The Deer Hunter (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), Bitter Victory (1958), Armadillo (2010), Cross of Iron (1977), The Duellists (1977), The Bedford Incident (1965), Westfront 1918 (1930) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Military Life movies.
Storyline: John Wayne earned a 1949 Best Actor Academy Award nomination for one of his most iconic roles, as the battle-hardened leader of a squad of recruits, in Allan Dwan's SANDS OF IWO JIMA. Haunted by his personal demons, Marine Sgt. John Stryker is both hated and feared by his men, who see him as a cold-hearted sadist. But when their boots hit the beaches, they begin to understand the reason for Stryker's rigid form of discipline, as he leads them into one of the most treacherous battles in the Pacific. Emotionally gripping, punctuated with intense battle scenes, all bound together by Wayne's larger-than-life performance, Sands of Iwo Jima is the quintessential WWII film.
Plot Keywords: sergeant, marine, private, corporal, woman, patriotic, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Priscilla Williams is a young girl traveling with her mother, Joyce, to join her paternal grandfather, a British army colonel, at the post he commands in northern India. Upon arrival, they witness the capture of Khoda Khan, leader of the rebel Indian faction. Priscilla plays at being a soldier and is even given a uniform and allowed to drill by the genial Sergeant MacDuff, but her gruff grandfather disapproves and insists she remain apart from the troops. She eventually charms him, along with everyone else on the post, including Khoda Khan, whom she wins over by returning a talisman he's dropped. When the attractive Lieutenant Brandes deserts his post to take Joyce to a dance, Khan escapes, and Brandes is arrested. As hostilities with the rebels mount, Priscilla and servant Mohammet Dihn --actually an Indian spy--take off for Khoda Khan's stronghold.—gavin (gunmasterM@hotmail.com)
Plot Keywords: colonel, girl, rebel, sergeant, grandfather, widow, charming ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Regimental Sergeant Major Lauderdale (Sir Richard Attenborough) is a by-the-book, strict disciplinarian, who seems like an anachronism in a sleepy peacetime African outpost of the modern British commonwealth. Ridiculed behind his back by his subordinate N.C.O.s, he must play host to a liberal women M.P. making a tour of the base. However, when an ambitious African officer, who happens to be a protegè of the M.P., initiates a coup d'etat against Captain Abraham (Earl Cameron), the lawful African commandant, the resourceful Sergeant Major uses all of his military training to save his men from a certain firing squad.—Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)
Plot Keywords: rebel, soldier, sergeant, british soldier, african, tense, frenetic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Follows the 4315th Training Squadron of the Strategic Air Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Air Force officers are trained to man the Launch Control Centers for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Sequences include discussion of the moral and military issues of nuclear war; the arming, targeting and launching of the missile; codes; communications; protection against terrorist attack; emergency procedures; staff meetings and tutorial sessions.—Ulf Kjell Gür
Plot Keywords: instructor, trainee, soldier, officer, chilling, intricate, solemn ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Former Special Forces operatives reunite to plan a heist in a sparsely populated multi-border zone of South America. For the first time in their prestigious careers, these unsung heroes undertake this dangerous mission for themselves instead of the country. But when events take an unexpected turn and threaten to spiral out of control, their skills, their loyalties, and their morals are pushed to a breaking point in an epic battle for survival.
Plot Keywords: soldier, hero, operative, friend, pilot, drug lord, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Aboard the freighter Glencairn, the lives of the crew are lived out in fear, loneliness, suspicion and cameraderie. The men smuggle drink and women aboard, fight with each other, spy on each other, comfort each other as death approaches, and rescue each other from danger.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: sailor, alcoholic, nazi, irishman, englishman, swede, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Evie's co-workers at the uniform shirt factory, and her almost-fiancée's inability to kiss, inspire her to slip a letter into a size sixteen-and-a-half shirt for some anonymous soldier. It's received by "Wolf" Larson, who immediately throws it away, but his sensitive, dreaming--and short--buddy John McPherson snags it, and begins a correspondence with Evie, pretending to be Wolf. But things get complicated when Evie wants to meet her tall, handsome soldier. And even more complicated when Wolf sees Evie and likes what he sees.—Kathy Li
Plot Keywords: young woman, soldier, friend, coworker, lighthearted, hilarious, brooklyn, n.y. ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Though initially wary of one another, two Israeli teenagers (Smadar Sayar, Naama Schendar) bond over their shared dislike of military duty.
Plot Keywords: military officer, teen girl, friend, powerful, engaging, tender, israel ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on a true story, this film finds Gen. George S. Patton (George C. Scott) working a desk job for the U.S. military after World War II. In the midst of dealing with the difficulty of adapting to his dramatic change of lifestyle, Patton is involved in an auto wreck that leaves him in critical condition. While his body fails him, Patton introspectively reminisces about his relationship with his spouse, Beatrice (Eva Marie Saint) ; his childhood; and his days on the battlefields of World War I.
