My dad fought in the Battle Of The Bulge. 747th Tank Division. He rarely talked about it. He said the movie did a disservice to the men who died. He sadly passed in 2014. A genuine hero.
My wife's grandfather Charlie fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured twice. One of the times, he was attempting to play dead by hiding in a pile of the bodies of his buddies. A German soldier thought he saw him move, so he fired a rifle shot next to his ear causing him to flinch. He wore a hearing aid the rest of his life because of it. To say that they treated him poorly would've been an understatement! At least they tourniquetted his leg to keep the gunshot wound he received in battle from bleeding out. I saw firsthand his PTSD. For instance, he hated the noise from fireworks displays. He died in 2012. RIP Charlie Lyman.
Um, I don't exactly think so. The 747th Tank Batallion, 29th Infantry Division, was dug in at the Roer River in December of 1944 through February 1945 across from a town called Julich, providing night time interdiction artillery fire. Although the 29th Infantry Division was a battle-tested veteran unit, having participated in the landings at Omaha Beach, the reduction of Brest, and numerous battles since, they were in a quiet area of the front during this period and did not participate in the Battle of the Bulge.
PATHS OF GLORY (1957) Even before filming began Kirk Douglas knew this WW1 epic would flop. Yet he told director Stanley Kubrick "This film won't make a nickel but it still has to be made!"
@@GermanShepherd1983 I would say the French generals were arrogant; they really did act like they could do no wrong and someone else was to blame for their failure.
@@GermanShepherd1983: it portrays French generals but don’t believe there aren’t senior officers in any army who would behave just as callously! And in World War I after fruitless attacks the French army did mutiny and the top General (Foch?) did have soldiers executed as examples !
Now I've got the song sounding in my head: "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor. I miss you more than that movie missed the point, and that's a lot girl...."
Stalingrad is one of the best Eastern Front movies because the Germans do such a great job of portraying the grim realities of war. Das Boot and Downfall are another two examples.
@@bobmcrae5751 Catch one from the early 60s called ' Attack & Retreat' about the Italian army fighting on the Russian front. Very good movie with good combat scenes and awesome winter scenes.
Battle of the Bulge: The only accurate insight is the scene where Robert Shaw's SS character is holding a captured American cake and opines, "They have enough petrol to fly pastries across the ocean and we don't have enough for our panzers."
Battle of the Bulge was poorly done. The main battle scene looks like it was done during the summer in a desert or barren area. Robert Shaw did alright in the film. Henry Fonda and several of the other actors, didn't fit into the roles. Overall poorly directed and not enough real facts to make it believable.
@@laurenceellsperman6077 That always bugs me about the movie. There's a battle in the winter one day, and then there's a tank battle in open desert on a sunny afternoon.
U-571 is not an "underrated" war movie - it's a travesty of breathtaking arrogance. It brazenly appropriates another country's history and brutally Americanizes it. The existence of this movie demonstrates utter contempt for the United Kingdom and its achievements in the war, not to mention smearing the history of the real U-571 as well. U-571 was a Type VII-C boat run by a professional crew. It sank five ships and damaged three more before being sunk with all hands in 1944 by depth charges dropped by an Australian flying boat. For the cherry on the cake, the enigma machine was captured from U-110 by crewmen from corvette HMS Bulldog, a name that couldn't really be more British. In other words, the movie "U-571" can go **** itself.
I can only agree ! I remember the release of U-571 and wondered at the time when the follow-up movie showcasing the US victory in the Battle of Britain would be shown.
Years ago I saw the video/DVD of U-571 on sale at the Australian War Memorial shop. Maybe the staff didn't know this movie was complete BS, but they should have. It's their job.
The 13th Warrior. It is my understanding that Michael Crichton was the director (and author of the book that it was based on, "Eaters of the Dead") and flubbed it. Another director was brought in to salvage it, but Michael had done his damage. Still... I have watched it at least ten times and several scenes still bring tears to my eyes or chills down my spine. A great movie!!
Eaters of the Dead is claimed by Crichton to be something he wrote to prove the core story of Beowulf was based. Not sure if he succeeded or not. Not read Eaters. Seen the movie. Didn't hate it, but only watched it once.
@@mudcrab3420 Crichton's idea in "Eaters of the Dead" was that these troll-like creatures in Norse mythology were actually from a small tribe of Neanderthal cavemen who had somehow managed to survive into medieval times.
Read the book once. viewed fil 3x. Entertained each exposure. Partially based on REAL travels of Ibn sent as a diplomat to review potential threats to Islamic World.
It was directed by John mctiernan, the same guy who did die hard and predator and I think it shows. It's one of my favorite movies and one of his most underrated ones along with the last action hero.
The movie was directed by John McTiernan of Die Hard & Predator fame, but Michael Crichton who wrote the book disliked it and convinced the studio to let him do re-shoots & re-edit the movie. McTiernan said in an interview later, that his original cut has nothing to do with the theatrical released version, still a great adventure movie.
I knew an Army MSgt who had fought at Hamburger Hill as a private machine gunner. I asked him if he had seen the movie and he had. He said it was OK as far as war movies went, but had a couple of serious flaws. The first being the movie depicting US troops as having gotten further up the hill than they actually had. He said they never got so far up until the NVA withdrew. Second flaw, it wasn't bloody enough. At the time it was about the bloodiest war flick until Saving Private Ryan came out.
Stalingrad actually did well at the Box Office. You are mistaking the US Box Office for the international Box Office. It did very well in Europe and more than covered its costs.
I saw it at Davis Hall in SF (it was packed) and one of the Americans part of the US Box Office. But I'm a WW2 historian so I'm a rarity in my own country.
This video doesn't really have its facts straight. Stalingrad's gross reported in this video is only from US & Canada combined, and it was a limited release in the US. But it is a German production, a German language film, and over 5 million people saw it in Germany alone where it was a box office success.
It's way too Sovietized about the facts and reality. I'll be sorry if viewers don't read a few books on the subject. Sadly, Stalin and then Kruschev executed so many after the war in their "NO ONE lives to be More Famous Than Me" tradition.
Yes George Segal and Ben Gazzara are outstanding. Robert Vaughn has always been one of my favorite actors I was a little kid when The Man From Uncle was on and I loved it
Awful film. But many were in those times, when war movies were filled with all the actors that ever made movies . Full of all the American cliches and over acting. Very bad props as well (painfully obvious stage cardboard props), but they didn't have CGI - which has greatly enhanced background scenes for the better, IMO. A Bridge Too far was the last of the old school war movies that featured every actor on the A list. It did turn the corner though, with that authentic air drop, the realistic German ambush on the road to Arnhem using actual Sherman M4 tanks, and it had superior acting. Anthony Hopkins was superb, as was Gene Hackman.
Maybe it's just me but I am 86 years old, was in the army from private to colonel, on the DMZ in Korea, and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and do not want to see any war movie. I loved Demi Moore in "Ghost" and do not want to see her shaved head and in any war movie. I know it's just a movie but I want to have my own memories which do not involve war.
Salute sir! When GI Jane was released women could not join the SEALs. I thought the premise was ridiculous. The best way to show your disdain for such movies is not to see it
Clonetrooper1139, the Director 's cut was posted here on RUclips for quite a while. Im not sure if it still is though. I've watched a couple of times here but I haven't for awhile so I'm not sure if it's still up or not.
