Top Ranked War Films on the Net

These are all the war films mentioned in our survey of top ranked films on the net. We included all pure war films, documentaries, wartime films that don't involve action (A Canterbury Tale), and films whose drama or comedy is a result of war (Best Years of Our Lives, Dr. Strangelove, M*A*S*H). 74 films made the top 1000, but there are some great war films just outside of those, like the massive epic War and Peace from Russia, seven hrs long with over 250,000 extras.
© 2009, William L. Sinclair

1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb [Kubrick, Stanley, 1964, UK] #17 (photo rt)
2. Apocalypse Now [Coppola, Francis, 1979, US] #25
3. Schindler's List [Spielberg, Steven, 1993, US] #27
4. Lawrence of Arabia [Lean, David, 1962, UK] #50 (photo top)
5. Paths of Glory [Kubrick, Stanley, 1957, US] #83
6. Bridge on the River Kwai, The [Lean, David, 1957, UK] #85
7. Ran [Kurosawa, Akira, 1985, France-Japan] #86
8. Best Years of Our Lives, The [Wyler, William, 1946, US] #102
9. Deer Hunter, The [Cimino, Michael, 1978, US] #110
10. Saving Private Ryan [Spielberg, Steven, 1998, US] #116
11. Shoah [Lanzmann, Claude, 1985, France] #119
12. Battle of Algiers, The [Pontecorvo, Gillo, 1966, Italy-Algiers] #132
13. Great Dictator, The [Chaplin, Charles, 1940, US] #138
14. Man Escaped, A [Bresson, Robert, 1956, France] #151
15. All Quiet on the Western Front [Milestone, Lewis, 1930, US] #165
16. Paisan [Rossellini, Roberto, 1946, Italy] #167
17. Spartacus [Kubrick, Stanley, 1960, US] #178
18. La Grande Illusion [Renoir, Jean, 1937, France] #199
19. Patton [Shaffner, Frank, 1970, US] #203
20. Full Metal Jacket [Kubrick, Stanley, 1987, US] #207
21. Napoléon [Gance, Abel, 1927, France] #232
22. Das Boot [Peterson, Wolfgang, 1981, Germany] #245
23. Throne of Blood [Kurosawa, Akira, 1957, Japan] #258
24. Army of Shadows [Melville, Jean-Pierre, 1969, France-Italy] #296
25. Great Escape, The [Sturges, John, 1963, US] #299
26. Forbidden Games [Clément, René, 1951, France] #307
27. Hotaru no Hakaa (Grave of the Fireflies, anime) [Takahata, Isao, 1988, Japan] #324
28. Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The [Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger, 1943, UK] #334
29. Letters from Iwo Jima [Eastwood, Clint, 2006, US] #339
30. Alexander Nevsky [Eisenstein, Sergei, 1938, USSR] #374
31. Mirror, The [Tarkovsky, Andrei, 1976, Russia] #382
32. M*A*S*H [Altman, Robert, 1970, US] #389
33. Rome, Open City [Rossellini, Roberto, 1945, Italy] #392
34. Platoon [Stone, Oliver, 1986, US] #397
35. Doctor Zhivago [Lean, David, 1965, US] #401
36. Beau Travail [Denis, Claire, 1998, France] #402
37. Chimes at Midnight [Welles, Orson, 1966, Spain-Switzerland] #405
38. Reds [Beatty, Warren, 1981, US] #429
39. Triumph of the Will [Riefenstahl, Leni, 1935, Germany] #455
40. Night and Fog [Resnais, Alain, 1955, France] #457
41. Downfall [Hirschbiegel, Oliver, 2004, Germany] #484
42. Life is Beautiful [Begnini, Roberto, 1997, Italy] #494
43. English Patient, The [Minghella, Anthony, 1996, UK] #502
44. Canterbury Tale, A [Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger, 1944, UK] #537
