#16. Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Storyline: One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there's a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can't remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.

Plot Keywords: director, soldier, reporter, psychologist, creative, powerful, beirut, lebanon ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#17. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Storyline: This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

Plot Keywords: soldier, teacher, student, military officer, dark, brutal, profound ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#18. The Big Parade (1925)

Storyline: The idle son of a rich businessman joins the army when the U.S.A. enters World War One. He is sent to France, where he becomes friends with two working-class soldiers. He also falls in love with a Frenchwoman, but has to leave her to move to the frontline.—Philip Apps <apps@math.wisc.edu>

Plot Keywords: soldier, father, mother, ingénue, brother, girlfriend, emotional ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#19. God Grew Tired of Us (2006)

Storyline: In 1987, Sudan's Muslim government pronounced death to all males in the Christian south: 27,000 boys fled to Ethiopia on foot. In 1991, they were forced to flee to Kenya; 12,000 survived to live in a U.N. camp in Kakuma. Archival footage documents the 1,000 mile flight; we see life in the camp. We follow three young men who repatriate to the U.S. John Bul Dau goes to Syracuse, and by the film's end, becomes a spokesperson for the Lost Boys and Lost Girls of Sudan; Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Bior go to Pittsburgh. All work several jobs, send money back to the camp, search for relatives lost in the civil war, acclimatize to the U.S., seek an education, and miss their homeland.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: refugee, young man, immigrant, african, survivor, friend, inspiring ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#20. Breaker Morant (1980)

Storyline: During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom.

Plot Keywords: military officer, lord, soldier, enemy, prisoner of war, somber, south africa ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#21. Zulu (1964)

Storyline: Zululand, South Africa, 1879. The British are fighting the Zulus and one of their columns has just been wiped out at Isandlwana. The Zulus next fix their sights on the small British outpost at Rorke's Drift. At the outpost are one hundred fifty British troops under the command of Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard. In the next few days, these one hundred fifty troops will fight about four thousand Zulus in one of the most courageous battles in history.—grantss

Plot Keywords: military officer, soldier, missionary, daughter, enemy, melodramatic, powerful ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#22. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

Storyline: In this story of the early days of daylight bombing raids over Nazi Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a "hard luck" bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets. Actual combat footage is used in this tense war drama.

Plot Keywords: pilot, military officer, soldier, patriotic, thrilling, emotional, england ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#23. Gettysburg (1993)

Storyline: The four and 1/4 hour depiction of the historical and personal events surrounding and including the decisive American civil war battle features thousands of civil war re-enactors marching over the exact ground that the federal army and the army of North Virginia fought on. The defense of the Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge are highlighted in the actual three day battle which is surrounded by the speeches of the commanding officers and the personal reflections of the fighting men. Based upon the novel 'The Killer Angels'.

Plot Keywords: military officer, soldier, brutal, patriotic, spirited, pennsylvania, battlefield ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#24. Armadillo (2010)

Storyline: In February of 2009, a group of Danish soldiers accompanied by documentarian Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cinematographer Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometre from Taliban positions. The result of their work is a gripping and highly authentic war drama that was justly awarded the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at the 2010 Cannes film festival. But it also provoked furious debate in Denmark concerning the controversial behavior of certain Danish soldiers during a shoot-out with Taliban fighters. The film-makers repeatedly risked their lives shooting this tense, brilliantly edited, and visually sophisticated probe into the psychology of young men in the midst of a senseless war whose victims are primarily local villagers. Yet more disturbing than scenes in which Taliban bullets whiz past their cameras is the footage of the young soldiers as each tries, in his own way, to come to terms with putting his life constantly on the line.—Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Plot Keywords: soldier, peasant, afghan, stripper, officer, militant, brutal ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#25. The Tin Drum (1979)

Storyline: Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

Plot Keywords: child, mother, father, doctor, little person, brash, disturbing ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#26. The Dawn Patrol (1938)