@@sinisterminister6478 The director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven was release on DVD around the same time as the theatrical cut. Finding it shouldn't be that hard.
I would not classify this as a war movie any more than I would The 13th WARRIOR. Toss it in the [wannabe] historical spectacle / costume drama category. Movies about the Middle Ages generally flop in the USA. And I was rooting for the Moslems, just to spite The Israel Lobby.
Cross of Iron is one of the all-time greates war movies and most people haven't seen it. In fact, many of the works of director Sam peckinpah are very interesting.
"With a budget estimated between 85 and 160 million dollars" Brother, I felt that! I hate it when I'm trying to reconcile my checkbook at the end of the month and can't figure out that $75,000,000 discrepancy.
The way the characters relate to each other is absolutely perfect. Early on in the movie, the whole German Army is coming down the road and the Sgt. is busy and Kelly is occupied and the Corporal is the only one in command. The radio operator is freaked out and talks the Corporal into giving the order to pull back behind the river. Who's really in charge here? Neither the Sgt. or Kelly even blink because it is a war and you just do the right thing as needed. This movie would be great even without any action, just to hang out with these characters. By the way, Oddball is an American Hero.
Especially in the case of "Stalingrad". How could German audiences "not be ready" for an anti-war WWII movie in 1993 when Das Boot was a smash hit there in 1981?
Too many war movies here are billed as anti-war movies. The audience needs to make that decision not the critics or producers. Movies like Saving Private Ryan and American Sniper have strong story lines that let the audience judge for themselves what the theme was.
Come And See is maybe the greatest war movie ever made, i think it's on youtube. Kelly's Heroes is one of my favourite ever movies Stalingrad is brilliant
Come and See to sowieckie kino propagandowe! Nakręcone przez państwo, które na sumieniu ma więcej trupów i więcej ludzkiego nieszczęścia niż Adolf Hitler. Ukraińcy do dziś giną i cierpią też dlatego, że świat nie przejmował się zbrodniami Moskwy.
"Battle of the Bulge" has so much inaccuracy in it it bears no relationship with history so historians avoided it. It is more like a fictional battle than the actual Battle of the Bulge. For all the money and stellar acting in the movie it just falls flat even to this day. It is a lot like "Pearl Harbor" which is about a fictional War situation where two men fought over the same woman and one of them had sex with her in a parachute packing facility (insert joke here). Movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Battle of the Bulge" are not about history, they are soap operas with war backgrounds.
I think that "Battle of the Bulge", and some other movies, were trying to replicate the success of "The Longest Day". What the film makers missed was that that film was based on the actual experiences of men who fought in the battle. "Battle of the Bulge" wasn't. So it ended up as just another so-called "adventure" film, with stereotypical characters and a frankly stupid plot.
Henry Fonda role was particularly nauseating; "Henry's a smart college boy so he knows better than those stupid army guys. Talk about a gateway from WW2 to Robert McNamara and his merry band of moronic, know-nothing useful bean counters.
Come and See is a Soviet movie. They wouldn’t have given a rats ass about how it performed in the US. To hold it to a measure of success that its backers weren’t interested in is dishonest. It is terrific, and (ironically) appears on many ‘top war movies’ lists but is not for the faint-hearted.
The Blue Max is becoming a forgotten movie and needs to be remembered. Not sure how it did at the box office in the 60s, but love that movie. Father Goose might be the best war time ahhh… nope not going to give it away. Try to going in without knowing anything about it
A lot of it is TIMING. "Kelly's Heroes" might have done better if it'd come out two years earlier, but by 1970, with the American public weary of both the Vietnam War itself and the protests, "War", even in a semi-comedic (more sardonic) heist film in a WWII setting, just wasn't something that folks flocked to movie theaters to see. It got its "legs" in endless reruns on TV, especially with tank enthusiasts.
13th Warrior is one of my favorite movies. It's just a shame that it came out the same summer as Star Wars Phantom Menace and Austin Powers spy who shagged me. I truly believe it should have done better in the box office. I watched it a few months ago and it still holds up beautifully.
'Come and See' is very difficult watch. Any movie with the Dirlewanger Brigade, the very worst of the Waffen-SS worst, will have shocking images for movie goers.
All it was, was Russian propaganda and on a little budget. Not saying the WSS didn't murder just saying the moie was such a good fake story, that Rod Serling could've used it for The Twilight Zone.
I met two old men in my town who accidentally ran into each other in the middle of the battle of the bulge- they didn’t know each other until that day, went home to be best friends into old age… ❤
Windtalkers was an insult to those amazing brave men. A film filled with inexplicably stupid artistic choices. Oh how I wish someone with brains and talent would tell the actual story.
13th Warrior is an epic film "Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, Back to the beginning Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla, Where the brave may live forever!" Viking Battle Cry!
The most ridiculous scene in The Bulge was when Henry Fonda was taking reconnaissance pictures of the Germans from a plane. The developed pictures are close-up ground level shots.
The mid-70s Midway used footage from Tora Tora Tora to save costs. Midway did OK for $. The docudrama side of it may not have been as fictional as "Bulge" but it was moving that way.
Tora,Tora,Tora like Waterworld made money in DVD sales, Rome was ended most of the cast killed off because of production costs and in a couple of weeks made a profit from DVD sales they forget Cinema seats are expensive and a rare treat for many families.
@13:30 - You may also be interested to know that the film "Enemy Below," 1957, which did win an Oscar for special effects, was based on a book by a British author involving British naval personnel. However, the film depicts an American navy ship chasing a German U-boat.
Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers are both excellent movies, especially if you watch them back to back. It humanizes an inhuman situation and they made me see how alike we all are when it comes down to dying
Cage is not protecting the code talker, he's protecting the code. I went to basic training & AIT with one of the code talkers in the movie, Roger Willie. D-2/54. He was our house mouse in 4th plt.
Compare "Battle of the Bulge" to the vastly superior "Battleground" and you will notice one striking difference- the weather conditions! Good lord, where was the freaking snow in the former? In the latter it was all done on a massive soundstage but looked so much more authentic. "Windtalkers" was single-handedly sunk by Nicolas Cage's awful performance. "U-571" was all flash and no substance, the "Mermphis Belle" of submarine movies. A series of impossible escapes piled one after the other. "Flags of Our Fathers" pales in comparison to the truly great "Letters From Iwo Jima" mainly due to the terrific acting by the Japanese cast. "Johnny Got His Gun", "Hamburger Hill", "Jarhead", "Gallipoli", "Come and See" and "The Thin Red Line" are all excellent-to-great films. Most of these war films are downers. which is most likely why the bombed at the box office. Most overlooked war film? "Go Tell The Spartans".
Agree on most of what you say except The Thin Red Line was incoherent junk. "Hey let's make a movie with only themes and ignore plot." BTW GREAT callout on Go Tell the Spartans. Just rewatched it.
"Gallipoli" was a major box office hit in its native country of Australia, and its North American take was respectable. I didn't see "Kelly's Heroes" until about 30 years after its release, and I didn't like it at all. The characters aren't fighting for any righteous cause, they're just out for themselves. The Donald Sutherland character, a 1970 caricature planted in a 1945 setting, makes no sense at all. Telly Savalas reportedly turned down "Patton" to take his role in this movie.
It was a comedy fantasy story, not meant to be a 'real' WW2 type film. And the point of it was that they were sick of fighting, and possibly dying, in a war (or for a cause) they didn't want to be part of anymore, so they decided to fight for something for themselves.
