Sure we all want gorgeous scenery and moving music to show off the spectacular sensibilities of our home theater sound and movie systems to our dinner guests. But when the dishes are picked up, the wine glasses rinsed, a cold brew cracked and the feet up, what we really want is the pounding action and violence of a teeth-gritting war movie. We want “can’t take your eyes away” portrayals of glory, courage, pain and gore. We want sub-woofers to thump our chairs like mortar shells on Omaha beach, shake our walls like a firing range. We want to watch war movies. Here are my favorite, all-time best, “make no apologies, war is about killing” movies:

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler’s List

Star Wars series

Master and Commander

U-571

Gladiator

Starship Troopers

Saints and Soldiers

Hotel Rwanda

Platoon

Gallipoli

Braveheart

Atonement

Apocalypse Now

'Breaker' Morant

Flags of Our Fathers

Matrix series

Independence Day

Glory

Shaka Zulu

The Postman

Downfall

Patton

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Black Hawk Down

Troy

Syriana

Three Kings

Munich

Where Eagles Dare

Zulu

Gunga Din

Force 10 From Navarone

If I may add a couple of my favorites along with those you mentioned:

The Hunt for Red October

Crimson Tide

One that I stumbled onto the other day, "Rules of Engagement"

Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L Jackson, Anne Archer, Ben Kingsley...  When I first saw it, I didn't realize it was done prior to 9-11 and I was flabbergasted on how they'd make a movie with a bunch of muslums attacking an American Embassy. 

At the end of the movie they give a trailer saying "George retired a year later & moved to the country", "Tom was court martialed for obstructing justice and is currently serving time in prison"  and that kind of thing, suggesting to me that this was based on some true events.

Watched it again a couple days later when my dad was in town and enjoyed it again (Tivo'ed)

Ok you missed a really big one in my opinion.  Its not one that you can sit down in one night and watch, but its well worth it to watch the whole thing,

Band of Brothers.

Steve

 Letters from Iwo Jima.

Jarhead will have to be one of my favs..  though Starship Troopers always makes me laugh..

Full Metal Jacket

Pearl Harbor

Midway

Hamburger Hill

Empire of the Sun

The English Patient

Enemy at the Gates

1941

The Final Countdown

Any Godzilla movie

Forest Gump

Das Boot

Any Terminator movie

Though I love The English Patient, Forest Gump and any Terminator/Predator movie, I did not consider them war movies as much as fight or battle movies. Not too sure about this though, but I think I had in mind a more traditional battlefield combat genre.

This reminds me to add the thriller about the Dutch underground, Black Book.

Heres my faves, including one not listed yet

The Thin Red Line

We were Soldiers once, and Young-  - a true story of a unit that goes astray and into trouble in Vietnam, great book too!

Platoon- another Vietnam epic- very grisly at points. 

A Bridge too Far - cast of dozens of top names in tale of bridge taking during Operation Market Garden WWII

Dirty Dozen- another great cast WWII epic

Private Ryan  - an awkward story line, brilliantly played

Full Metal Jacket- it's Kubrik- you can't go wrong

U-571

Hunt for Red October- both with good story lines and blowing stuff up scenes

Borderline (questionable due to being a bit too dramatic and artsy)

Apocalypse Now- loved it but it's on the edge of believeability

Atonement- loved it, but is it really mostly about war or is it a love story that takes place during wartime?

Pearl Harbor- starring Ben Affleck as -who else- Ben Affleck- worst ever due to too much love story and not enough war:

1941 is a comedy

Nothing Terminator is about war per se just violence, I want history, I want stories based on the real deal, but that's just me

Behind Enemy Lines- DTS version

We Were Soldiers- DTS. Based on the real deal.

 Just got Dr Strangelove on BD... awesome

Guns of Navarone

The Bedford Incident

The Seven Samurai

Paths of Glory

Battleship Potemkin

Triumph of the Will

Another all time classic:  The Green Beret

More decent war movies:

Ken Wahl & Cheryl Ladd in Purple Hearts

Lee Marvin & Robert Carradine in The Big Red One

The all-star cast in Kelly's Heroes

Lee Ermey & Wings Hauser in Siege at Firebase Gloria

David Dudikoff in Platoon Leader

expatmatt:

Maybe not exactly a war movie, but then neither is Gladiator (one of my favorites), check out Lord of War. "I prefer it my way"

Lord of War is one of the funniest movies out there because of Nick Cage's narration. It funny right from the opening scene. Even though it was supposed to horrify viewers about illegal gun sales, it had the opposite effect on me. This is much like blaming papparazzi for the death of Princess Diana, when the the root cause was a spddeing drunk driver and the idiots who buy those rags that create the market to begin with.