The Ship Model Forum

LINK: https://collider.com/war-naval-movies-best-ranked/

How would you change the order? What's missing? I'd include The Bridges at Toko-Ri

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

How about "Run Silent, Run Deep"?

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Paul
"A man's GOT to know his limitations. . . . "

Missing: "The Enemy Below"

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Harold

The Cruel Sea. One of my favourite war films, and I reckon it portrays life like it actually was. But it never makes it onto those ranking lists.

Have a very Merry Christmas/Murky Crimble/Grumpy Grimble/Joyeux Noel/Frohe Weihnachten/Happy Hanukkah/Yummy Yule (delete as appropriate.)

David Griffith.

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"For scientific leadership, give me Scott. For swift and efficient travel give me Amundsen. But when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

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Another "vote" for The Cruel Sea (from a book written from personal experience) - along with Das Boot the two outstanding war films.

With, Sink the Bismarck, Tora, Tora, Tora and (another missing one) The Battle of the River Plate in runner up positions.

Not impressed with the list.

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While serving in USS STODDARD (DD-566) (1966-68) we were tied up with other FLETCHER class DDs at Pearl Harbor during the filming of "Tora, Tora, Tora", but were not "officially" part of the movie set. I've never been impressed with remakes of movies using props (ships in this case) that are simply out of date for the storyline - it's only gotten worse since then, with CG about the only alternative to using modern vessels. My opinion is that most of the WWII flicks made after the war up thru the end of the 1950s (while WWII vessels were still available in pretty much their original configurations) would still be worth viewing - newer ones (remakes), I have no interest in.

While not "theater movies" per se, I always enjoyed the Hornblower series on PBS. At least they tried to make things look somewhat original, not like a lot of the Hollywood crap - and the actors seemed to fit their roles quite well.

In spite of what others may think, I thought Dunkirk was a pretty decent movie for what it actually showed; we all know that historically it was a MUCH larger event. And, I would add The King's Choice to this list.... for it's one scene depicting the destruction of the German cruiser Blucher.

I guess at today's costs, it is impossible to hire casts of thousands to replicate the reality of events on such large scale as they did post-war when making war fillms. A by-gone era, for sure.

A Merry Christmas to all...!

Hank

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HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

If you read the book, you will see how incredibly bad the movie version is compared to Beach’s book. Also, there were two follow-on books by Beach, both very good, that follow the main character during the rest of the war and into the nuclear submarine age. You know, the same character played by Clark Gable who dies at the end of the movie. In the book, it is the Bledsoe character (Burt Lancaster) who dies.

Beach was too much of a gentleman to say anything about the movie at the time, but he was very disappointed in the movie narrative and how much it simplified and strayed significantly from the original story. Typical Hollyweird tale of author’s works getting mangled, unfortunately.

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Tom Dougherty
Researcher for: "Project Azorian”
https://www.amazon.com/Azorian-Raising-K-129-Michael-White/dp/B008QTU7QY
"Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129" Book
https://www.usni.org/press/books/project-azorian

"Away All Boats"

In my opinion best 5 are
-Master and Commander
-Mister Roberts
-Tora
-Das Boot
-They Were Expendable

Worst 5 are
-In Harms Way (soapy mishmash with horrible special effects)
-Pearl Harbor (That CGI generated cow pie from early 2000's)
-Run Silent
-Battleship (featuring a silly restart of the USS Missouri)
-The 1960 James Cagney Halsey biopic (can't remember the name) Music was tedious, a boring script.....

Dear All,

I agree with all of these (another vote for "cruel sea") and would like to add "The Yangtse Incident: the story of HMS Amethyst".

Best wishes for the new year,

-oliver

Master and Commander must be higher.

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- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

Another vote for The Cruel Sea. In my opinion the finest film of war at sea ever made.

Task Force with Gary Cooper gave a good general overview of how Naval aviation progressed. The first half was B&W and the rest was Technicolor. The Wackiest Ship in the Army featured USS Hamul and several post war DDs. The Enemy Below was good, too, but I thought Midway was a waste of film.

i like the unfamous "hostile waters" and k19 also

Western Approaches (1944) would be on my list.

Cruel Sea would be No.1 for me.

I'm a bit late posting a reply to this subject, but I would amend the list of best Naval War movies thus: Yes, "The Enemy Below" should be in the top ten. "Sink the Bismarck" does not belong on the list at all. Full of jingoism and stale stereotypes, this flick was made for the little kiddies at the Saturday matinee. Ever the calm, stoic Englishman against the mad Nazi. For a while, I hoped James Cameron would have made a real movie, based on Ludovic Kennedy's book. Done right, this could be a blockbuster movie, similar to "Hunt for Red October" or "TITANIC". If nothing else, Admiral Guther Lutjens deserves better.

"Another vote for The Cruel Sea. In my opinion the finest film of war at sea ever made."

Yes

The rest are largely rubbish. My god, "Sink the 'Bismarck'" remains the most amazing impressionistic recreation of big ships at sea, and in action ever made. Even CGI would likely not exceed what they did. The Prince of Wales struggling against Bismarck remains the most memorable modern warship battle scene. The huge ship surrounded by shell splashes is an epic. The scene where the camera cuts to the Boy Sailor as Hood sinks, is one of the great images in cinema. The completely fake handling of the Germans does not matter. When the film was made next to nothing was known about the German side in the UK and US As a cinematic tour de force, it remains unexcelled except by . . .

The most impressive recreation of a naval battle ever made was done by the Japanese in "Saka No Ue No
Kumo" ("Clouds Above the Hill").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk83OXMvYo

As for "Greyhound", an appallingly silly fantasy of American omnipotence.

"Das Boot" is impressive, but I find the "modern" submarine captain rather a pander. My father was in an American submarine in WWII. I never expected him to be like someone of my generation, and he decidedly was not. After what he told me about being in the submarines, we have yet to see even an approximation of what it was like on the American side. One of the most interesting incidents he recounted was when the captain prevented his exec from slaughtering Japanese sailors in the water, after sinking their ship. My father said none of the whitehats wanted to be part of it "All seamen feel pity for the shipwrecked."

Also quite late.

The Cruel Sea has the benefit of a writer who was actually there in the Battle of the Atlantic so is quite authentic.

What about David Lean's in Which We Serve - wartime propaganda but based on ture-ish source (after all the source was Mountbatten).

Cheers Iain

Away All Boats has always been my favorite. Great book and great movie!