It was incredibly popular amongst us GIs in Vietnam. It has a distinct anti-war vibe going all thru it. And Odd Ball - we had guys like him every where.
U571 was an insult to the Royal Navy, the crew of the Bulldog and men who died getting the cod’s that helped break Enigma. Disgusting American plagiarism at its worst.
The film made $11.7 million Australian in 1980s money and then $5m US. This is at a time when Australian movies were lucky to even be shown overseas. Remember Mad Max was redubbed cause the US distributors thought the accents were too thick for American viewers to understand. So yes. Gallipoli - Not a flop and EXTREMELY well regarded. The 'Steel Springs' line still sticks with me and I haven't seen this movie in decades. This list is chalk.
What a film costs to make and what it costs to present to an audience are not the same. "Major studio movies - The average cost to produce a major studio movie is around $65 million, but marketing adds another $35 million or so. " "Small-budget movies - A $15 million film might have a promotional budget that is higher than its production budget. " Then you have the ones the studio knows is sh!t but hypes it to convince people (kids) to attend. "The Barbie movie - The marketing budget for Barbie was $150 million, which was more than the $145 million it cost to make the film."
Former President & Former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight Eisenhower came out of retirement to condemn “The “Battle of the Bulge”.
Or TV revenue. Kelly's Heros was a staple of TV movies for most of the 70s. Even with the numbers given, it was the 25th most revenue producing movie worldwide the year of its release.
"Hamburger Hill" is to war genre, as "Homicide: Life on the Streets" is to series TV. Hill paved the way for Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers/War in the Pacific, and other 'reality' based war movies. Homicide showcases a never-before-seen and unflattering portrayal of "cops and robbers," detailed in The Corner/Wire.
It was a movie from the Soviet Union during late stages of the Cold War. Though a masterpiece and classic, it might have been shown in five theaters in the US the year of its release, so its US box office reciepts were going to be tiny.
Come and See sucked. Talk about not being accurate. The "uniforms" was a hodgepodge of "uniforms" and the weapons etc were not always near accurate. Plus the acting was poor at best and talk about a stupid story.
I think his selection method was they had to be 'underrated' and 'flops'. So Master and Commander fails on both as everyone says it is awesome and it did make money. GI Jane? Flop? Yeah. Underrated? Ummm... NO. It won Razzies. That movie is rated where it needs to be.
The Thin Red Line is one of the most boring movies I've ever endured. It looked beautiful but I thought it would never end. Johnny Got his Gun was so horrible that I never got to the end.
So, I notice some of these made reasonable box office worldwide, but this video decides they are 'flops' just because the US box office was disappointing. The US market rarely responds well to deep and meaningful, or depressingly realistic, movies, whereas the rest of the world often does, so this is a flawed method of deciding success! The world does not begin and end in the USA, and money is money wherever you earn it!!!
Translation, for a war film to be successful at the American box office, it must: 1- show a positive image of the United States. 2- talk about a conflict involving Americans. 3- have an ending in accordance with American moral standards. 4- above all, don’t make people think.
Another Gem was “Path of Glory” directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas. It is probably the greatest Anti War movie ever. However, it was way ahead of it’s time for it’s visual portrayal of the grim realities of war for the late 1950s audiences, and even Kirk Douglas who helped with the movie being financed knew that it would not make any money in the box office, but told Stanley Kubrick to go ahead and make the movie due to it’s powerful script.
Never a good idea to portray your own military in film as murderers, rpists, cowards and idiots. The general public seem to have a downer on that sort of thing. That applies especially in the USA where most of the ticket buying public that is the target audience is based. They also don't have much interest in war movies that don't involve their own military such as Come And See, Gallipoli and Stalingrad. They don't however have any qualms about stealing someone else's valour by appropriating another country's military history such as U571. They have enough genuine heroes of their own without resorting to ripping off someone elses.
I was disappointed to see GI Jane here. It's not a war movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather it's nothing but a another shallow woke self-serving Demi Moore project designed to feed her giant vanity. It's so unrealistic that it makes the Shaw/Fonda Battle of the Bulge disaster look realistic. Neither flick belongs on this list.
@@bostonrailfan2427 LOL Are you saying it's not? Wokeness may have had a different name back then but the pushing of lies has been with us since the first human uttered a grunt.
#1. This video is voiced by Al. #2. This video speaks as if American box office is all that counts. 3. It does not take into account that TO THIS DAY there are those who DO NOT wish to be preached at about what happens it times of war. 4. There are bad movies and then there are BAD movies. I will let those out there decide which is which.
I didn't care for Thin Red Line when I first watched it. But it was playing on HBO and when I surfed channels I would stumble across it and had to watch. Now it is one of my favorites.
I take issue with the box office takes, as it does not take into account that all of these movies took in more in video sales following their theatrical releases. i agree that "Battle Of The Bulge" wasn't a good movie; it was inaccurate and slow. The German and Russian movies also did well after their original releases. My biggest beefs are "Kingdom Of Heaven" which was edited to shorten it leaving audiences confused, the director's cut made a big profit after it's release. Then there was "Kelly's Heroes" which is still considered a great movie today and the Tape and DVD issues were huge. Clint Eastwood's movies are now considered real classics with great acting!
I’m going to disagree. The public is less interested in historical accuracy (which most don’t know, anyway) It’s more interested in a good script, good performances well directed. Eg the Dirty Dozen is total fabrication but a good movie
@@clarkwilson6340 Soviet cinema wasn't on the same wavelength as Hollywood. Not after hits and box office. But Come & See is a great film, admired by just about everyone.
The movie - and the calculated insult to Britain that it constituted - was so controversial in the UK that it was discussed in parliament, leading to the filmmakers being forced to add a disclaimer on the end of them film declaring that it's a work of fiction and that it was the Royal Navy thyat actually captured the Enigma machine if they wanted to show it in the UK.
I share your dislike of the American jingoistic attitude in film, however, Americans make movies for Americans primarily, because that's where the money is. Brits who are, understandably, major critics of this, would better be served by less whining and more producing big budget movies to make their point.
@@rickden8362 America did some amazing things in WW2, you do not have to steal other nations heroic deeds Just give credit where it is due, but this is something Hollywood finds impossible to do. Big budget bullshit heroics is not what we do very well I am pleased to say.
As an American and a military history buff, I knew the U-571 movie was totally made up except for the basic premise that it was based on was true. I knew the Brits had actually done the deed. I've never seen the movie as a result.
I recently saw GI Jane for the first time, very good movie and reasonably accurately depicts the day to day life of a BUDs sailor's journey through one of the toughest training courses in the world.
I couldn’t get into it. Disjointed is a good description. I don’t mind a little introspection, but I couldn’t finish watching it. I thought When Trumpets Fade was better.
Malick’s approach does seem very disjointed. But the way he pieces his scenes (if you can even call them that) together in the editing room removes a lot of the chronology. His films always seemed very open ended to me, to where you can pick up and leave off in different places throughout and it wouldn’t defer or detract from his central themes and messages
Letters from Iwo Jima was an excellent movie and very human. I think it suffered as folks didn't want to see a movie from the Japanese perspective. - I consider it one of Clint Eastwoods best.
I rented Stalingrad and watched it with my father. It was a pretty good film and I was shocked that I had never heard of it before. My father was part of the occupation forces in Germany and talked about the horrible destruction of the German cities. G. I. Jane was a bad film.
