War
Platoon
(1986)
Oliver Stone
Won 4 Oscars. Another 20 wins & 15 nominations.
Chris Taylor is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two non-commissioned officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin. A line is drawn between the two NCOs and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon.
Ran
(1985)
Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Masato Ide
Won 1 Oscar. 30 wins & 23 nominations total
Japanese warlord Hidetori Ichimonji decides the time has come to retire and divide his fiefdom among his three sons. His eldest and middle sons - Taro and Jiro - agree with his decision and promise to support him for his remaining days. The youngest son Saburo disagrees with all of them arguing that there is little likelihood the three brothers will remain united. Insulted by his son's brashness, the warlord banishes Saburo. As the warlord begins his retirement, he quickly realizes that his two eldest sons selfish and have no intention of keeping their promises. It leads to war and only banished Saburo can possibly save him.
Religulous
(2008)
N/A
2 wins & 1 nomination.
Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: "Jesus love you.") He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic.
Ride with the Devil
(1999)
Daniel Woodrell, James Schamus
1 win
Jake Roedel and Jack Bull Chiles are friends in Missouri when the Civil War starts. Women and Blacks have few rights. Jack Bull's dad is killed by Union soldiers, so the young men join the Bushwhackers, irregulars loyal to the South. One is a Black man, Daniel Holt, beholden to the man who bought his freedom. They skirmish then spend long hours hiding. Sue Lee, a young widow, brings them food. She and Jack Bull become lovers, and when he's grievously wounded, Jake escorts her south to a safe farm. The Bushwhackers, led by men set on revenge, make a raid into Kansas. At nineteen, Jake is ill at ease with war. As his friends die one after another, he must decide where honor lies.
Roaring Currents
(2014)
Cheol-Hong Jeon, Han-min Kim
17 wins & 17 nominations.
The film mainly follows the famous 1597 Battle of Myeongryang during the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-1598), where the iconic Joseon admiral Yi Sun-sin managed to destroy a total of 31 of 133 Japanese warships with only 13 ships remaining in his command. The battle, which took place in the Myeongryang Strait off the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula, is considered one of the greatest victories of Yi.
R-Point
(2004)
Su-chang Kong, Yeong-woo Pil
1 win.
On 07 January 1972, the South Korean base in Nah-Trang, Vietnam, receives a radio transmission from a missing platoon presumed dead. The high-command assigns the veteran and decorated Lieutenant Choi Tae-in to lead a squad with eight other soldiers and rescue the missing soldiers from the R-Point. When they arrive in the location, they have a shooting and defeat a Vietnamese woman with a machine gun in a trench. Later, they find a tombstone telling that one hundred years ago, Chinese killed Vietnamese, dropped them in a lake and built a temple over the place, being a sacred location to the Vietnamese. While chasing the missing soldiers, weird things happen with the rescue team.
Stalingrad
(1993)
Jürgen Büscher, Johannes Heide, Joseph Vilsmaier
3 wins & 1 nomination.
A depiction of the brutal battle of Stalingrad, the Third Reich's 'high water mark', as seen through the eyes of German officer Hans von Witzland and his battalion.
The Big Red One
(1980)
Samuel Fuller
2 wins & 1 nomination.
The story of a hardened army Sergeant and four of his men from their first fight at the Kasserine Pass after the invasion of North Africa through to the invasion of Sicily, D-Day, the Ardennes forest and the liberation of a concentration camp at the end of the war. As the five of them fight - and survive to fight yet again in the next battle - new recruits joining the squad are swatted down by the enemy on a regular basis. The four privates are naturally reluctant to get to know any of the new recruits joining the squad, who become just a series of nameless faces.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
(2008)
John Boyne (novel), Mark Herman (screenplay)
7 wins & 7 nominations.
Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
The Deer Hunter
(1978)
Michael Cimino (story), Deric Washburn (story), Louis Garfinkle (story), Quinn K. Redeker (story), Deric Washburn (screenplay)
Won 5 Oscars. Another 16 wins & 26 nominations.
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam war impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.
The Thin Red Line
(1998)
James Jones (novel), Terrence Malick (screenplay)
Nominated for 7 Oscars. Another 20 wins & 40 nominations.
In World War II, the outcome of the battle of Guadalcanal will strongly influence the Japanese advance into the Pacific theater. A group of young soldiers is brought in as a relief for the battle-weary Marines. The exhausting fight for a strategically-positioned airfield that allows control over a 1000-mile radius puts the men of the Army rifle company C-for-Charlie through hell. The horrors of war form the soldiers into a tight-knit group; their emotions develop into bonds of love and even family. The reasons for this war get further away as the world for the men gets smaller and smaller until their fighting is for mere survival and the life of the other men with them.
Tigerland
(2000)
Ross Klavan, Michael McGruther
2 wins & 5 nominations.
A group of recruits go through Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana's infamous Tigerland, last stop before Vietnam for tens of thousands of young men in 1971.
Valkyrie
(2008)
Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander
2 wins & 11 nominations.
In Nazi Germany during World War II, as the tide turned in favor of The Allies, a cadre of senior German officers and politicians desperately plot to topple the Nazi regime before the nation is crushed in a near-inevitable defeat. To this end, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an Army officer convinced he must save Germany from Hitler, is recruited to mastermind a real plan. To do so, he arranges for the internal emergency measure, Operation: Valkyrie, to be changed to enable his fellows to seize control of Berlin after the assassination of the Fuhrer. However, even as the plan is put into action, a combination of bad luck and human failings conspire on their own to create a tragedy that would prolong the greater one gripping Europe.
Zulu
(1964)
John Prebble (original screenplay), Cy Endfield (original screenplay), John Prebble (suggested by an article written by)
N/A
Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift.