 | The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $9.99 This movie started my interest in history as a young boy sitting next to my father, who was clearly moved by the movie.
An incredible cast ranging from John Wayne to Richard Burton and almost everyone who was anyone in 1963. Many scenes are on the original sites, an impossible task to duplicate today.
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 | Saving Private Ryan (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $5.33 The first 20 minutes of this movie should be seen by everyone as the most visceral movie depiction of the worst of "Bloody Omaha". Fanned interest in the war's history for 10 years.
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 | Twelve O'Clock High (Special Edition)
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $10.90 The early, savage days of the air war over Europe for American airmen.
Fine performances and vivid characters.
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 | Das Boot - The Director's Cut
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $2.86 Often viewed as an overtly "anti-war" movie. Given that the U Boat service suffered the highest death rate of any major arm of any combatant in the war, how could it be a "pro-war" movie?
Futility, comradeship, fear, banality and dozens of other emotions well portrayed
For Americans, view it in the original German with subtitles. The original cast's voices add a great deal.
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 | Midway (Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $6.18 The most popular depiction of the 10 minutes that changed the war in the Pacific. Only limited by the views of its day.
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 | Battle of the Bulge
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $3.27 A classic in the vein of The Longest Day.
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 | The Bridge (Die Bruecke)
Buy used from: $26.85 A German perspective of the fruitless last days of the war. Filmed in 1959 it may be a bit slow for some, but stay with it.
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 | When Trumpets Fade
Buy new: $5.98 / Used from: $1.99 An examination of men in a daily struggle with kill or be killed. The grinding experience of the Hurtgen Forrest isn't often a movie subject since its almost impossible to glorify.
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 | Band of Brothers by Michael Kamen
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $5.25 Technically a mini series, this is in my opinion the best war movie ever made. I recommend beginning the 11 hours of the film with the final hour on the disc, We Stand Alone. Interviews and discussions with these fine old men makes you care about them even more as you follow them through the characters.
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 | The Enemy Below
Buy new: $10.49 / Used from: $6.49 The best submarine movie to 1957. Realistic action and good special effects for the day. Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens give top flight performances.
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 | Tora! Tora! Tora! (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $9.04 The best story of the raid on Pearl Harbor. NOT to be confused with the Pearl Harbor movie by Ben Affleck that is worth watching only for 30 minutes of special effects.
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 | A Bridge Too Far
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $0.94 Operation Market Garden was General Montgomery's attempt to cross the Rhine and then drive into the heart of Germany, ending the war in 1944. Instead, he lost most of a British airborne division by dropping it too far behind German lines.
An important topic, well acted.
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 | Battle of Britain
Buy new: $10.49 / Used from: $2.02 A few brave men denied control of the skies over Britain to what initially appeared to be an irresistible foe. The air scenes could not be shot now with so many period airplanes.
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 | Stalingrad
Buy used from: $22.77 The best treatment of the pivotal battle of the war. Accurate thus brutal.
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 | Patton (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $7.95 Essential. George C. Scott brings General Patton alive as no one else could have. Released at the height of Vietnam it was controversial in the debate over the role of war and heroes as well as an important movie on WW2.
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 | To Hell and Back
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $6.95 The most decorated American soldier of WW2 stars in this autobiographical movie. A celebration of the citizen soldier, pure and simple.
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