If you liked Stalingrad check out "Cross of Iron" with James Coburn, James Mason and Maxamillian Schell - it's from 1977 and directed by Sam Peckinpaugh.
I remember finding Scott's direction of the combat sequence in "GI Jane" strangely shot and not terribly exciting. He did much better with "Black Hawk Down."
1:42 The 13th Warriors is one of my favorite movies of that era. The production was botched & better editing would have made it a blockbuster. It can still be salvaged but as it is I still make sure to watch it in my home theater every 5 years, the same with great movies like Aliens, T2, etc. that need to be watched in a big screen with surround sound to do it justice.
That movie really unsettled me, for a long time. My major fear is being 'locked in', fully conscious and aware but totally unable to communicate. In the film, he almost managed to break through and communicate, but was shut down back to his isolation.
Guns of Navarone is a great film set in WW2. The story actually inverts history: the British lost their footholds and troops in Greece and the islands of the Eastern Med.
No it does not invert history. It is about a mission to destroy guns in a German occupied Greece. It takes place well after the Nazi invasion and is entirely fictional
I remember watching Battle of the Bulge as a kid with my grandmother. It is still one of my favorite movies of all times. As i grew up, i learned the movie was not accurate at all. Most of my all time favorites are WWII movies from the late 40s through the early 60s.
I've seen 17 of these films but only The Thin Red Line in a theatre. Most on free to air tv then many on video. What I can't believe is that Fury is not on this list. My god it was an awful movie that still gets me angry thinking about it.
My dad fought in the Battle Of The Bulge. 747th Tank Division. He rarely talked about it. He said the movie did a disservice to the men who died. He sadly passed in 2014. A genuine hero.
My wife's grandfather Charlie fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured twice. One of the times, he was attempting to play dead by hiding in a pile of the bodies of his buddies. A German soldier thought he saw him move, so he fired a rifle shot next to his ear causing him to flinch. He wore a hearing aid the rest of his life because of it. To say that they treated him poorly would've been an understatement! At least they tourniquetted his leg to keep the gunshot wound he received in battle from bleeding out. I saw firsthand his PTSD. For instance, he hated the noise from fireworks displays. He died in 2012. RIP Charlie Lyman.
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747th Tank Division?
No such division has ever existed.
@@dudeonyoutube Battalion. Maybe the guy didn't know the different military unit size?
Um, I don't exactly think so. The 747th Tank Batallion, 29th Infantry Division, was dug in at the Roer River in December of 1944 through February 1945 across from a town called Julich, providing night time interdiction artillery fire. Although the 29th Infantry Division was a battle-tested veteran unit, having participated in the landings at Omaha Beach, the reduction of Brest, and numerous battles since, they were in a quiet area of the front during this period and did not participate in the Battle of the Bulge.
PATHS OF GLORY (1957) Even before filming began Kirk Douglas knew this WW1 epic would flop. Yet he told director Stanley Kubrick "This film won't make a nickel but it still has to be made!"
It was a great movie IMO. First time I watched it, I hated it. The 2nd time I watched it, I was more mature and loved it.
It was a great move and showed what cowards the French generals were.
@@GermanShepherd1983 I would say the French generals were arrogant; they really did act like they could do no wrong and someone else was to blame for their failure.
@@GermanShepherd1983: it portrays French generals but don’t believe there aren’t senior officers in any army who would behave just as callously! And in World War I after fruitless attacks the French army did mutiny and the top General (Foch?) did have soldiers executed as examples !
The French and US Army posts banned it.
Hamburger Hill makes the list, but Pearl Harbor gets a pass? I'm calling shenanigans!
Pearl Harbour was 4 with 140 million budget. Hamburger Hill was 8 with under 10 million budget. That says it all.
Now I've got the song sounding in my head: "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor. I miss you more than that movie missed the point, and that's a lot girl...."
@@stuartwald2395you forgot the best lines. “I need you like Ben Afflek needs acting school. He was terrible in that movie.”
@@stuartwald2395 LMAO!!!!
@@seanthomson5578 Matt Damon !
Stalingrad is one of the best Eastern Front movies because the Germans do such a great job of portraying the grim realities of war. Das Boot and Downfall are another two examples.
Agree, Stalingrad is a fantastic film.
If you get it on DVD, get the German language version. The English dub is a pi$$ poor translation
@@bobmcrae5751 Catch one from the early 60s called ' Attack & Retreat' about the Italian army fighting on the Russian front. Very good movie with good combat scenes and awesome winter scenes.
Stalingrad was excellent. It was a remade version of: Stalingrad Dogs Do You Want To Live Forever.
Cross of Iron.
@jamesfields2916 The dreaded Italian 8th Army. 🤡
Battle of the Bulge: The only accurate insight is the scene where Robert Shaw's SS character is holding a captured American cake and opines, "They have enough petrol to fly pastries across the ocean and we don't have enough for our panzers."
Battle of the Bulge was poorly done.
The main battle scene looks like it was done during the summer in a desert or barren area.
Robert Shaw did alright in the film.
Henry Fonda and several of the other actors, didn't fit into the roles.
Overall poorly directed and not enough real facts to make it believable.
@@laurenceellsperman6077 That always bugs me about the movie. There's a battle in the winter one day, and then there's a tank battle in open desert on a sunny afternoon.
U-571 is not an "underrated" war movie - it's a travesty of breathtaking arrogance. It brazenly appropriates another country's history and brutally Americanizes it. The existence of this movie demonstrates utter contempt for the United Kingdom and its achievements in the war, not to mention smearing the history of the real U-571 as well. U-571 was a Type VII-C boat run by a professional crew. It sank five ships and damaged three more before being sunk with all hands in 1944 by depth charges dropped by an Australian flying boat. For the cherry on the cake, the enigma machine was captured from U-110 by crewmen from corvette HMS Bulldog, a name that couldn't really be more British. In other words, the movie "U-571" can go **** itself.
Hey, I did get to visit the set in Malta. 🇲🇹. It was ‘revolutionary’ at the time. Too bad the movie was so horrible! 😢😢
I can only agree ! I remember the release of U-571 and wondered at the time when the follow-up movie showcasing the US victory in the Battle of Britain would be shown.
Years ago I saw the video/DVD of U-571 on sale at the Australian War Memorial shop. Maybe the staff didn't know this movie was complete BS, but they should have. It's their job.
@@oldfella3919 Well we got Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour.....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Grazier .. not a yank, Was awarded the George Cross (one down from a VC) and gave his life in the process.
The 13th Warrior. It is my understanding that Michael Crichton was the director (and author of the book that it was based on, "Eaters of the Dead") and flubbed it. Another director was brought in to salvage it, but Michael had done his damage. Still... I have watched it at least ten times and several scenes still bring tears to my eyes or chills down my spine. A great movie!!
Eaters of the Dead is claimed by Crichton to be something he wrote to prove the core story of Beowulf was based.
Not sure if he succeeded or not. Not read Eaters. Seen the movie. Didn't hate it, but only watched it once.
@@mudcrab3420 Crichton's idea in "Eaters of the Dead" was that these troll-like creatures in Norse mythology were actually from a small tribe of Neanderthal cavemen who had somehow managed to survive into medieval times.
