Time Out's 50 Best World War II Films: "La Grande Illusion" (1937)

I've never even heard of Ice Cold In Alex, but that sounds awesome. Gotta find that one.

 

27. Casablanca (1942)

Directed Michael Curtz

Bogie keeps his head down in occupied Africa ? until Bergman comes along.

"Is there anything left to say about this canonical Hollywood melodrama that hasn?t already been churned into the public consciousness? Well, newsflash: it?s still a damn great movie. Set during the Allied invasion of North Africa, it focuses on Europe?s displaced flotsam as they pass through Humphrey Bogart?s stucco Moroccan fun pub before escaping to freedom. Of course, ivories are tinkled, transit letters are hidden and old flames newly romanced, with Bergman and Bogie making for the quintessential doomed couple. Yet, during more recent viewings, it?s Claude Rains?s Vichy-appointed police captain Louis Renault who proves to be the film?s most interesting and ambiguous character, perfectly representing France?s precarious situation during the war while also subtly imparting the psychological burden of an uncertain future. DJ"

Isolationist America (Bogart) and Vichy France (Raines) decide to join the party.

 

Casablanca is # 27? On a list of WW II movies?

 

If it's going to be on the list, on any list, it has to be number one.

 

Yeah, Casablanca's position here might, and I say might, be excused because it's really a love story set during WWII, rather than a "WWII movie"-(a fine line distinction at best). Very intriguing that this didn't at least break the top 10.

But as a result, it's also going to matter what movies come after #27, and I have a feeling that only a few are going to hold up.

 

26. Soldier of Orange (1977) & Black Book (2006)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven pays a two-pronged tribute to Holland's resistance efforts.

"Verhoeven?s decision to make ?Soldier of Orange? surprised many back in 1977: ?Turkish Delight? and ?Katie Tippel? had established him as the onscreen master of boundary-pushing eroticism, but now he was engaged in making a traditional, even rather sedate war movie, drawing openly on Hollywood filmmaking traditions to produce a tense but hardly groundbreaking tale of the Dutch resistance. Almost three decades later, Verhoeven returned to Holland in triumph to direct the film he probably should have made the first time around: dynamic, riveting thriller ?Black Book?. Revisiting the resistance, he constructs a tale of Jewish subterfuge and erotic espionage, filling the screen with all the sex, death and pube-dyeing ?Soldier of Orange? may be said to have lacked. But what?s perhaps most remarkable about ?Black Book? is that beneath all the ****ing and bloodshed is an intelligent, original study of occupation and revenge: the final shot, subtly drawing parallels between the occupation of Holland and the birth of Israel, is courageous and brilliant. TH"

 

25. Night and Fog (1955)

Directed by Alain Resnais

Alain Resnais's heartbreaking Holocaust document.

"Ten years after the liberation of the concentration camps, Alain Resnais made this mournful and 32-minute documentary which offers as clear-sighted and painful an insight into the National Socialist mindset as any film before or since. Austerely constructed, the film simply juxtaposes German newsreel and films shot by the Allies as they liberated the camps with newly filmed shots of disused railway sidings, empty fields and husks of buildings where thousands lost their lives. As a yardstick for the gravity of Nazi atrocities, Resnais?s film takes some beating. DJ"

The title comes from the Nacht und Nebel directive which allowed the Gestapo to sieze and 'disappear' anyone who threatened them. The phrase is a quote from 'Das Rheingold'. They disappeared into the 'night and fog' of Germany, usually to the death camps, and to this day, many of them are unaccounted for.

 

24. Kelly's Heroes (1970)

Directed by Brian G Hutton

?60s California transplanted to ?40s Europe.

?Why don?t you knock it off with them negative waves?? Yes, the hippies finally do their part for national security as Donald Sutherland?s superfreaky tank commander Oddball joins up with Clint?s surly one-man warzone Kelly on a mission to raid a French bank and hightail it with buckets of Nazi loot. Naturally, Brian G Hutton and cast dispense entirely with any kind of historical reality, leading some to accuse the film of trivialising the war effort. Which it does, but with such warmth, wit and carefree insouciance that it?s impossible to resist. Pure pleasure. TH"

This film is a giant pile of ****. It's anachronistic, silly, insulting and trivial. I have watched it 159 times on television. Just shoot me.

 

It's anachronistic, silly, trivial, and hilarious. With a great cast. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It's not history. It's just great entertainment.

 

I don't understand how calling something so clearly tongue-in-cheek "anachronistic" is supposed to be a criticism. Or why anachronisms are an issue at all when it comes to cinema. As long as the film's intent isn't to faithfully recreate a given period, there's no problem.

 

23. Schindler?s List (1993)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Spielberg?s bleak, beautiful, black-and-white tribute to his fallen forebears.

