Movie Reccomendations

[SBRPearce]

I'm trying to put together a "film festival" with a couple like-minded friends, and we're kicking around titles for the best WWI films.  Could you gentlemen offer your picks, ID'd by theater of war (IE, "The Middle East", "The Western Front", "The War in the Air")

Currently under consideration:

The Middle East
Gallipoli
The Light Horsemen
Lawrence of Arabia

[Lowtardog]

Middle East - 40,000 horsemen, original of the Lighthorsemen

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033307/

[Franz_Josef]

Western Front -
Paths of Glory (French frontal attack on an impregnable German position)
The Lost Battalion (U.S. Army's 308th Btn. surrounded in the Argonne forest)
Beneath Hill 60 (Australian tunnelers)
All Quiet on the Western Front (the 1979 version with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine; the 1930      version with Lew Ayres is somewhat outdated and histrionic)
 The Blue Max (some find it hokey - I like it)
 (I don't like War Horse !!)

[FramFramson]

Lawrence is maybe the high point. An absolute must.

Western Front -
Paths of Glory (French frontal attack on an impregnable German position)
The Lost Battalion (U.S. Army's 308th Btn. surrounded in the Argonne forest)
Beneath Hill 60 (Australian tunnelers)
All Quiet on the Western Front (the 1979 version with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine; the 1930      version with Lew Ayres is somewhat outdated and histrionic)
 The Blue Max (some find it hokey - I like it)
 (I don't like War Horse !!)

I love the Blue Max. Great air combat footage (using real WWI planes!) and a wonderfully nasty cast of characters (seriously, is anyone in that movie not a complete dick other than the Hauptmann and his wife?).

The interactions between the characters are way more interesting than the horrible modern puffed-up messes like Der Rote Baron, Flyboys, etc.

[FramFramson]

Hm, now that I think about it, that's actually an interesting (if separate) question (sorry for any derail).

I would personally say that any WWI movie I can think of made in the past 15-20 years has been pretty awful. Nice budgets but just horrible, awful, atrocious writing and subpar acting.  Der Rote Baron for instance tries to make von Richthofen into a pacifist and insters the now-obligatory non-existent romance.  I think the Emden did this too, but I didn't see it - was it any good after all?  

But I've only really noted the "bigger movies" (mainly because new WWI movies catch my attention). Maybe there's been some low-budget movies in the past few years that haven't been awful? Any suggestions?

[Infman]

I really enjoyed Beneath Hill 60.

[Ray Earle]

Aces high - air war, Western front.

Uomini Contro - Italian front.

[Old Goat]

All quiet on the Western Front (the original)
Dawn Patrol (Niven and Flynn need I say more)
Aces High
The Trench (not too bad)
Regeneration (again not too bad)
Beneath Hill 60 (apart from the stereotypical Australian depiction of the British)
Paths of Glory
The Light horsemen
Lawrence of Arabia
The Blue Max

Recent BBC drama the Wipers Times is well worth a watch
The old Australian show ANZACS

Avoid IMHO...
Passchedaele (simply awful)
The Lost Battalion
Flyboys
Company K (The book is really rather good though)
The Red Baron

[CorvetteK225]

It's easy to destroy each and every one of the films if you look at them piecemeal. What is more important is how they make you feel as a movie. Are they good enough to be "fan porn", or do they fall short in conveying the feelings and emotions and why we watch movies? Hollywood does not make documentaries, the History Channel does.

Western front: All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 edition for terror it conveys. Paths of Glory for the insanity and helplessness it shows for the commom Poilu.

Air war: The Red Baron for the color and gloss of CGI and its associated glories.

Middle east: Gallipoli for its portrayal that it is human beings who march off and die in war.

Italian front: Berge in Flammen for its portrayal of brotherhood among men in war.

David

[grant]

As a Canadian, Passchendaele is a must. Filmed just south of me, actually. Gratuitous boob scene makes up for the love scene stuff  

Red Baron. Enjoyable, frankly.

Blue Max. The best of the flying movies.

Gallipoli - how fast are you going to run?

[former user]

I would really like to know why to most people, romances in war movies appear forced in or displaced or simply awful, when they could be a real plot device to keep the warriors sane and give them a reason to come back from this madness that is war?
seriously?
I saw Paschendaele and liked it very much, I first feared it would be feature length crawling through the mud or lice picking, and then it turned out to be really trying to show the whole picture. Not the best movie, agreed, but not that awful either....

just an example, there are other similar movies.

[joroas]

Also:

All the King's Men,  David Jason leads the Sandringham staff TA company to destruction in the Dardanelles
My Son Jack, the story of Rudyard Kipling's son with Daniel Radcliffe
Joyeux Noel, about the Christmas Truce of 1914

[Sterling Moose]

I second 'All the King's Men', but I also thought 'Paschendale' was a lost opportunity.  I have pics of me somewhere on the set of 'Aces High', managed to get a tour when I was a kid, it was filmed at Booker Airfield, then home to the Shuttleworth Collection, formerly RAF Booker and now Wycombe Airpark in Buckinghamshire.  Sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread.

[moonshado]

If you can get hold of it the  5 part 1985 mini series - ANZACs. Far superior to both Galipoli and Lighthorsemen.

[FramFramson]

By the by, a couple of these flicks are on A Certain Popular Video Website right now, if anyone's interested.