50 Best War Movies Of All Time, Ranked

With 1957’s Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick issued one of cinema’s most poignant antiwar statements. Clearly, the world didn’t get the message. So three decades later, he decided to say it louder for the imperialists in the back. Shifting from World War I to Vietnam, Kubrick doesn’t just depict the horrors of the battlefield – he condemns the entire war machine itself. It’s no accident that the first half of the film, set in basic training, is even more nightmarish than the bombings and firefights that follow. As with the soldiers themselves, the desensitisation is the point. Once you’ve stared into the hollow eyes of Vincent D’Onofrio’s tormented Private Pyle reaching his endpoint, the more impersonal atrocities of militarised conflict seem like a stroll through the tulips. Until, of course, you’re forced to look the ‘enemy’ in their eyes.