War and Anti-War Films
"War and Anti-War Films" often acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting or conflict (against nations or humankind) provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. Typical elements in the action-oriented war plots include POW camp experiences and escapes, submarine warfare, espionage, personal heroism, "war is hell" brutalities, air dogfights, tough trench/infantry experiences, or male-bonding buddy adventures during wartime. Themes explored in war films include combat, survivor and escape stories, tales of gallant sacrifice and struggle, studies of the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and intelligent and profound explorations of the moral and human issues.
Listed below are all the very best of this genre. Scroll yer heart out....
Resistance (2011)
4.9/10
Director: Amit Gupta
Starring: Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wlaschiha
Autumn, 1944: Russia has fallen, the D-Day landings have failed and Britain is under Nazi occupation. Sarah Lewis (Andrea Riseborough), a 26-year-old... Read more
Revolution (1985)
5.3/10
Director: Hugh Hudson
Starring: Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, Joan Plowright, Nastassja Kinski, Steven Berkoff
A dramatic look at "the world turn'd upside down," the world of the American Revolution. Al Pacino stars as a Scottish immigrant who fights the Britis... Read more
Rex ( AKA Megan Leavey ) (2017)
3.3/10
Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Starring: Edie Falco, Will Patton, Kate Mara, Ramon Rodriguez, Tom Felton
The true life story of Megan Leavey, a young Marine corporal whose unique discipline and bond with a military combat dog saved many lives during her d... Read more
Ride With The Devil (1999)
6.8/10
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Skeet Ulrich, Tobey Maguire, Jewel, Jeffrey Wright, Jim Caviezel
Fascinating Civil War epic from director Ang Lee ("The Ice Storm") centres on four members of the "Missouri Irregulars", pro-southern bushwhackers who... Read more
Rikyu (1989)
7.3/10
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Starring: Kyoko Kishida, Rentaro Mikuni, Tsutomu Yamakazi, Yoshiko Mita
Breaking a self-imposed silence in the cinema for seventeen years, Teshigahara Hiroshi made this brilliant comeback with this striking film. Late in t... Read more
Rise & Fall (2010)
8.4/10
Starring: Tobias Moretti, Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu
Rise and fall of actor Ferdinand Marian, who takes the chance and stars in the anti-semitic movie Jud Süß (1940). Read more
Rock the Kasbah (Blu-ray) (2015)
5.5/10
Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Bill Murray, Kate Hudson, Bruce Willis
A down-on-his-luck music manager discovers a teenage girl with an extraordinary voice while on a music tour in Afghanistan and takes her to Kabul to c... Read more
Rosamunde Pilcher's: Coming Home (1998)
6.9/10
Director: Giles Foster
Starring: David McCallum, Joanna Lumley, Peter O'Toole, Emily Mortimer, Paul Bettany, Pene...
An epic tale of friendship, family and love set before, during and after World War II in beautiful coastal England, and based on Rosamund Pilcher's be... Read more
Rosenstrasse (2003)
6.8/10
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader, Martin Feifel, Jurgen Vogel, Jutta Lampe
Drawing on the true events of Spring 1943 when hundreds of German women protested the incarceration of their Jewish husbands in the Jewish Welfare Off... Read more
Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
7.4/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden
A tense submarine thriller as feuding Naval officers (Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster) find themselves going head on against a Japanese sub during WWII... Read more