My vote goes to Full Metal Jacket, narrowly beating out Apocalypse Now. The story just stuck with me more than AN and R Lee Ermey is nails!

The best individual scene is Russian roulette in Deer Hunter, but the rest of the movie is boring af.

I also have a soft spot for Forrest Gump

Apocalypse Now
Siege of Firebase Gloria - another R Lee Ermey flick
Full Metal Jacket
We Were Soldiers

Rambo (seriously)
Rescue Dawn
Fog of War (can't recommend enough)

The first half of Full Metal Jacket is greatness. The second half is just a generic war movie, nothing special. My vote goes for Apocolypse Now, though the original version only. I love Platoon also.

Platoon
We Were Soldiers
Good Morning Vietnam
Apocalypse Now Redux
Hamburger Hill

quote:

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The first half of Full Metal Jacket is greatness. The second half is just a generic war movie, nothing special. My vote goes for Apocolypse Now, though the original version only. I love Platoon also.

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well the first half is not even a Vietnam movie - it's a boot camp movie.

while they were 2 distinct halves i gotta disagree. the second half had very realistic and gritty combat scenes.

The second half is about seeing war through the eyes of joker. He comes there all idealized and joking around. what he sees is terrible and it changes men and dehumanizes them.

And the sniper scene in the urban setting was intense, especially for it's time.

It's more about the effect on people than the war scenes themselves. But that sniper scene, the discovery of the bodies, the psycho in the helicopter ("Get some".....how can you kill women and children...."it's easy you just don't lead them as much") were brutal. And the juxtaposition of them singing MICKEY MOUSE at the end was absurd yet fitting.

TROPIC THUNDER

Yup, tropic thunder is probably the correct answer

I like the second half of full metal jacket better than the first

Uncommon Valor

Fun fact, FMJ was filmed around London and the English countryside

We Were Soldiers

1. Apocalypse now redux.

2. Full metal jacket.

I'm still waiting for a truly great Vietnam movie. IMHO, the general opinion of those who actually fought the war is the single most important indicator, and in that sense We Were Soldiers comes the closest.

"Hamburger Hill"

Go Tell the Spartans

Best in accurately portraying the war or the best film?

The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now are both excellent films that use the war in Vietnam as the canvas to tell their respective stories but not true representations of the war itself. For relatively accurate portrayals, We Were Soldiers and Hamburger Hill are solid efforts. I also enjoyed Good Morning Vietnam when it was released but don't remember much beyond Robin Williams comedy bits. Probably need to give Full Metal Jacket another viewing, overall I was rather disappointed.

Platoon
We were Soldiers

Shout out for Go Tell the Spartans.

I thought the performances in Casualties of War were very good. Not a Sean Penn fan, but he played a good part.
It was a very horrible subject matter, but still a good film.

i liked the book and the movie - Flight of the Intruder. Willem Defoe was great.

My Vietnam vet father's fave is Hamburger Hill.

I haven't seen it in years but I remember 84 Charlie Mopic really affecting me as a teenager.

Snatching a Commie

And as bad as it was, here's to John Wayne and The Green Berets. At least they had a C-130 scene with the Fulton recovery System.

I like all of those mentioned but for what it's worth I was talking with a Vietnam vet one day who flew on helicopters a lot during the war and I asked him about movies and he said the only one that was pretty realistic like he remembered was We Were Soldiers.

Apocalypse Now
We Were Soldiers
Platoon
FMJ

Loved hamburger hill, and I know I'm in the minority to be certain, but I honestly did not care for Apocolypse. Blast away.

quote:

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Loved hamburger hill, and I know I'm in the minority to be certain, but I honestly did not care for Apocolypse. Blast away.

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you are, but still plenty of people like myself that think its an overrated POS that is only famous cause of robert duvall and his lines. "Charlie Dont Surf"..."love the smell of napalm in the morning".

Ham hill is awesome

First Blood. End of thread.

I didn't think We were soldiers was anything worth noting. I found it pretty ham fisted. Hamburger Hill was great.

Apocalypse Now is a great movie but isn't really a war movie. I would love to see a Heart of Darkness movie set in American West or early colonial america shot by Terrence Malick.

Due to my age and army brat childhood, vietnam is a weird thing. I am too young to remember it as a war, but old enough to remember all all of the continuing division and healing that the country was slowly going through and the POW/MIA awareness that was so prominent during my high school and college time. None of my family members that went will speak about it. Ever.

So when I think of Vietnam movies, I think of the homefront and POW movies like Rambo, Deer Hunter, Heroes, Rescue Dawn, Uncommon Valor. born on the forth of July, Forest Gump, etc.

is it terrible that i just have never found Apocolypse Now that great?

We Were Soldiers is my favorite

I also like Apcolypse Now but I see that as just a movie with Vietnam in the background, not really what it was about. Loved the boot camp first half of Full Metal Jacket but did not care for the second half.

Bat-21 with Gene Hackman and Danny Glover.

Honorable TV mention: Tour of Duty

Siege of Firebase Gloria
We Were Soldiers
Hamburger Hill

My dad was in 101st Airborne During Vietnam- hated platoon and how it portrayed soldiers. He liked Hamberger Hill. Probably would have liked We Were Soldiers if he were alive.