Read the book once. viewed fil 3x. Entertained each exposure. Partially based on REAL travels of Ibn sent as a diplomat to review potential threats to Islamic World.
It was directed by John mctiernan, the same guy who did die hard and predator and I think it shows. It's one of my favorite movies and one of his most underrated ones along with the last action hero.
The movie was directed by John McTiernan of Die Hard & Predator fame, but Michael Crichton who wrote the book disliked it and convinced the studio to let him do re-shoots & re-edit the movie.
McTiernan said in an interview later, that his original cut has nothing to do with the theatrical released version, still a great adventure movie.
I knew an Army MSgt who had fought at Hamburger Hill as a private machine gunner. I asked him if he had seen the movie and he had. He said it was OK as far as war movies went, but had a couple of serious flaws. The first being the movie depicting US troops as having gotten further up the hill than they actually had. He said they never got so far up until the NVA withdrew. Second flaw, it wasn't bloody enough. At the time it was about the bloodiest war flick until Saving Private Ryan came out.
Stalingrad actually did well at the Box Office. You are mistaking the US Box Office for the international Box Office. It did very well in Europe and more than covered its costs.
“Americans only know 2 other countries, Mexico and the moon”. Jeremy Clarkson(sort of).
I saw it at Davis Hall in SF (it was packed) and one of the Americans part of the US Box Office. But I'm a WW2 historian so I'm a rarity in my own country.
Stalingrad is one of the best war movies ever made 👌👌
Thomas Kretschmann's best nazi performance.
This video doesn't really have its facts straight. Stalingrad's gross reported in this video is only from US & Canada combined, and it was a limited release in the US. But it is a German production, a German language film, and over 5 million people saw it in Germany alone where it was a box office success.
Damn good movie, saw some rising stars too.
It's way too Sovietized about the facts and reality. I'll be sorry if viewers don't read a few books on the subject. Sadly, Stalin and then Kruschev executed so many after the war in their "NO ONE lives to be More Famous Than Me" tradition.
@@Cbcw76 Have you even seen the film? And which books are you talking about? And what does after the war Soviet executions have to do with the movie?
The Bridge at Remagen (1969) is definitely a good but underappreciated war movie.
It's another favorite of mine.
Yes George Segal and Ben Gazzara are outstanding. Robert Vaughn has always been one of my favorite actors I was a little kid when The Man From Uncle was on and I loved it
Because a film doesn't make a lot of money in America doesn't mean it's a failure worldwide. America isn't the world.
Eisenhower himself trashed “Battle of the Bulge” when it came out.
That movie was terrible.
Awful film. But many were in those times, when war movies were filled with all the actors that ever made movies . Full of all the American cliches and over acting. Very bad props as well (painfully obvious stage cardboard props), but they didn't have CGI - which has greatly enhanced background scenes for the better, IMO.
A Bridge Too far was the last of the old school war movies that featured every actor on the A list. It did turn the corner though, with that authentic air drop, the realistic German ambush on the road to Arnhem using actual Sherman M4 tanks, and it had superior acting. Anthony Hopkins was superb, as was Gene Hackman.
Maybe it's just me but I am 86 years old, was in the army from private to colonel, on the DMZ in Korea, and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and do not want to see any war movie. I loved Demi Moore in "Ghost" and do not want to see her shaved head and in any war movie. I know it's just a movie but I want to have my own memories which do not involve war.
Thank you for fighting Communism!
Salute sir!
When GI Jane was released women could not join the SEALs. I thought the premise was ridiculous.
The best way to show your disdain for such movies is not to see it
I hear ya, Bill; your entertainment choices depend heavily on whether you are going into hell or coming out of it.
"Kingdom of Heaven" was butchered for the theatre. You have to see the Director's Cut.
Clonetrooper1139, the Director 's cut was posted here on RUclips for quite a while. Im not sure if it still is though. I've watched a couple of times here but I haven't for awhile so I'm not sure if it's still up or not.
@@sinisterminister6478 The director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven was release on DVD around the same time as the theatrical cut. Finding it shouldn't be that hard.
A superb film. Enjoyed every moment. Even researched some of the names and events.
I would not classify this as a war movie any more than I would The 13th WARRIOR. Toss it in the [wannabe] historical spectacle / costume drama category. Movies about the Middle Ages generally flop in the USA. And I was rooting for the Moslems, just to spite The Israel Lobby.
@@stevensica5918 Why are you even here, with that comment....?
Cross of Iron is one of the all-time greates war movies and most people haven't seen it. In fact, many of the works of director Sam peckinpah are very interesting.
Major Dundee and The Wild Bunch are two more great Peckinpah movies.
Mopic 60 something terrific film
I just posted similar then read on and,saw your post. Yes, Cross of Iron is a great movie.
"With a budget estimated between 85 and 160 million dollars" Brother, I felt that! I hate it when I'm trying to reconcile my checkbook at the end of the month and can't figure out that $75,000,000 discrepancy.
Kelly’s Heroes has got to be one of the best movies. Can’t believe it didn’t do well.
If they are still counting the money it is still collecting. I was surprised also.
I watch it at least twice a year
@ truly a classic. So many great characters and lines.
The way the characters relate to each other is absolutely perfect. Early on in the movie, the whole German Army is coming down the road and the Sgt. is busy and Kelly is occupied and the Corporal is the only one in command. The radio operator is freaked out and talks the Corporal into giving the order to pull back behind the river. Who's really in charge here? Neither the Sgt. or Kelly even blink because it is a war and you just do the right thing as needed. This movie would be great even without any action, just to hang out with these characters. By the way, Oddball is an American Hero.
Great cast, good story, but (I saw it on the big screen) at nearly 2 and a half hours, it's just too damn long.
"Audiences weren't ready" is an assumption that isn't always true. Sometimes they are perfectly ready, but just don't like it.
Especially in the case of "Stalingrad". How could German audiences "not be ready" for an anti-war WWII movie in 1993 when Das Boot was a smash hit there in 1981?
Diplomatic.
Too many war movies here are billed as anti-war movies. The audience needs to make that decision not the critics or producers. Movies like Saving Private Ryan and American Sniper have strong story lines that let the audience judge for themselves what the theme was.
Weren't ready for grim realism, Weren't ready for "anti war message". Lol. What drivel.
He missed the 1970 movie "Waterloo". An awesome movie that did not break even.
It sure was an excellent movie. Just watched it again last night.
Waterloo's underwhelming performance at the box office led to Stanley Kubrick abandoning his plans to make a film about Napoleon.
Come And See is maybe the greatest war movie ever made, i think it's on youtube.
Kelly's Heroes is one of my favourite ever movies
Stalingrad is brilliant
Come and See to sowieckie kino propagandowe! Nakręcone przez państwo, które na sumieniu ma więcej trupów i więcej ludzkiego nieszczęścia niż Adolf Hitler. Ukraińcy do dziś giną i cierpią też dlatego, że świat nie przejmował się zbrodniami Moskwy.
"Battle of the Bulge" has so much inaccuracy in it it bears no relationship with history so historians avoided it. It is more like a fictional battle than the actual Battle of the Bulge. For all the money and stellar acting in the movie it just falls flat even to this day. It is a lot like "Pearl Harbor" which is about a fictional War situation where two men fought over the same woman and one of them had sex with her in a parachute packing facility (insert joke here). Movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Battle of the Bulge" are not about history, they are soap operas with war backgrounds.
