"Best Film for WWI?" Topic

What are the best films depicting the First World War?

(Includes TV movies, but not TV or cable series.)

Paths of Glory

Avidgamer beat me to it

John T

Our Great War is recent and quite good:

link

The Lost Battalion, made for tv.

Curiously, the Hallmark version of All Quiet on the Western Front is pretty good. Has Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Plesence and Ian Holm.

Wings! followed by Hell's Angels.

Flyboys

Lawrence of Arabia, by a Country Mile.

ANZACS, but not the 2 1/2 version. The full 10 hour miniseries

Paths of Glory
Wings
Hell's Angels
Some of the episodes of the Young Indiana Jones TV series had a WWI theme on both the Western Front and Africa (Belgian Congo)
The Trench,TV miniseries from the BBC
Some of the final episodes of Black Adder series.

The Big Parade

Hasn't been mentioned yet: Joyeux Noel (aka Merry Christmas).

King of Hearts / Roi des Coeurs

Zeppelin

Gallipoli

The Light Horsemen

Sgt York
Lost battalion
Joyeux Noel
Dawn Patrol

…"All Quiet on the Western Front"….

WWI was the Great War – far too big to be encompassed by a single film or even TV series. (I'm assuming that we're talking fiction here, not documentary). Western Front was a much different experience than Eastern Front or Italian Front or Gallipoli/Palestine/Middle East, and war on the ground different than sea or air, and that experiences for British Empire participants was different than the experiences of Germans or French (and so on).

For me, I'd pick:

War in the Air: Blue Max

Western Front (French): A Very Long Engagement
Western Front (German): All Quiet on the Western Front
Western Front (British): Oh What a Lovely War (Black Adder Goes Forth gets honourable mention even though the Editor has excluded series from this poll. Sorry, ANZACS, that rules you out as well! but ANZACS is excellent, especially for showing that the AIF spend more time on the Western Front than they did at Gallipoli)
Honourable Mention to Joyeux Noel

Middle East (incl Gallipoli): Gallipoli (but honourable mention to The Lighthorsemen and Lawrence of Arabia)

War in Africa: Black and White in Colour (I also liked Shout at the Devil)

War at Sea: I'm not familiar with enough of these sorts of films to make a good recommendation.

Weird Great War: The Land that Time Forgot

Aces High

The Blue Max
The Admiral
The Light Horseman
the Lost Battalion
Lawrence of Arabia
Black and White in color
Die Manner der Emden

Gallipolli and Blue Max

Blue Max

Lawrence of Arabia and Oh What a Lovely War.

I really liked "Warhorse".

The water diviner
Passchendale
All the Kings men
Shout at the devil

Paths of Glory.
The Blue Max.
The Lost Battalion.

All Quiet… both versions. (I know a lot of people hate the tv one, but I liked it a lot).

The TV lost battalion film was pretty decent.

Loved the canadian Passchendale movie, not just because I have the biggest crush in the world on Caroline Dhavernas

1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front. It still packs a punch even today.

Wings. It has lots of ground fighting, despite being about the air war. It includes actual WWI era tanks attacking and a cast of thousands.

The Lost Battalion is great too.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

All Quiet (old version, I have not seen the newer one) and Gallipoli are my faves.

Captain Conan and Sgt York

m.imdb.com/title/tt0115822

The Lighthorsemen.

All Quiet on the Western Front, original.

Anzacs (mini series)

The Lost Patrol.

The African Queen was quite good, but All Quiet (the Lew Aryes version) is the best.

All quiet the original

Lawrence of Arabia

Gallipoli

The Lost Battalion

and I bring this one up though I have not seen it just for variety, Stosstrupp 1917

The Trench
link

Verdun. A silent film done just after the war ( French)…many actual participants involved. A fascinating film completed only a few years after the war.
Black Adder goes forth! Brilliant

Young Indiana Jones…..great fun!

Paths of Glory……atmospheric…..

Wings. Great flying scenes

The Wild Bunch. A great " what if"

The Trench is more of a character-film but its quite good.

Young Indiana Jones probably shouldn't be confused with history but I loved it when I was a kid :)

What Price Glory?

Grelber

I'd second (or third) many of the above.

Deathwatch' is a good weird one.

No votes for Jules et Jim (Truffaut 1962)?

Beneath Hill 60

Too bad Black Adder Goes Forth isn't allowed. Though a comedy, it's among the most trenchant statements on WW1 I've ever seen.

Company k US marines in WW1

All Quiet on the Western Front (original version)
Wings

The Lighthorsemen
Gallipoli.

How could I forget the Blue Max? There's also a couple of other decent flicks on the Red Baron and the air war in general but I can't remember the titles offhand. (NOT Flyboys.)

The Red Baron? Aces High? Von Richtofen something…. or something Von Richtofen? With Captain Brown. Arrrgh… drifting into senility….

The African Queen, Beneath Hill 60 and The Lost Battalion for me.
The Water Diviner for an honourable mention. (Slightly post WW1)

Too bad Black Adder Goes Forth isn't allowed. Though a comedy, it's among the most trenchant statements on WW1 I've ever seen.

Oh dear. You really should get out more and…I dunno…read a book, maybe?

Slackbladder Comes Last typifies the general level of pig-ignorance amongst the modern British chattering classes on the subject, and panders to class-war stereotypes and bigotry. (Did you not notice that the only working class character is revolting and stupid? How AWFULLY Islingtonian!!!) As such, it is a standard-bearer for all the drivel that British Luvvies have produced on WW1 since the 1960s.

Unlike "Oh, what a lovley war!" it is at least occasionally funny, though*. Often intentionally.

[* written by a former treasurer of the Communist Party of Great Britain, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised ]

Based on the trailer from ComicCon, next year we can add Wonder Woman to the list.