine doctor who shares a common goal with Fidel Castro - to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Das Boot
Follows the daring patrol of the U-96, one of the famed German U-boats known as the "gray wolves." The crew is graphically portrayed in a life-and-death struggle, challenging the British Navy at every turn.
Lawrence of Arabia
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the heroic and troubled man who organized the Arab nations to fight the Turks in World War I and then, having reached a pinnacle of power in Mideast politics, retired to postwar military obscurity.
Overlord
Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, this immersive account by Stuart Cooper of one twenty-year-old's journey from basic training to the front lines of D-day brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity.
Platoon
Platoon is the story of every soldier whose innocence was lost in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. Chris Taylor arrives in Vietnam and quickly discovers that his worst enemies are not just the Viet Cong, but gnawing fear, physical exhaustion and the anger growing within himself.
Ran
The retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare's plot, and director, Akira Kurosawa's, own feelings about loyalty. Includes documentary, featurette, and collectible booklet.
Spartacus
Spartacus is the bold gladiator slave who leads a massive slave revolt against Imperial Rome in this epic true account of man's eternal struggle for freedom.
The Thin Red Line
In World War II, the outcome of the battle of Guadalcanal will strongly influence the Japanese's advance into the Pacific. This is the story of Charlie Company's landing and battle experience there in 1942. The story concentrates on how the battle affects, and is effected by, Commanding officer Lt. Col. Gordon Tall, Captain James Staros, Sgt. Edward Welsh, and two privates, Witt and Bell. Charlie Company is attacking a seemingly impregnable position, and them men just face the terror and chaos of war.
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Image from Apocalypse Now from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/thecoolidge-martin-sheen-francis-ford-coppola-3DmF3htsBEAiU1RozL
Image from Patton from imgur.com at https://imgur.com/gallery/C6KJTMb/comment/1372203979
Image from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence from buzzfeed.com at https://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/scroll-dance-2-electric-scrolleroo
Image from Apocalypse Now from giphy.com at https://giphy.com/gifs/movie-war-marlon-brando-80R8E57CqCe3u