I think that "Battle of the Bulge", and some other movies, were trying to replicate the success of "The Longest Day". What the film makers missed was that that film was based on the actual experiences of men who fought in the battle. "Battle of the Bulge" wasn't. So it ended up as just another so-called "adventure" film, with stereotypical characters and a frankly stupid plot.
Henry Fonda role was particularly nauseating; "Henry's a smart college boy so he knows better than those stupid army guys. Talk about a gateway from WW2 to Robert McNamara and his merry band of moronic, know-nothing useful bean counters.
I didn't know the actual Battle of the Bulge was fought on the snowless plains of Spain.
My C.O. was a tank commander who groused about the historically innacurate tanks used in the movie. Just dressed up modern tanks.
@@BrianKirkwood-g3s He was a police detective.
Come and See is a Soviet movie. They wouldn’t have given a rats ass about how it performed in the US. To hold it to a measure of success that its backers weren’t interested in is dishonest.
It is terrific, and (ironically) appears on many ‘top war movies’ lists but is not for the faint-hearted.
No way Battle of the Bulge is underrated...it deserves its bad reputation.
Horribly inaccurate 😮has some over the top scenes "Hollyweird" really got its mitts on that one 😮😂😂😂😂
Ah, it's OK, but nothing more. A sluggish pace doesn't help.
"Stalingrad" was stunning. I hadn't realised how badly it had preformed.
The Blue Max is becoming a forgotten movie and needs to be remembered. Not sure how it did at the box office in the 60s, but love that movie.
Father Goose might be the best war time ahhh… nope not going to give it away. Try to going in without knowing anything about it
Mr Eckland is a rude, foul-mouthed, drunken, filthy beast! 😹
If you liked The Blue Max, you have probably seen Darling Lili, a highly under-rated film.
GI Jane is a ridiculous concept
Many movies are. Your point? Oh...are you saying it is too "woke"?
A female going through the training is ridiculous?
Pure garbage vanity project designed by the BossGrrl herself.
@ A woman couldn’t survive seal training
@ Amen
A lot of it is TIMING. "Kelly's Heroes" might have done better if it'd come out two years earlier, but by 1970, with the American public weary of both the Vietnam War itself and the protests, "War", even in a semi-comedic (more sardonic) heist film in a WWII setting, just wasn't something that folks flocked to movie theaters to see. It got its "legs" in endless reruns on TV, especially with tank enthusiasts.
I wonder how well Catch-22 did, I believe it flopped also, though I love that movie.
M.A.S.H. did rather well, which came out in the same time.
13th Warrior is one of my favorite movies. It's just a shame that it came out the same summer as Star Wars Phantom Menace and Austin Powers spy who shagged me. I truly believe it should have done better in the box office. I watched it a few months ago and it still holds up beautifully.
Such an original story, auck an awesome movie. Love it
13 warrior is great movie
Windtalker & Battle of the bulge are classics, the studio's fail to promote these movies
That Viking prayer is still my favorite.
The 13th warrior is EPIC. Bulwuif (i know it's spelled incorrectly) is a true hero and honorable king.
'Come and See' is very difficult watch. Any movie with the Dirlewanger Brigade, the very worst of the Waffen-SS worst, will have shocking images for movie goers.
All it was, was Russian propaganda and on a little budget. Not saying the WSS didn't murder just saying the moie was such a good fake story, that Rod Serling could've used it for The Twilight Zone.
They did nothing wrong
@@CarlEvans-t6h Living in denial much?
@@bobdollaz3391 Who?
I met two old men in my town who accidentally ran into each other in the middle of the battle of the bulge- they didn’t know each other until that day, went home to be best friends into old age… ❤
Flops and ‘didn’t do well in America’ aren’t the same thing
Windtalkers was an insult to those amazing brave men. A film filled with inexplicably stupid artistic choices. Oh how I wish someone with brains and talent would tell the actual story.
13th Warrior is an epic film "Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, Back to the beginning Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla, Where the brave may live forever!" Viking Battle Cry!
The most ridiculous scene in The Bulge was when Henry Fonda was taking reconnaissance pictures of the Germans from a plane. The developed pictures are close-up ground level shots.
You are not supposed to notice. 😉
No mention of Tora Tora Tora? The bomb that almost sank 20th Century Fox?
WTFunk?!! I love that one!
@@slaakattak So do I. I have it on DVD. But it bombed at the box office.
The mid-70s Midway used footage from Tora Tora Tora to save costs. Midway did OK for $. The docudrama side of it may not have been as fictional as "Bulge" but it was moving that way.
Tora,Tora,Tora like Waterworld made money in DVD sales, Rome was ended most of the cast killed off because of production costs and in a couple of weeks made a profit from DVD sales they forget Cinema seats are expensive and a rare treat for many families.
No, that was CLEOPATRA 7 years earlier. TFC wound up selling a lot of property to recover, the office development we know as CENTURY CITY.
"Audiences weren't ready" is nothing more than a cop out.
The theme here is pretty consistent. Don’t make a war movie that’s anti war, or one that’s historically inaccurate.
Don't make movies about wars that Americans know little about.
@13:30 - You may also be interested to know that the film "Enemy Below," 1957, which did win an Oscar for special effects, was based on a book by a British author involving British naval personnel. However, the film depicts an American navy ship chasing a German U-boat.
Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers are both excellent movies, especially if you watch them back to back. It humanizes an inhuman situation and they made me see how alike we all are when it comes down to dying
"Flags of our Fathers" is meh but "Letters from Iwo Jima" was fantastic.
Cage is not protecting the code talker, he's protecting the code. I went to basic training & AIT with one of the code talkers in the movie, Roger Willie. D-2/54. He was our house mouse in 4th plt.
Compare "Battle of the Bulge" to the vastly superior "Battleground" and you will notice one striking difference- the weather conditions! Good lord, where was the freaking snow in the former? In the latter it was all done on a massive soundstage but looked so much more authentic.
"Windtalkers" was single-handedly sunk by Nicolas Cage's awful performance. "U-571" was all flash and no substance, the "Mermphis Belle" of submarine movies. A series of impossible escapes piled one after the other.
"Flags of Our Fathers" pales in comparison to the truly great "Letters From Iwo Jima" mainly due to the terrific acting by the Japanese cast.
"Johnny Got His Gun", "Hamburger Hill", "Jarhead", "Gallipoli", "Come and See" and "The Thin Red Line" are all excellent-to-great films.
Most of these war films are downers. which is most likely why the bombed at the box office.
Most overlooked war film? "Go Tell The Spartans".
Spartans is a great movie.
Agree on most of what you say except The Thin Red Line was incoherent junk. "Hey let's make a movie with only themes and ignore plot." BTW GREAT callout on Go Tell the Spartans. Just rewatched it.
"Gallipoli" was a major box office hit in its native country of Australia, and its North American take was respectable.
I didn't see "Kelly's Heroes" until about 30 years after its release, and I didn't like it at all. The characters aren't fighting for any righteous cause, they're just out for themselves. The Donald Sutherland character, a 1970 caricature planted in a 1945 setting, makes no sense at all. Telly Savalas reportedly turned down "Patton" to take his role in this movie.
It's a comedy, it's supposed to 'make no sense'...duh.
"The characters aren't fighting for any righteous cause, they're just out for themselves." They had a righteous cause. $16 million in gold bars.