45. Come and See [Klimov, Elem, 1985, Russia] #559
46. Listen to Britain [Jennings, Humphrey, 1941, UK] #563
47. Judgment at Nuremberg [Kramer, Stanley, 1961, US] #582
48. They Were Expendable [Ford, John, 1945, US] #596
49. Waltz with Bashir [Folman, Ari, 2008, Israel] #633
50. Stalag 17 [Wilder, Billy, 1953, US] #683
51. Persepolis [Paronnaud, Vincent & Satrapi, Marjane, 2007, France-US] #694
52. Hour of the Furnaces, The [Getino, Octavio & Fernando E. Solanas, 1968, Argentina] #721
53. Hurt Locker, The [Bigelow, Kathryn, 2008, US] #725
54. Damned, The [Visconti, Luchino, 1969, Italy-West Germany] #729
55. No End in Sight [Ferguson, Charles, 2007, US] #731
56. Ivan's Childhood [Tarkovsky, Andrei, 1962, Russia] #744
57. Kagemusha [Kurosawa, Akira, 1980, Japan] #756
58. Hôtel Terminus [Ophüls, Marcel, 1988, US] #760
59. Overlord [Cooper, Stuart, 1975, UK] #764
60. Thin Red Line, The [Malick, Terrence, 1998, US] #778
61. Glory [Zwick, Edward, 1989, US] #788
62. Fires Were Started [Jennings, Humphrey, 1943, UK] #801
63. Outskirts (Okraina) [Barnet, Boris, 1933, USSR] #804
64. Anatahan [von Sternberg, Josef, 1953, Japan] #807
65. Big Parade, The [Vidor, King, 1925, US] #808
66. Fog of War, The [Morris, Errol, 2003, US] #809
67. Fateless [Koltai, Lajos, 2005, Hungary-GY] #825
68. Hitler: A Film from Germany [Syberberg, Hans-Jürgen, 1977, West Germany] #858
69. Hidden Fortress, The [Kurosawa, Akira, 1958, Japan] #863
70. Round-Up, The (Szegénylegények) [Jancsó, Miklós, 1966, Hungary] #891
71. Seraphine [Provost, Martin, 2008, France-Belg] #896
72. Seven Women [Ford, John, 1966, US] #897
73. Europa [von Trier, Lars, 1991, Denmark] #932
74. Turtles Can Fly [Ghobadi, Bahman, 2004, Iran-Fr-Iraq] #983
75. End of St. Petersburg, The [Pudovkin, Vsevolod, 1927, USSR] #1019
76. Alexander [Stone, Oliver, 2004, US] #1042
77. Burmese Harp [Ichikawa, Kon, 1956, Japan] #1044
78. Paragraph 175 [Epstein, Rob & Friedman, Jeffrey, 2000, UK-US-Germany] #1066
79. War and Peace [Bondarchuk, Sergei, 1967, USSR] #1080 (photo rt)
80. Au Revoir, Les Enfants [Malle, Louis, 1987, France] #1086
81. Big Red One, The [Fuller, Samuel, 1980, US] #1134
82. Harakiri [Kobayashi, Masaki, 1962, Japan] #1140
83. Killing Fields [Joffé, Roland, 1984, US] #1141
84. Wings of Eagles, The [Ford, John, 1957, US] #1174
85. And the Ship Sails On [Fellini, Federico, 1983, Italy] #1178
86. Lessons of Darkness [Herzog, Werner, 1992, Germany] #1191
87. Arsenal [Dovzhenko, Alexander, 1928, USSR] #1205
88. Red and White [Jancsó, Miklós, 1967, Hungary-USSR] #1222
89. Empire of the Sun [Spielberg, Steven, 1987, US] #1235
90. Duellists, The [Scott, Ridley, 1977, UK] #1262
91. Kanal [Wajda, Andrzej, 1957, Poland] #1271
92. Time to Love and a Time to Die, A [Sirk, Douglas, 1958, US] #1276

Note: if you consider The Seven Samurai to be a war film, that would be #1 here (#7 overall); it's listed as action adventure at IMDB. To me, 'action' is not a genre, you can have action within war, crime, adventure, science fiction, even comedy (Ghostbusters) films - any if you think about it. At any rate, I'll save Seven Samurai for my adventure films post.