I don’t have a top five off the top of my head right now, but two VERY underrated movies are
Darkest Hour
The Pianist
Darkest Hour takes on the first few months of Churchill’s leadership and does a tremendous job of showing that his policies and plans were not obviously the right choice at the time. It was a tough call, he made it, and fortunately for the world, he was right. It’s easy for history to seem inevitable when it wasn’t at the time.
The Pianist looks at the Warsaw Ghetto. I put it up there with Schindler’s List. Amazing.
And many more. I remember the soviet movies about WW2, shown on GDR- Television ( DDR1 ).
And a movie about Rudolf Höß, played by Goetz George. His life from WW1 to his execution, a great movie
A few more to add:
Force 10 From Navarone
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
The Great Raid
All Quiet on the Western Front (1980)
Lawrence of Arabia
Paths of Glory
Empire of The Sun
Some really great movies, some not so great movies.
Sorry, I can’t stop this list from growing!
The Book Thief
Schindler’s List
Casablanca
Gunga Din
The Pianist
Dunkirk
Greyhound
Midway (1976)
Midway (2019)
Tora Tora Tora
Halls of Montezuma
Das Boot
Hunter Killer
Crimson Tide
The Hunt for Red October
They Were Expendable
Pearl Harbor
Sink the Bismarck!
In Harm’s Way
Hacksaw Ridge
Apocalypse Now
We Were Soldiers
The Deer Hunter
Full Metal Jacket
Good Morning Vietnam
M•A•S•H
The Siege of Fire Base Gloria
84 Charlie Mopic
The Bridges at Toko Ri
Heartbreak Ridge
Hamburger Hill
Platoon
Danger Close
The Boys in Company C
Rescue Dawn
Air America
Born on the Fourth of July
Tigerland
Casualties of War
The Hanoi Hilton
Thud Pilots
Flight of the Intruder
The Great Santini
Devotion
Top Gun
Top Gun Maverick
The Tuskegee Airmen
Men of Honor
Enemy at the Gates
Saving Private Ryan
The Longest Day
Patton
McArther
Battle of the Bulge
Stalingrad
Blackhawk Down
American Sniper
Act of Valor
The Cane Mutiny
The African Queen
Sahara (Humphrey Bogart, 1943)
Sahara (Jim Beluchi, 1995)
A Bridge Too Far
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Railway Man
Battle of Britain
12 O’Clock High
Sands of Iwo Jima
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Fighting Seabees
Gardens of Stone
Lone Survivor
Hurt Locker
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Courage Under Fire
The Beast
T-34
1941
Biloxi Blues
The Dirty Dozen
Inchon
The Sand Pebbles
Darkest Hour
1917
War Horse
Gone with the Wind
Glory
All Quite on the Western Front
Master and Commander
Doctor Strange Love
Fail Safe
Thirty Dark Zero
Kingdom of Heaven
Lawrence of Arabia
Gettysburg
Empire of The Sun
Gallipoli
Inglorious Bastards
Fury
Red Tails
Valkyrie
The Siege of Jadotville
Mine
Miracle at St. Anna`
Three Kings
Da 5 Bloods
The Captain
Ah, Anton Diffring - the best German German ever (re Colditz); he also starred (if that’s the right word) as Heydrich in Operation Daybreak, a film I forgot to add to my list; a rather understated film, and at the time made in what was still seriously Cold War territory, but a decent enough effort at the time. Diffring played Heydrich very well in my opinion; as I say, you don’t get a better Aryan Nazi than Anton Diffring(!)
In this film, the love story is too much present.
Finally, the theme is this love story with a lot of clichés and not the war.
It is not a real surprise especially given the choice of the main actors !
There is another actor who has a very strong resemblance to Anton Diffring, George Mikell. Looking on IMDB, I saw that it was Mikell not Diffring in The Guns of Navarone or The Great Escape. I always had thought they were the same actor.