Donald Sutherland's take on his character was bizarre. I'm surprised the director didn't take him to one side and ask him what the hell he was doing.
It was a comedy fantasy story, not meant to be a 'real' WW2 type film. And the point of it was that they were sick of fighting, and possibly dying, in a war (or for a cause) they didn't want to be part of anymore, so they decided to fight for something for themselves.
It was incredibly popular amongst us GIs in Vietnam. It has a distinct anti-war vibe going all thru it. And Odd Ball - we had guys like him every where.
U571 was an insult to the Royal Navy, the crew of the Bulldog and men who died getting the cod’s that helped break Enigma. Disgusting American plagiarism at its worst.
As an American I couldn't agree more.
Gallipoli doubled its budget and its a flop?
It's an incredible film.
The film made $11.7 million Australian in 1980s money and then $5m US.
This is at a time when Australian movies were lucky to even be shown overseas. Remember Mad Max was redubbed cause the US distributors thought the accents were too thick for American viewers to understand.
So yes. Gallipoli - Not a flop and EXTREMELY well regarded. The 'Steel Springs' line still sticks with me and I haven't seen this movie in decades.
This list is chalk.
@@mudcrab3420 I have the DVD in my collection amongst some other classic war films .
What a film costs to make and what it costs to present to an audience are not the same.
"Major studio movies - The average cost to produce a major studio movie is around $65 million, but marketing adds another $35 million or so. "
"Small-budget movies - A $15 million film might have a promotional budget that is higher than its production budget. "
Then you have the ones the studio knows is sh!t but hypes it to convince people (kids) to attend.
"The Barbie movie - The marketing budget for Barbie was $150 million, which was more than the $145 million it cost to make the film."
@@lamoe4175The theaters also get half the box.
Zulu is still the best war movie ever, even if Americans have never heard of it.
Yes, we have certainly heard of it
@@XiahouJoe Don't get upset. most Americans haven't heard of Zulu. Chill.
Former President & Former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight Eisenhower came out of retirement to condemn “The “Battle of the Bulge”.
It's interesting that you only use the box office reciepts, and don't include rentals, streaming, or overseas income.
Or TV revenue. Kelly's Heros was a staple of TV movies for most of the 70s. Even with the numbers given, it was the 25th most revenue producing movie worldwide the year of its release.
"Hamburger Hill" is to war genre, as "Homicide: Life on the Streets" is to series TV. Hill paved the way for Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers/War in the Pacific, and other 'reality' based war movies. Homicide showcases a never-before-seen and unflattering portrayal of "cops and robbers," detailed in The Corner/Wire.
Come and see clearly wasn't a flop, wtf are you talking about 😂😂😂
It was a movie from the Soviet Union during late stages of the Cold War. Though a masterpiece and classic, it might have been shown in five theaters in the US the year of its release, so its US box office reciepts were going to be tiny.
Come and See sucked. Talk about not being accurate. The "uniforms" was a hodgepodge of "uniforms" and the weapons etc were not always near accurate. Plus the acting was poor at best and talk about a stupid story.
@@CarlEvans-t6h I found the Wehraboo!
This guy lists the utter crap 💩GI Jane💩 but misses the brilliant Master & Commander.
🙄
I think his selection method was they had to be 'underrated' and 'flops'.
So Master and Commander fails on both as everyone says it is awesome and it did make money.
GI Jane? Flop? Yeah. Underrated? Ummm... NO. It won Razzies. That movie is rated where it needs to be.
The Thin Red Line is one of the most boring movies I've ever endured. It looked beautiful but I thought it would never end.
Johnny Got his Gun was so horrible that I never got to the end.
GI Jane = weak fantasy.
So, I notice some of these made reasonable box office worldwide, but this video decides they are 'flops' just because the US box office was disappointing. The US market rarely responds well to deep and meaningful, or depressingly realistic, movies, whereas the rest of the world often does, so this is a flawed method of deciding success! The world does not begin and end in the USA, and money is money wherever you earn it!!!
Translation, for a war film to be successful at the American box office, it must:
1- show a positive image of the United States.
2- talk about a conflict involving Americans.
3- have an ending in accordance with American moral standards.
4- above all, don’t make people think.
Another Gem was “Path of Glory” directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas. It is probably the greatest Anti War movie ever. However, it was way ahead of it’s time for it’s visual portrayal of the grim realities of war for the late 1950s audiences, and even Kirk Douglas who helped with the movie being financed knew that it would not make any money in the box office, but told Stanley Kubrick to go ahead and make the movie due to it’s powerful script.
Never a good idea to portray your own military in film as murderers, rpists, cowards and idiots. The general public seem to have a downer on that sort of thing.
That applies especially in the USA where most of the ticket buying public that is the target audience is based. They also don't have much interest in war movies that don't involve their own military such as Come And See, Gallipoli and Stalingrad. They don't however have any qualms about stealing someone else's valour by appropriating another country's military history such as U571.
They have enough genuine heroes of their own without resorting to ripping off someone elses.
I was disappointed to see GI Jane here. It's not a war movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather it's nothing but a another shallow woke self-serving Demi Moore project designed to feed her giant vanity. It's so unrealistic that it makes the Shaw/Fonda Battle of the Bulge disaster look realistic.
Neither flick belongs on this list.
Get a grip you melt. Some bird must have really left you with blue balls.
it was made 28 years ago and is woke?
@@bostonrailfan2427 LOL Are you saying it's not? Wokeness may have had a different name back then but the pushing of lies has been with us since the first human uttered a grunt.
@ understood, you’re talking out of your butt
"Woke"..the right's go-to label when they dont understand something, including their own word "woke" lol
This is a very misleading video, as you focus solely on the US Box Office, whereas most of these films made a decent or good profit globally.
Plus they continue to bring in cash
#1. This video
is voiced by Al.
#2. This video speaks as if American box office is all that counts.
3. It does not take into account that TO THIS DAY there are those who DO NOT wish to be preached at about what happens it times of war.
4. There are bad movies and then there are BAD movies.
I will let those out there decide which is which.
Stalingrad earned $20 mil at the german box office though so not as big of a flop
*Stalingrad* (1993) is amazing. The movie covers the gamut of experiences on the Eastern Front. I'm surprised it didn’t do well.
I hate the phrase, “Audiences weren’t impressed.” Those of us who actually served in some of these battles aren’t very impressed by the audiences.
Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron with James Coburn about germans on the eastern front is better than most of the movies on this list.
Great movie. Certainly better than U-571.
@@TheGuyInTheCheapSeatsnot difficult..😂
My favorite war movie over all.
I didn't care for Thin Red Line when I first watched it. But it was playing on HBO and when I surfed channels I would stumble across it and had to watch. Now it is one of my favorites.
Most of these movies are made strictly for entertainment. Never look to Hollywood for historical accuracy. 😮
I take issue with the box office takes, as it does not take into account that all of these movies took in more in video sales following their theatrical releases. i agree that "Battle Of The Bulge" wasn't a good movie; it was inaccurate and slow. The German and Russian movies also did well after their original releases. My biggest beefs are "Kingdom Of Heaven" which was edited to shorten it leaving audiences confused, the director's cut made a big profit after it's release. Then there was "Kelly's Heroes" which is still considered a great movie today and the Tape and DVD issues were huge. Clint Eastwood's movies are now considered real classics with great acting!
the 13th Warrior is a very good movie... that I saw on TV years after it was released. Because I had no idea it existed when it was released.
