The 40 most popular 1970s war movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Apocalypse Now
1979 · 2h 27m · US
At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.


The Deer Hunter
1978 · 3h 3m · UK
Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.


The Tin Drum
1979 · 2h 42m · FR
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.


M*A*S*H
1970 · 1h 56m · US
One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, M*A*S*H focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.


Midway
1976 · 2h 12m · US
This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.


Patton
1970 · 2h 52m · US
"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.


A Bridge Too Far
1977 · 2h 55m · US
The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.


The Eagle Has Landed
1976 · 2h 15m · UK
When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.


Catch-22
1970 · 2h 1m · US
A WWII military pilot makes a valiant effort to be certified insane in order to be excused from flying missions. But there's a catch.


Kelly's Heroes
1970 · 2h 24m · US
A misfit group of World War II American soldiers goes AWOL to rob a bank behind German lines.


The Wild Geese
1978 · 2h 14m · UK
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.


Tora! Tora! Tora!
1970 · 2h 24m · JP
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.


The Evacuees
1975 · 1h 14m · UK
The experiences of two young Jewish boys evacuated from Manchester to Blackpool during the Blitz.


1941
1979 · 1h 58m · US
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.


The Night Porter
1974 · 1h 58m · IT
A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.


Sokolovo
1975 · 2h 9m
The plot begins in the Soviet Union showing first efforts to establish the Czechoslovak legion in 1942. The film also shows the assassination of Heydrich and the subsequent annihilation of Lidice. The main topis of the film is battles with German troops for Sokolovo.


All Quiet on the Western Front
1979 · 2h 30m · UK
At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.


Force 10 from Navarone
1978 · 1h 54m · UK
World War II, 1943. Mallory and Miller, the heroes who destroyed the guns of Navarone, are sent to Yugoslavia in search of a ghost from the past.


Waterloo
1970 · 2h 14m · IT
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.


Voyage of the Damned
1976 · 2h 35m · UK
A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.


Cross of Iron
1977 · 2h 13m · DE
It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.


The Ascent
1977 · 1h 50m · SU
During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.


Shock Waves
1977 · 1h 25m · US
Visitors to a remote island discover that a reclusive Nazi commandant has been breeding a group of zombie soldiers.


Sunflower
1970 · 1h 49m · IT
After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?


The Duellists
1977 · 1h 40m · UK
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.


Sotaerakko
1972 · FI
Based on real events that took place on the eastern border during the Winter War. One of the men stays behind in a deserted house during the war after the others have been evacuated.


The Old Gun
1975 · 1h 43m · FR
In Montauban in 1944, Julien Dandieu is a surgeon in the local hospital. Frightened by the German army entering Montauban, he asks his friend Francois to drive his wife and his daughter in the back country village where Julien has an old castle. One week later, Julien decides to meet them for the week end, but the Germans are already occupying the village.


The Battle of the Eagles
1979 · 2h 10m
The first Yugoslav Partisan air force unit. Loosely based on historical facts.


Johnny Got His Gun
1971 · 1h 52m · US
A young American soldier, rendered in pseudocoma from an artillery shell from WWI, recalls his life leading up to that point.


Yanks
1979 · 2h 18m · DE
During WWII, the United States set up army bases in Great Britain as part of the war effort. Against their proper sensibilities, many of the Brits don't much like the brash Yanks, especially when it comes to the G.I.s making advances on the lonely British girls. One relationship that develops is between married John, an Army Captain, and the aristocratic Helen, whose naval husband is away at war. Helen loves her husband, but Helen and John are looking for some comfort during the difficult times.


Allegro with Fire
1979 · 1h 31m · SU
A heroic story about Soviet sailors fighting Nazis during WWII.


Coup de Grâce
1976 · 1h 35m · DE
A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.


To Save the City
1976 · 1h 50m · PL
1945. Soviet offensive is approaching Cracow. Local resistance cooperate despite political differences to save the city from destruction planned by Germans.


She Devils of the SS
1973 · 1h 35m · CH
In the last days of WW2, women are volunteering from all over Germany to serve in the front lines by having sex with the brave Nazi soldiers. But when they start having sex with each other, things get complicated. Especially with the increasing danger from the revengeful Soviet army!


Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS
1975 · 1h 37m · CA
Ilsa, a warden at a Nazi death camp that conducts experiments on prisoners, strives to prove that women can withstand more pain and suffering than men, and therefore should be allowed to fight on the frontlines.


Catch-22
1973 · 28m · US
Bombardier Yossarian is stationed on the small island of Pianosa during World War II. In addition to the enemy trying to kill him, Yossarian also has to endure the bureaucratic SNAFUs of group leaders and the insane antics of other 256th Squadron members. Failed television pilot for a sitcom adaptation of Joseph Heller’s satirical black comedy novel Catch-22.


Hustler Squad
1976 · 1h 38m · PH
World War II: Allied Command learns that in 60 days three Japanese generals and an admiral party at a bordello on a tiny Philippine island. It's fortified and hard to attack, so a creative, cynical major gets the assignment to figure something else. With the help of Paco, a Filipino guerrilla leader, the major devises a plan to put four women assassins among the prostitutes. He must recruit and train them, convince his general that an unarmed woman can best a man, and get them on the island. The rest is up to them. An imprisoned killer, a nurse with a fatal disease, a chippie on the lamb from the mob, and a Filipina whom the Japanese assaulted are his team. Can they do it?


Escape to Athena
1979 · 2h 5m · UK
During the World War II, the prisoners of a German camp in a Greek island are trying to escape. They not only want their freedom, but also seek an ineffable treasure hidden in a monastery at the summit of the island's mountain.


You Can't Win 'Em All
1970 · 1h 37m · TR
During the 1922 Turkish Civil War, two Americans and a group of foreign mercenaries offer their services to a local Turkish governor who hires them as guards for a secret transport.


The Nest
1974 · 1h 38m · PL
Told in flashback as Mieszko lies feverish in his bed just before the Battle of Cedynia, Gniazdo recounts how the revered leader extended Poland's borders, formed an alliance with Emperor Otto I, and ultimately strengthened his country's autonomy by achieving victory during that crucial battle in the year 972.
The 1970s are widely considered American cinema's strongest decade, when the studio system's collapse handed a generation of young directors unusual freedom. It ended with Jaws and Star Wars inventing the modern blockbuster.
War films range from combat spectacle to anti-war argument, and often try to be both at once. The genre is a reliable index of how a country understands its own history.