"The Magic Beard?s third flip at WWII (not counting the Indy films) is infinitely more involving than ?Empire of the Sun? (1987 ? see page one) and a good deal less, well? a good deal less everything than his loopy, scattershot Pearl Harbour folly ?1941? (1979). Steven Spielberg ? who was, almost inconceivably, fully immersed in the editing of ?Jurassic Park? during breaks from filming ? regained his directorial mojo with a project that jibed precisely with his increasing interest in his Jewish heritage. Everything, from the casting of Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler to the decision to film in black and white to ?The Girl In the Red Coat? sequence is well judged. Any one of these choices could have derailed the film, but thanks to Spielberg?s ? and, for his part, Neeson?s ? wholehearted investment, they all pay off in spades. ALD"

 

22. Battle of Britain (1969)

Directed by Guy Hamilton

So you can see stars over the battlefield?

?Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.? The Spitfire?s finest hour sees off the might of the Nazi air machine in a stirring, salty 'Boy?s Own' lodestone from ?Bond?-movie mainstay Guy Hamilton that stars everyone from old pros Michael Redgrave and Laurence Olivier (as fruity as ever) to upcoming Carnaby Street faces like Michael Caine and Ian ?Lovejoy?/?Deadwood? McShane. Despite being made on film stock that looks like it was processed in milky tea, it features some of the most remarkable aerial photography ever shot (George Lucas has noted its influence on the space battles in ?Star Wars?), some fantastically realised effects and the most evocative Nazi rallies ever put on film. That said, it?s not an altogether engrossing experience, but the care and expense that the producers went to in order to get these restored crates back up into the blue yonder makes for a rousing and authentically historical spectacle. ALD"

I've seen this--when I was little--and yes, it's dull. Whether I'd have the same response now, I don't know.

 

It's OK. Some of the plots work, some don't. The battles are impressive. Ralph Richardson steals the entire show with his three minutes of screentime.

 

Not one of my favourites.

 

Saw it when I was young. The only 2 things I remember from it are 1) the British pilot who parachutes into the backyard (and the boy of the house bringing him out a pipe), and 2) the fat actor who played Goering and seemed to just yell at everyone.

 

This one's pretty meh. The dogfights are decent for its time. The best part of the film IMO is the Polish Squadron's "Repeat, please. Repeat, please. Repeat, please" insubordination.

The Battle of Britain could seriously use a modern CGI remake. The beginning of Pearl Harbor now seems like one of the biggest cinematic teases in history.

 

21. Paratroop Command (1955)
Directed by William Witney

"Quentin Tarantino says: 'This is a movie I?m a huge, huge fan of, directed by one of my favourite directors, William Witney, an American who quit the movie business to go into the army and made this after serving. You can tell it?s directed by someone who?s been there. It follows a group of paratroopers in Italy, but one of them is a ****-up. And he accidentally kills one of his team. It?s an accident, but the team blames him. So he has people in the platoon who want to kill him, just waiting for the right gunfight. And the end of the movie is so exciting. They see these German tanks and they know they?re the only ones who know where these tanks are headed. So they have to cross a field of landmines. They use their grenades trying to blow up the landmines, but it doesn?t work. So they have no choice but to send one guy in after another until he gets blown up. Eventually, somebody will get to the other side. All these characters just start getting wiped out. It?s the entire last half hour of the movie.?"

I've never heard of it.

 

20. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Old Golden Boy hurls us into the heart of hell on earth.

"Spielberg; the Golden Generation; Tom Hanks; all those Academy Awards ? it?s easy to come over a tad sceptical about the burnished overtones that colour one?s perception of ?Private Ryan?. A repeat viewing, however, blows away those sugar-spun cobwebs with a near-perfect men-in-combat film which balances musings on duty and comradely bromance with gale-force action and plenty, plenty ketchup. Sentimental, yes; treacly, no. ALD"

"Quentin Tarantino says: ?I really liked ?Saving Private Ryan? a lot, in particular the Omaha Beach scene. I think the whole movie holds up, but that scene is absolutely amazing. And one of the things that I like about that sequence so much, apart from the fact that you get a real sense of what it was like, is that you?re constantly thinking to yourself, could anything be worth this? Ultimately, I guess the answer is yes. But when you?re watching it, it seems unfathomable that anything could be worth going through that.?

 

OVERRATED.

 

Eh, not really overrated; excellent film, but Band Of Brothers is infinitely better.

 

Eh, not really overrated; excellent film, but Band Of Brothers is infinitely better.

I agree completely with this. BOB is the definitive here, even if its not a movie per se.

Ryan works so much better if you view it episodically, just like BOB. If each mini-scene within the movie is told from the point of view of a different character, it becomes more personal, and really mirrors military service. (with the opening and closing involving everyone equally.) The opening beach landing scene. The scene where the wall collapses, and exposes the Nazi standoff. The scene where they're going through dog tags while their sister unit walks by. The assault across the field to get the MG nest. The scene where they try and get the young girl. And finally, the entire closing battle. On that level, it works. As an overall story to actually save Ryan, it's decent. But then again, every movie needs a Macguffin to move the plot along.

 

It's not perfect, but it's an excellent movie. The scenes, the characters, the action, they're all great -- the only thing that brings it down at all is the sense that it's trying to do too much and be The Ultimate War Movie. Which is hardly enough to drag down everything else it's doing.

 

It's a remarkable achievement - incredibly visceral. Although Spielberg occasionally devolves into cheap manipulation, by and large, the film's greatness is undeniable. As is its influence.