10(ish) war films for Anzac Day

War, what is it good for? Combat movies can be fantastic delivery machines for anti-violence messages, and sometimes thrilling and visceral entertainment as well.

If you don't have time to watch a feature-length movie, check out Taika Waititi's ultra-low-budget short Tama Tū, streaming for free on NZOnScreen. (It's about a handful of Māori Battalion soldiers holed up in Italian ruins, and one of the best New Zealand films ever made.)

For the list below, I've chosen films that actually have battle scenes and avoided those where war is simply a dramatic context for another kind of story (Breaker Morant, Paths of Glory, The Deer Hunter). This means no resistance (Army of Shadows), no espionage (Where Eagles Dare), no romance (To Have and Have Not or Casablanca), no prisoners of war (Bridge on the River Kwai or The Great Escape), no PTSD (The Best Years of Our Lives), no kids (Grave of the Fireflies). I also arbitrarily decided that all films needed to be set on Earth (so no Starship Troopers).

I chose to avoid including more than one film about the same war, hence flipping a coin between Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, Come and See and Dunkirk, Letters from Iwo Jima and The Thin Red Line.

These aren't necessarily the 10 best war films of all time, but they're the 10 I've chosen for this year's Anzac Day.

All Quiet On the Western Front (1930)

I know the new version of this film just won a bunch of Oscars and is easily accessible simply by paying your Netflix tax, but nothing tops the 1930 version of Remarque's angry and bitter 1929 novel. Maybe it's the proximity - the scratchy black and white feels more like a documentary version of WWI than the heightened magical colour of Spielberg's War Horse, the single-take stunt of 1917 or the shiny 2022 version of All Quiet with its DolbyVision gloss.

Digital rental $5.99
 

Apocalypse Now (1979)

There's nothing quite like seeing Apocalypse Now for the first time - if you haven't, what are you waiting for? Inspired by Joseph Conrad's Victorian novella Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola transposes the story to America's deranged adventure in Vietnam and changes cinema forever in the process. Worth pairing with Eleanor Coppola's revelatory documentary about the making of the film Hearts of Darkness.

Aro Street Video and Alice in Videoland have DVD copies.

Gettysburg (1993)

Originally conceived as a TV mini-series, the four-hour, 14-minute duration hampered its prospects at the box office but it was a massive hit on VHS (which is where I saw it not long after it came out). A cast of luminaries (Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger) recreates all the important characters assembled in Pennsylvania for the defining battle of the Civil War. Actually shot in the Gettysburg National Park with the help of thousands of re-enactors, the presence of filmmaker Ken Burns in a cameo appearance gives it the historical accuracy seal of approval.

Digital rental $5.99
 

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I've never had a more physical reaction to the start of a film than the opening of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, as the helpless grunts land on the beaches of Normandy in a hail of Nazi machine-gun fire. The heart pounds from the first frame, it's magnificent filmmaking that sets up everything to come. You can get this now in 4K UHD with DolbyAtmos sound and I can tell you, it's the greatest workout for a home theatre you can find.

Available on UHD disc and via digital rental
 

Beasts of No Nation (2015)

Idris Elba plays a charismatic warlord in Cary Fukunaga's gripping and moving film about child soldiers in an unnamed African country. This was the first feature produced by Netflix and gave us some hope that there was bravery and taste behind the billion-dollar brand. We're still waiting for some consistency to back that up. [Back in the day, I did a video review of this film in which I explain what Netflix is. Weird.]

Streaming on Netflix
 

The Thin Red Line (1998)

My grandfather's war featured an episode at Guadalcanal in the Pacific campaign and I honour his service - and the singular filmmaking of the great Terrence Malick - with this choice. Malick hadn't made a film since the 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven and Hollywood luminaries of all stripes were queueing up when he decided to go to Queensland to adapt James Jones' novel about C company and their attempt to take a tiny pocket of what is now the Solomon Islands in 1942. Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Travolta, Woody Harrelson are the biggest names in the ensemble but the almost three-hour running time leaves plenty of room for Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, John Cusack, Jared Leto, Nick Nolte and John C. Reilly.

It's a while since I've seen this and my memory is less of battlefield action than all that waiting - and the attendant anxiety, fear and dread. It's a profound and beautiful achievement.

Streaming on Disney+ Rent AppleTV
 

Dunkirk (2017)

A history-buff pal of mine is scornful of Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk because he simply failed to put enough men on the beach. Apparently, in real life there was no room to sit down, there were so many Tommies anxiously waiting for a ride home as the Germans advanced. Nolan chose not to CGI the many thousands of young men required and instead asks us to focus on the pants-shittingly awful experience of those that were there. He makes brave story choices - there are three parallel stories told of the rescue but they aren't told in the same real-time: there's the situation on the beach as the squaddies assemble, find shelter and wait for rescue (covers about a week); the small boat flotilla coming across the channel for them (a day) and one-hour of story time following the Spitfire pilots trying to provide cover. Like so many Nolan films, Dunkirk can sometimes feel like cinematic Sudoku but it really does rise above the schematics and soars in almost every frame.

Streaming on Neon, Rent AppleTV & Neon
 

Girls of the Sun (2018)

In the early 21st century, thousands of Kurdish women were taken captive by Isis and then sold into slavery. Thousands. Some escaped and became freedom fighters. Some of them inspired this French film about a group of women fighting back against those who would deny their existence. Sometimes war is that simple.

Rental Alice DVD and Aro Video

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)

Why not head to Crimea for one of the greatest satirical portrayals of the futility and tragedy of war ever made? Tony Richardson made this star-studded portrait of one of the most devastatingly senseless losses of life there has ever been. The British Army in the 1850s was arrogant and flabby but joined the French to make war on Russia anyway. A stupid and arrogant miscommunication sends hundreds of men to their doom. The toffs who gave the orders survive, watching from a safe distance, failing upwards. The fact that Crimea is back in the news as 'disputed' territory, almost 180 years later beggars belief.

Digital Rental $5.99
 

Chunuk Bair (1992)

Not the best war film by a long shot, but at least it's ours. Chunuk Bair was an ambitious attempt to transform Maurice Shadbolt's stage play into something that could compete with Peter Weir's Gallipoli. Fat chance with New Zealand film funding in 1992. In the rare outdoor scenes, Wellington actors struggle up Makara Hill with wobbly rubber bayonets. Meanwhile, Avalon Studio 8 was 'transformed' into the Anzac camp at Gallipoli, led by imported star Robert Powell (Jesus of Nazareth). Watch it to see how far we have come in terms of production but also to be reminded of how good the bones of Shadbolt's script are.

Chunuk Bair is not available online but Aro Street Video and Alice in Videoland have DVD copies.