The war genre has always been a popular one throughout cinema’s history. The first war movies were released way back during the silent era, with the films often dealing with the then-recent Great War (or World War I, as it got labeled post-World War II). Throughout the 20th century and then into the 21st, wars continued to be waged, which has inevitably (and quite tragically) necessitated the need for more war movies to continue being released, cinematically depicting the horrors of warfare.
The quantity of war movies ensures that some don’t get quite as much attention as others, with the following titles includable among the underrated war films out there. They’re films with some level of acclaim from those who’ve seen them but are either older movies that aren’t talked about as much nowadays or films that simply never found a huge audience. They’re nevertheless all very compelling and are worth seeking out for viewers who appreciate gripping and often intense war movies.
10 ‘The Sand Pebbles’ (1966)
The Great Escape is one of the most well-known World War II movies released during the 1960s and is an almost three-hour epic with a legendary Steve McQueen performance at its center. Another epic-length war movie of his from around the same time, The Sand Pebbles, isn’t quite as universally loved or approachable but is deserving of more attention.
It’s a grittier and more grim movie than The Great Escape, following the crew of a gunboat as they engage in a dangerous mission in China during the 1920s, dealing with violence and revolutionary forces. It’s beautifully shot and also manages to be emotionally devastating in parts, featuring one of McQueen’s best (and most serious) performances in his entire career.
9 ‘The Lighthorsemen’ (1987)
When it comes to Australian war movies, Gallipoli is perhaps the most famous and the best overall, telling a tragic story about two young men going to fight in World War I because they believe it’ll be something of an adventure. But it’s not the only impactful Australian-made World War I movie of the 1980s because The Lighthorsemen also exists and is similarly impressive.
It’s about a cavalry/mounted infantry unit known as the Australian Light Horse, with this film particularly being about the unit’s involvement in the 1917 Battle of Beersheba. It has a remarkably huge scope, featuring countless horses and extras who are featured in some of the film’s biggest battle sequences, ensuring The Lighthorsemen‘s legacy as one of Australia’s grandest war movies.
8 ‘The Steel Helmet’ (1951)
Outside the movie and TV versions of M*A*S*H, the Korean War doesn’t tend to get a lot of exposure within popular entertainment. It was a conflict that lasted only three years and was sandwiched between the larger Second World War and the particularly controversial (and frequently televised) Vietnam War, making it something of a forgotten conflict.
It might be fitting then that one of the few movies about the Korean War, The Steel Helmet, is itself something of a lesser-known work. It deserves to be seen, though, as it’s a short and punchy film about a small group of American soldiers needing to survive against more numerous North Korean forces. It daringly addressed the Korean War while it was still ongoing and remains a powerful look at America’s involvement in the conflict.
7 ‘Hell in the Pacific’ (1968)
War movies don’t get much more minimalist than Hell in the Pacific, which has a cast of exactly two people and takes place almost entirely on one small island. It’s set during World War II and follows an American soldier (Lee Marvin) and a Japanese soldier (Toshiro Mifune) who are both stranded on the same island, initially clashing before realizing cooperation may be needed for survival.
Dialogue is also kept at a minimum, as neither can properly communicate with the other, thanks to their language barrier. It starts tense and then becomes something very engrossing, being a stripped-back and meticulously crafted small-scale war movie that has a conflict between two nations effectively play out between just two people.
6 ‘Cross of Iron’ (1977)
Sam Peckinpah will always be best known for his Westerns (many of them notoriously violent for their time), but he also made a fantastic World War II movie with Cross of Iron. It’s set in 1943 and details the brutal conflict that took place on the Russian front, focusing on the German Army being forced to retreat and fight for survival against Russia’s forces.
It takes some time to get used to the fact that British and American actors play the German soldiers and speak their dialogue in English, but it’s not the first time this has happened and wasn’t the last (even Schindler’s List does it). At its core, thankfully, Cross of Iron does genuinely work and make a serious impression, as it’s one of the most intense and harrowing World War II movies ever made.
5 ‘Fires on the Plain’ (1959)
While other World War II movies might be more popular than Fires on the Plain, few could be considered as great as this Japanese film. It takes place at the very end of the war, and without much by way of combat scenes, it feels more like a survival movie at times rather than a more traditionally presented or structured war movie.
It’s centered on one soldier who’s suffering from tuberculosis and is abandoned on an island by his company, leaving him to slowly contemplate the war he’s just fought in while the possibility of survival continually shrinks. It’s a thoroughly bleak anti-war movie and filled with despair, but becomes an exceptionally powerful experience as a result.
4 ‘Hamburger Hill’ (1987)
Hamburger Hill had the misfortune of coming out one year after Platoon, and the same year as Full Metal Jacket. Those movies are two of the most well-known to deal with the Vietnam War, and couple that with the fact that Hamburger Hill is a bit of a silly name (yes, it was the name of a real battle, but not all battles are named equally either) means that it got ignored by audiences at the time.
But perhaps it should receive some more eyes cast its way, because it takes a particularly confronting approach to depicting the Vietnam War that may well prove too much for some. The Battle of Hamburger Hill was one of the grisliest and most controversial of the conflict, and this 1987 film doesn’t sugarcoat anything about it, being a notorious yet commendable movie about one horrific event of many that took place during the Vietnam War.
3 ‘The Inglorious Bastards’ (1978)
While Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is one of the most well-known (and greatest) war movies of the 21st century, the film that partly inspired him, 1978’s The Inglorious Bastards, isn’t quite so famous. It also might not be as amazing, but it’s still a blast to watch and has tremendous entertainment value, thanks to its explosive action.
It follows American soldiers as they undertake a dangerous mission during World War II, as they’re tasked by the French Resistance with stealing a V2 warhead from German forces. It’s an excuse to have a series of fun action scenes with entertaining characters, being one of the less intense and more unabashedly entertaining underrated war movies out there.
2 ‘The Battle of Okinawa’ (1971)
A very harrowing World War II movie starring Tatsuya Nakadai, The Battle of Okinawa shows the titular event from the Japanese perspective. It was covered from the American side of things in 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge, and while that movie was intense and difficult to stomach at times, this 1971 film goes even further in many regards.
It shows the final days of the decisive battle in grisly detail, scene by scene depicting the increasing sense of hopelessness felt by Japanese forces trying to hold out against incoming American soldiers. It’s one of the most nightmarish and deeply haunting war movies of all time, but those up for the challenge of watching it ought to check it out, as it truly is something great.
1 ‘War and Peace’ (1965)
A monumental epic that runs for over seven hours and stands to this day as one of the best Russian-language movies of all time, War and Peace is undeniably gargantuan. The novel it’s an adaptation of is well-known for being exceptionally long, so one could argue that a four-part movie that’s also as long as four normal movies is needed to do the book justice.
It’s a story about love and warfare, all taking place against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. When it focuses more on the war than the peace, it proves to be something unparalleled, as far as scale and spectacle go, with some of the grandest battle sequences in cinema history featured here, all of which need to be seen to be believed.