Captain obvious here, history is important in historical pieces, for some reason movie directors and producers forget this.
I’m going to disagree. The public is less interested in historical accuracy (which most don’t know, anyway)
It’s more interested in a good script, good performances well directed. Eg the Dirty Dozen is total fabrication but a good movie
@@stevenchinn7153 Then its not history, its a fiction piece, not a historical one.
The original "The Thin Red Line" is by far a masterpiece. Better than any remake.
No, it was awful. The director of that movie never read the book.
Johnny Got His Gun is the most horrific ending I've ever seen in a film.
I guess I'm glad I saw it years ago. But I never want to see it again. The ending is the saddest I've ever seen.
Come and See not making money in the US doesn't count. How much did it make in the USSR and elsewhere?
If it don’t make it in the US then it doesn’t make it simple truth
According to Wikipedia it made $21 million and this is the first time I've heard it described as a flop.
@@peterhall8532 A number of the movies in this list seem to be far from "flops".
@@clarkwilson6340 Soviet cinema wasn't on the same wavelength as Hollywood. Not after hits and box office. But Come & See is a great film, admired by just about everyone.
What about "84 Charlie MoPic"?? Great underrated Vietnam war movie!!
I hadn't heard of that one, thanks for the tip!
Excellent movie, starring Richard Brooks, before he was more well known in Law & Order.
My combat vet buddy said this was the most realistic film about Vietnam
It had a really low budget.
Very few people know about it.
U-571 was not based on fact, but US jingoism. It was as real as the tooth fairy and a liar like ARGO; neither happened …
The movie - and the calculated insult to Britain that it constituted - was so controversial in the UK that it was discussed in parliament, leading to the filmmakers being forced to add a disclaimer on the end of them film declaring that it's a work of fiction and that it was the Royal Navy thyat actually captured the Enigma machine if they wanted to show it in the UK.
@@elennapointer701 That's true, but the in true American style the disclaimer was not shown long enough to read.
I share your dislike of the American jingoistic attitude in film, however, Americans make movies for Americans primarily, because that's where the money is.
Brits who are, understandably, major critics of this, would better be served by less whining and more producing big budget movies to make their point.
@@rickden8362 America did some amazing things in WW2, you do not have to steal other nations heroic deeds Just give credit where it is due, but this is something Hollywood finds impossible to do. Big budget bullshit heroics is not what we do very well I am pleased to say.
As an American and a military history buff, I knew the U-571 movie was totally made up except for the basic premise that it was based on was true. I knew the Brits had actually done the deed. I've never seen the movie as a result.
Johnny Got His Gun managed to gain new attention after Metallica used footage from the film in it's video for the song 'One.'
Kellys Heroes might've made a million over cost. But it has been on TV a Billion times. Great cast & movie.
I recently saw GI Jane for the first time, very good movie and reasonably accurately depicts the day to day life of a BUDs sailor's journey through one of the toughest training courses in the world.
The title of this video should be "movies americans didn't like"
Thin red line totally disjointed.
Explain??
horrid pap and too many ridiculous soliloquy's
@@Losantiville Hated it.
I couldn’t get into it. Disjointed is a good description. I don’t mind a little introspection, but I couldn’t finish watching it. I thought When Trumpets Fade was better.
Malick’s approach does seem very disjointed. But the way he pieces his scenes (if you can even call them that) together in the editing room removes a lot of the chronology. His films always seemed very open ended to me, to where you can pick up and leave off in different places throughout and it wouldn’t defer or detract from his central themes and messages
Battle of the Bulge was shown almost annually on NYC tv in the 1970's and 80's.
Letters from Iwo Jima was an excellent movie and very human. I think it suffered as folks didn't want to see a movie from the Japanese perspective. - I consider it one of Clint Eastwoods best.
If the two movies I preferred Letters From Iwo Jima.
I rented Stalingrad and watched it with my father. It was a pretty good film and I was shocked that I had never heard of it before. My father was part of the occupation forces in Germany and talked about the horrible destruction of the German cities.
G. I. Jane was a bad film.
If you liked Stalingrad check out "Cross of Iron" with James Coburn, James Mason and Maxamillian Schell - it's from 1977 and directed by Sam Peckinpaugh.
Windtalkers was about the nick cage character not the Native Americans. And it was a disappointment.
It's now racist to call them "Native Americans". The better term is "Indigenous Americans".
@@SamBrickell I could care less.
The history of the Navajo code talkers is fascinating. This movie however, was trash. I was very disappointed.
Exactly
First Nationals is a more respectful term.
The Thin Red Line would’ve been a great great movie if they had cut out all those damn flashbacks. War movies and love stories just don’t work
"Flops" appears to be the authors opinion and has nothing to do if the movie was a money maker
Films that are unappealing to US audiences often do well in Europe, I wonder why....................
Kelley's Heros is one of the Best movies of All time!!!! It made a Million Dollars in 1970 alot of $$$$ Than!!!!!!
Yes, saw it during the late '70s sometime and had a blast, it was even on a double-bill with something I've forgotten now.
Wait until Hollywood makes a Ukraine war film with Zelenski as a Churchillian figure played by Iris Elba....
BARF! Bloody Hell dont give those clowns any ideas!
as opposed to the heroic Putin played by some hack?
Putin will be played by P Diddy.
I remember finding Scott's direction of the combat sequence in "GI Jane" strangely shot and not terribly exciting. He did much better with "Black Hawk Down."
1:42 The 13th Warriors is one of my favorite movies of that era. The production was botched & better editing would have made it a blockbuster. It can still be salvaged but as it is I still make sure to watch it in my home theater every 5 years, the same with great movies like Aliens, T2, etc. that need to be watched in a big screen with surround sound to do it justice.
Throw "In Harm's way" (1965) and "Anzio" (1968) in this list. Peter Falk did a clown act in WW2.
Most people of my age know "Johnny Got His Gun" very well. It was used as the video for Metallica's "One"
That movie really unsettled me, for a long time. My major fear is being 'locked in', fully conscious and aware but totally unable to communicate. In the film, he almost managed to break through and communicate, but was shut down back to his isolation.
GI Jane had the unintended consequence of nearly tanking Will Smith's career.
Guns of Navarone is a great film set in WW2. The story actually inverts history: the British lost their footholds and troops in Greece and the islands of the Eastern Med.
Incredible film
No it does not invert history. It is about a mission to destroy guns in a German occupied Greece. It takes place well after the Nazi invasion and is entirely fictional
Great film, but the intro is labeled as a "story for our own time," as though it were based on fact.
Nicolas Cage is just like Richard E Grant, he’s basically the same in every single movie he ever makes.
You could say that about a lot of actors. I've never seen Walter Brennen play anything but an ornery old cowpoke.
I remember watching Battle of the Bulge as a kid with my grandmother. It is still one of my favorite movies of all times. As i grew up, i learned the movie was not accurate at all. Most of my all time favorites are WWII movies from the late 40s through the early 60s.
Kingdom of Heaven made money thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure historically questionable but still a good story and entertaining.
Thin Red Line had everything going for it. Except a plot.
stop saying that the audience wasn't ready. Maybe some were just bad movies.
I've seen 17 of these films but only The Thin Red Line in a theatre. Most on free to air tv then many on video.
What I can't believe is that Fury is not on this list. My god it was an awful movie that still gets me angry thinking about it.