Plot Keywords: general, dwight d. eisenhower, wife, friend, grandfather, young boy, patriotic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: 1983. Thomas Highway (Clint Eastwood) is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination and conduct unbecoming. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers (Everett McGill), sees Highway as a relic of an old-styled military. Highway's commanding officer, Lieutenant Ring (Boyd Gaines), the platoon leader, is also a younger man who...
Plot Keywords: sergeant, corporal, ex-wife, waitress, marine, hustler, tense ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the final days of Czarist Russia, a peasant is raised from the ranks to Lieutenant. The other officers, aristocrats all, resent him, and make his life difficult. He falls in love with a princess, who spurns him. When he is caught in her room, he is stripped of his rank and thrown into prison. Then comes the Red Terror, and the tables are turned.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: military officer, princess, aristocrat, bolshevik, soldier, prisoner, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jack Kells's bandit gang, the Border Legion, is run out of a mining town and regroups in Utah. News of a gold strike in Arizona City leads the gang there, and they execute stagecoach robberies to announce their arrival. Jim Cleve, meanwhile, loses all his money at an Arizona City bar. After he sees an old miner killed outside of town, a stagecoach finds Jim by the body and the passengers suspect him of the murder. One passenger, Joan Randall, who is headed to the bar as an entertainer, believes he is innocent, however. Later, Kells and his sidekick, Charles Bunko McGee, a disbarred lawyer, meet up with Joan, who happens to be Kells' former girl friend. Judge Savin is prepared to convict Jim on circumstantial evidence, but when Kells is recognized at the bar, he draws his guns and gives Jim a chance to escape. Jim later joins the Legion because Kells showed more common faith than the townspeople. Kells reproaches one of his gang members, mean Sam Gulden, for killing the old miner, but later has Sam kidnap Joan so he can rekindle their romance. While Kells moves the camp closer to town, Jim and Bunko guard the cabin where Joan is being held against her will. Incensed that Kells is keeping Joan captive, Jim escapes and tells the judge and sheriff where to find her. Kells hopes Jim's rash act will empty the town, so he can rob it, but the suspicious men instead prepare the town for the Legion's arrival. The townspeople explode dynamite and engage in a gunfight against the Legion. Kells and Bunko hide in a saloon where Jim is again being held captive. The three men escape, but Bunko is shot and dies. After Kells tells Jim he is not cut out to be an outlaw, Jim returns for Joan. Kells and Sam team up against Jim and vie for Joan, but when Kells says that she belongs with Jim, Sam shoots him in the back. Kells manages to survive long enough to kill Sam, saving Jim and Joan, and sends them on their way. As the couple rides off for their new life together, Kells slumps in his saddle and dies.
Plot Keywords: soldier, army colonel, spy, british soldier, father, son, gutsy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An announcement that the venerable Bunker Hill Military Academy, a 141 year old institute, is to be torn down and replaced with condos sets off the young cadets led by their stodgy commander. Under the command of a student cadet major, the cadets seize the campus, refuse entry of the construction crews and ultimately confront the real military.
Plot Keywords: student, army colonel, headmaster, cadet, real estate developer, soldier, emotional ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Sentemental military comedy revolves around two contemporary army buddies, Master Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason), a smooth operator, who supply Sergeant Eustis Clay (Steve McQueen) idolizes and hopes will join him as a civilian in a private business enterprise. Clay endeavors to be a player in the military, just like Slaughter, but it seems as though Clay still has a lot to learn from his mentor. They are joined by Tuesday Weld as a shrill dizzy blonde teenager named Bobby Jo Pepperdine and Tony Bill as bumbling Private First Class Jerry Meltzer, McQueen's screwball sidekick.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: sergeant, military officer, friend, teen girl, endearing, engaging, army base ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Americans Sgt. Peter O'Gaffney and one of his soldiers, privileged "pretty boy" W. Daingerfield Phelps III (who is always drawing caricatures), are captured and interred at a POW camp in Northern Germany near the end of WWI. Their relationship has always been an antagonistic one based on what Phelps sees as O'Gaffney pushing him around. O'Gaffney's rank is despite being wanted by the police back home as a con man. It is because of these differences that their resulting friendship at camp is so unlikely, the friendship based on both having the nerve to attempt to escape. On a snow-covered day, they do manage to escape, in part by stealing white robes to camouflage themselves against the snow. In their adventures and misadventures on the outside in trying to get to safety, those adventures which include being mistaken for Arab prisoners, they find themselves as stowaways on board a cargo ship headed to Arabia. It is there that they meet a beautiful Arab woman named Mirza, who they save from drowning. They are both immediately smitten by her, which is why they are so disappointed to learn that she is betrothed in an arranged marriage to the ruthless Shevket Ben Ali. As the two try to reach the safety of an American consulate, they also decide to try and liberate Mirza, which may be more dangerous than fighting in the trenches in the battlefields of France.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: soldier, colonel, servant, fiancé, consul, amusing, madcap ...
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