Best War Movies of 2008

1.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

6.4

7.8/10

When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

2.

The Hurt Locker

6.1

7.6/10

Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

3.

Generation Kill

5.9

8.5/10

Marines prepare to invade Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom; while the soldiers wait to receive their orders, they learn a Rolling Stone columnist will be embedded with them

4.

Valkyrie

5.8

7.1/10

Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.

5.

Tropic Thunder

5.7

7.0/10

Vietnam veteran 'Four Leaf' Tayback's memoir, Tropic Thunder, is being made into a film, but Director Damien Cockburn can’t control the cast of prima donnas. Behind schedule and over budget, Cockburn is ordered by a studio executive to get filming back on track, or risk its cancellation. On Tayback's advice, Cockburn drops the actors into the middle of the jungle to film the remaining scenes but, unbeknownst to the actors and production, the group have been dropped in the middle of the Golden Triangle, the home of heroin-producing gangs.

6.

Zeitgeist: Addendum

5.6

8.3/10

Zeitgeist: Addendum premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival. Director Peter Joseph stated: "The failure of our world to resolve the issues of war, poverty, and corruption, rests within a gross ignorance about what guides human behavior to begin with. It address the true source of the instability in our society, while offering the only fundamental, long-term solution."

7.

Defiance

5.1

7.2/10

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.

8.

Che: Part One

5.0

7.2/10

The Argentine, begins as Che and a band of Cuban exiles (led by Fidel Castro) reach the Cuban shore from Mexico in 1956. Within two years, they mobilized popular support and an army and toppled the U.S.-friendly regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

9.

Stop-Loss

4.6

6.4/10

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

10.

Miracle at St. Anna

4.5

6.1/10

Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four American soldiers who are members of the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.

12.

Sharpe's Peril

3.8

7.3/10

Our story begins at the end of Sharpe's Challenge. Sharpe and Harper are en route to Madras when they encounter a baggage train from the East India Company traveling through hostile territory. Chitu, a legendary bandit leader in control of the area, strikes fear in the members of the party. When an attack occurs Sharpe takes control of the situation, leading the group 300 miles through enemy territory and training the disorganized, rag-tag group to be proper soldiers. Despite all these responsibilities, Sharpe still manages to find time for a little romance...

13.

Passchendaele

3.4

6.4/10

Sergeant Michael Dunne fights in the 10th Battalion, AKA The "Fighting Tenth" with the 1st Canadian Division and participated in all major Canadian battles of the war, and set the record for highest number of individual bravery awards for a single battle

14.

The Mark of Cain

3.3

6.4/10

After a bomb kills their company commander in Iraq, British soldiers Treacle and Shane are ordered to round up suspects and use torture on the detainees. Back home, the press gets the story and the pair achieves instant infamy.

15.

December Heat

2.8

6.7/10

The young country of Estonia is dancing to the jazzy tune of the 1920's when on December 1, 1924, the capital Tallinn is overrun by members of the Comintern in an attempt to stage a Communist coup. The film follows the fates of a young soldier called Tanel and his wife, a telephone operator named Anna, amidst the ensuing chaos which determines whether the country remains independent or becomes a minor province in the Communist Empire.

16.

Tunnel Rats

2.6

4.7/10

During the Vietnam War [1959-1975] a special US combat unit is sent out to hunt and kill the Viet Cong soldiers in a man-to-man combat in the endless tunnels underneath the jungle of Vietnam. Suicide squads of a special kind.

18.

Death in Love

2.4

4.8/10

Death in Love is a psychosexual-thriller about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a doctor overseeing human experimentation at a Nazi German concentration camp, and the impact this has on her sons' lives in the 1990s.

19.

The Four Horsemen

1.7

3.2/10

Four high school football stars enlist in the Marines and head off to fight in the war in Iraq. When one of them is killed and another wounded, they return home only to find is extremely difficult to pick up the threads of their old lives. The memories of events in Iraq combined with the lack of public support pushes many of these men to the breaking point.