Storyline: In 1915 France, Major Brand commands the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The young airmen go up in bullet-riddled "crates" and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the "brass hats" at headquarters see reason. Insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney is another thorn in Brand's side...but finds the smile wiped from his face when he rises to command the squadron himself. Everyone keeps a stiff upper lip.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Plot Keywords: commander, military officer, pilot, brutal, rousing, france, military base ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#27. Westfront 1918 (1930)

Storyline: A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

Plot Keywords: lieutenant, student, soldier, wife, mother, friend, brooding ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#28. A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Storyline: The true story of Operation Market Garden, the Allies attempt, in September 1944, to hasten the end of World War II by driving through Belgium and Holland into Germany. The idea was for U.S. airborne divisions to take the towns of Eindhoven and Nijmegen and a British airborne division, reinforced by a Polish airborne brigade, to take the town of Arnhem. They would be reinforced, in due course and in turn, by the British XXX Corps, land-based and driving up from the British lines in the south. The key to the operation was the bridges, as if the Germans held or blew them, the paratroopers could not be relieved. Faulty intelligence, Allied high command hubris, and stubborn German resistance would ensure that Arnhem was a bridge too far.

Plot Keywords: military officer, general, soldier, enemy, brooding, patriotic, holland ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#29. King and Country (1964)

Storyline: During World War I, the British troops are entrenched at Passchendaele, Belgium. Amongst the volunteers, there is a young British soldier, Private Arthur James Hamp (Sir Tom Courtenay), who is the sole survivor of his original company. Hamp spent three years in the trenches, and this makes him a veteran. He has never been accused of cowardice, but one day, he simply decides to leave the war behind him and walk all the way home to Britain. In Calais, France, he is challenged by a Military Police patrol, who promptly arrests him for leaving without permission. Hamp's commanding officers decide to convene a court-martial and charge him with desertion. If found guilty, Hamp could be shot by a firing squad. Captain Hargreaves (Sir Dirk Bogarde) is assigned to be Hamp's defending attorney, but he seems skeptical about the deserter's chances of acquittal. During their first talk, Captain Hargreaves is impressed by his client's utter sincerity and naivete. He learns that his client volunteered on a dare by his friends back home, spent three years in the front-line trenches, remained sole survivor of his company, and that he decided to leave the war and return home. When Hargreaves asks Hamp why he decided to leave the war, Hamp simply says that he got tired of watching his comrades die, and that the noises of war made him sick. On top of that, Hamp argued he received news from home about his wife's unfaithfulness. All of these reasons made him want to leave the war behind and return home to England. Captain Hargreaves remains unsympathetic. The military doctor's report indicated that deserter Hamp does not suffer from shell-shock and Captain Hargreaves accepts that fact. However, suspecting that his client's case is a more complex and peculiar case, Captain Hargreaves believes that Hamp is not responsible for his actions. He prepares the best he can for the upcoming court-martial.—nufs68

Plot Keywords: private, captain, military officer, lawyer, gritty, bleak, england ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#30. The Whales of August (1987)

Storyline: It's August. Like they have most summers, elderly widowed sisters Libby Strong and Sarah Webber, who live in Philadelphia, are staying together in the family's summer cottage on an island off the coast of Maine. The cottage, which now belongs to Sarah, has been in their family most of their lives, was the family's summer getaway from Philadelphia when they were younger. There are a few people who have been friends or acquaintances on the island, including the outspoken Tisha Dought, and Joshua Brackett. Someone new at least to Sarah's social circle is Mr. Maranov, a former Russian aristocrat. His stay on the island is threatened when his landlady, Hilda Partridge, passes away. Sarah and Libby have come to the realization they are in the respective twilight of their lives, Sarah, who still keeps busy and wants to savor life's pleasures, acts as now sightless, cantankerous and bitter Libby's caregiver. Sarah knows she can no longer take care of Libby. As such, Sarah has to make alternate living arrangements instead of the Philadelphia house.Those arrangements will not involve Libby's estranged daughter Anna, who has the means to take care of her mother, although not the want. It is their interactions with Tisha and Mr. Maranov which may decide their sisterly fate for the immediate future.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: sister, widow, elderly person, neighbor, fisherman, blind person, touching ...

Movie Details Click Here!