Best War Movies of 1968

During World War II, a shot-down American pilot and a marooned Japanese navy captain find themselves stranded on the same small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. Following war logic, each time the crafty Japanese devises something useful, he guards it to deny its use to the Yank, who then steals it, its proceeds or the idea and/or ruins it. Yet each gets his chance to kill and/or capture the other, but neither pushes this to the end. After a while of this pointless pestering, they end up joining forces to build and man a raft...

Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for two missions in South Vietnam. The first is to strengthen a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy. The second is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.

A band of mercenaries led by Captain Curry travel through war-torn Congo across deadly terrain, battling rival armies, to steal $50 million in uncut diamonds. But infighting, sadistic rebels and a time lock jeopardize everything.

At the onset of World War II, American Lt. Col. Robert Frederick is put in charge of a unit called the 1st Special Service Force, composed of elite Canadian commandos and undisciplined American soldiers. With Maj. Alan Crown leading the Canadians and Maj. Cliff Bricker the acting head of the American contingent, there is initial tension -- but the team comes together when given a daunting mission that few would dare to attempt.

When 5 allied generals are captured in Italy in WWII, it is a propaganda nightmare for the allies. The generals are all 1 star and refuse to take orders from each other in order to plan an escape. Harry Frigg is a private who has escaped from the guard house dozens of times. He is promoted to Major General and ordered to get the generals out once he is captured. Harry is willing to escape, but then he meets the countess...

A Southern soldier in the American Civil War is sent to reconnoiter the enemy positions and becomes trapped beneath a huge pile of rubble by Northern cannon fire. His loaded gun is left pointing precariously at him and he is faced with imminent death.

On the border of North and South Vietnam, civilians live underground and cultivate their land in the dead of night, farmers take up arms, and bombs fall like clockwork. Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan’s record of daily life in one of the most volatile regions of a war-torn, divided country is both a hazardous piece of first-hand journalism and a shattering work in its own right, simmering with barely repressed anger.

War drama set in the closing stages of World War Two. As Allied Forces are nearing the defeat of the Japanese Army in Manila, the Japanese Empire's soldiers begin attacking innocent civilians. A brutal month-long battle ensues.

It is 1940 in Norway, a neutral, peace-loving country that is invaded by Nazi Germany. A gang of Norwegian children do what Norwegian children like best - ski. They are actually rescuing Norwegian gold from the nazi invaders. The Nazis search all adults but don't suspect children playing. The children carry the gold, one bar at a time, across the mountains to a fishing boat. It is a race against time, it is spring and the snow is melting. So they ski from dawn to dusk every day.

A journalist (Tom Drake) watches a U.S. colonel (George Montgomery) and Filipino guerrillas smoke out Japanese soldiers.

Three British soldiers and their German captive trek through the European countryside.

A national service NCO (David Warner) comes face to face with an embittered Irish Gunner (Nicol Williamson) who is determined to humiliate him.

THE SERGEANT is the story of the dark inner struggle of Master Sergeant Albert Callan to overcome the overwhelming attraction he feels for one of his charges. In the staid and stifling environment of a post-World War II army post in France, Callan's deeply repressed attraction to other men surfaces when he encounters handsome Private Swanson. Maintaining the rugged "man's man" image of a war hero, Callan barks orders to his underlings. Later, lonely in his solitude, he recalls the frightening experiences of war and the events that led to this crossroads. Filled with self-loathing and unable to act on the natural attraction he feels for Swanson, Callan's affection festers into antagonism. He pushes Swanson constantly with verbal assaults and undeserved punishments.

At the beginning of the Civil War, seven friends embark on a cross-country journey in order to join the Confederate army.

Attack on the Iron Coast is a 1967 British-American Oakmont Productions international co-production war film directed by Paul Wendkos in the first of his five picture contract with Mirisch Productions, and starring Lloyd Bridges, Andrew Keir, Sue Lloyd, Mark Eden and Maurice Denham. The film depicts an account of Allied Combined Operations Headquarters commandos executing a daring raid on the German-occupied French coast during the Second World War. The film is based on the commando raid on the French port of St. Nazaire and is reminiscent of the film The Gift Horse. In the United States it was released as a double feature with Danger Route.

War - In this thrilling war drama set in Yugoslavia during WWII, a small band of courageous commandoes are sent to kidnap an important German commander in exchange for an American general being held in a German fortress. "Operation Cross Eagles" is a story of suspense and intrigue that will have you on the edge of your seat one moment and blast you back the next. - Richard Conte, Rory Calhoun, Aili King

A Face of War is a 1968 documentary about the Vietnam War, by Eugene S. Jones. The New York Times called it "one of the great Vietnam documentaries." Roger Ebert called it a "heart-wrenching masterpiece".

Rommel's last open port is maintained by POW labor against Allied bombing. A commando operation is undertaken to liberate the prisoners.

This military service comedy chronicles the misadventures of the U.S.S. Bustard in Japan. The crew has stolen a Buddha statue from a Japanese village, which if discovered missing would threaten Japanese/American relations. Doc Willoughby is the ship's petty officer, whose antics are constantly getting him into trouble with his captain. On shore leave, Willoughby falls for a seemingly demure Japanese girl in a kimono shop, who actually turns out to be a Japanese/American nurse in the US Navy, Lt. Tomiko Momoyama. However, it turns out she was betrothed as a child to a traditional Japanese man named Toshi, who fully intends on enforcing tradition. Willoughby divides his time between trying to return the Buddha statue back to the Japanese village it rightfully belongs to, and trying to woo Tomiko from the traditional Japanese man she rightfully belongs to.

During the Korean War Sergeant Paul Ryker is accused of defecting to Communist China and then returning to his unit as a spy.He's court-martialed and sentenced to death but his attorney believes Ryker's innocent and asks for a new trial.

Sgt. O'Farrell an Army soldier on an island in the South Pacific during World War II is trying to bring the two basics of life to his fellow servicemen, women and beer. The supply ship carrying the beer is torpedoed and the contingent of nurses consists of six males and ugly nurse Nellie Krause. If he could at least try to salvage the shipment of beer.

Wartime secret agents are on a mission to destroy a deadly new type of torpedo, hidden in a Nazi stronghold in France.

Dennis Weaver is a mercenary pilot in the Pacific during WW2. He agrees to help Vera Miles steal the Phillipine treasury of gold away from the conquering Japanese forces.

Two American POWs break out of a Japanese jungle prison camp with their captors' secret decoding device and try to reach freedom despite being slowed by an opportunistic sea captain, his pretty daughter, and a black marketeer.

In Italy during World War II, an American headquarters is evacuated when German forces break through the front lines. A demolition squad is sent back to the abandoned headquarters to destroy valuable records that were left behind before they fall into German hands.

The movie is about five American commandos who must trek across the North African desert, then blow up a German underground facility where a special kind of explosive is under development.

A documentary on the events leading to the six day Arab-Israeli War of 1967, consisting of preexisting archival footage, incident re-creations, and interviews with military personnel.

Following the end of the liberation struggle against British Colonial Rule in Cyprus, an EOKA rebel fighter travels to London to exact revenge on the collaborator who betrayed him and applied water torture. The film contains the first ever scenes of water-boarding showing the rebel being tortured supervised by a British intelligence officer. A dramatic search through the streets of London follows, culminating in a tense life or death confrontation. The film became a cause-célèbre in England, was critically acclaimed and discussed in the Houses of Parliament.