These are the top military movies on Netflix in October
Netflix is on a roll this October, leading with "Patton," which won 7 Oscars and made the case for military valor at the height of the anti-Vietnam protests. Plus a Coast Guard action picture that deserves your attention and an Oscar-winning drama about the man who cracked the Enigma code. Plus "Three Kings" is back.
1. Patton
This biopic about General George S. Patton won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor for George C. Scott and Best Original Screenplay for Francis Ford Coppola. Opening with a less profane version of the general's legendary speech to the Third Army in 1944, "Patton" was an unabashed celebration of the military spirit. Even though it was released at the height of protest against the Vietnam War, the movie was a box office smash and received almost unanimous critical acclaim. (1970)
2. The Finest Hours
Chris Pine and Casey Affleck star in Disney's action movie about the Coast Guard's legendary 1952 rescue of the SS Pendleton off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Pine is Bernie Webber, the young petty officer who led what everyone believed was a suicide mission. Affleck is Ray Sybert, the Pendleton senior officer who tries to keep the crew focused in the face of almost certain doom. "The Finest Hours" wasn't a box office hit, but it's most definitely worth watching. (2016)
3. The Imitation Game
Benedict Cumberbatch plays pioneering computer genius Alan Turing, who led the effort to break Nazi Germany's Enigma code during World War II. Turing is socially awkward, difficult and brilliant and the film details his struggles to communicate with his colleagues. After the war, Turing was prosecuted under Britain's anti-homosexuality statues and committed suicide in 1954. (2014)
4. Three Kings
Hollywood loves director David O. Russell these days because of"The Fighter," "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle," but this satire about the first Gulf War is his best movie to date. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze (!) and Jamie Kennedy (!!) star as US. Army and Army reservist troops who hatch a plan to steal gold and other goods that Iraqis plundered from Kuwait. Watch it. (1999)
5. Saving Private Ryan
What can you say about this one? The D-Day invasion at the beginning is greatest military action sequence in movie history. Everything good about the entire "Band of Brothers" TV series (which is still awesome) gets distilled down into less than 3 hours. Tom Hanks has never been better and an entire generation learned to appreciate the sacrifices and heroism during WWII for the first time. (1998)
6. Defiance
Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber star as Tuva and Zus Bielski, Jewish brothers who led a guerrilla resistance against Nazi troops in Belarus during WWII. Based on real events, it got a limited release and deserves a much bigger audience than it found in theaters. (2008)
7. Black Hawk Down
Ridley Scott's drama is based on a real-life 1993 raid in Somalia to capture faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The 75th Rangers and Delta Force go in and things quickly go south, the troops face down enemy forces in a brutal battle and 19 men (and over 1,000 Somali citizens) are killed before the mission is complete. Scott brings a compelling visual style to the material and the cast features a host of young actors who went on to great success, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana. Sam Shepherd and Tom Sizemore also play key old-guy roles. (2001)
8. U-571
Sailors from the British destroyer HMS Bulldog really did capture an Enigma machine from Germany's U-110 U-boat in 1941. Hollywood must've though that was boring, so they made up a story involving the U.S. submarine S-33 and the German U-571. Brits were mad about the movie, but if you can get past the made-up story, it's a fine submarine thriller. (2000)
9. Top Gun
Is Tony Scott's movie about Naval aviators technically accurate? No way. Is it even dramatically effective? Absolutely not. But Tom Cruise's Maverick, Val Kilmer's Iceman and Anthony Edwards' Goose managed to inspire a generation of young men to pursue their flyboy dreams. It's hard to imagine that the upcoming sequel will mean as much to people, especially if they ruin the original vibe by shifting to properly staged dogfights. (1986)
10. The Heavy Water War
This 6-episode TV series tells the story of Operation Grouse, the action by Norwegian commandos who blew up a power plant and prevented the Nazis from getting access to the deuterium oxide (a/k/a heavy water) they wanted to use in the nuclear reactors that Germany wanted to build. If you can handle the subtitles, this is yet another example of the amazing untold stories of WWII. (2015)
