Rank Stupidity

Entertainment

Via the Daily Express, I see that IMDB has just ranked its Top 10 British WWII movies, and to say I disagree with some of their choices would be putting it mildly.

The definition of a “British” war movie is that it needs to involve principally Britain and Britons, in and around Britain or in a British-only environment.  This would exclude movies like The Longest Day, Where Eagles Dare (a junk movie anyway), and even A Bridge Too Far (which is not junk). Also, movies about war are not really the some as war movies (which feature soldiers, battles and killing and stuff) although there can be some killing on the Home Front, so to speak.  So I’ve divided them into two lists, and here they are:

Kim’s Top 10 Actual British War Movies:

  1. Bridge Over The River Kwai
  2. Battle of Britain
  3. 633 Squadron
  4. The Hill
  5. The Long Day’s Dying
  6. In Which We Serve
  7. The Cruel Sea
  8. The Dam Busters
  9. Ice Cold in Alex
  10. Dunkirk*

*Included because of its subject matter, and was so good a production that not even director Christopher Nolan could screw it up.  I haven’t seen the 1959 movie of the same name, but I’m going to.

Then we have the movies which were set in 1940s Britain, but contained no actual battlefield combat.

Kim’s Top 10 British Movies about WWII:

  1. Hope & Glory
  2. The Imitation Game
  3. Darkest Hour
  4. Mrs. Miniver
  5. A Matter of Life and Death
  6. Eye Of The Needle
  7. The Gentle Sex
  8. Went The Day Well? / The Eagle Has Landed*
  9. Island At War (TV series)
  10. Foyle’s War (TV series)
  11. (Honorable Mention:  Yanks )

*Essentially the same story;  German paratroopers land in an isolated English village and take it over.  But Went The Day  is the more realistic.

16 comments

  1. Great lists, both. On a whim, we watched ‘Eye of the Needle’ the other day and found that it had aged quite a bit better than I expected it to. Donald Sutherland behaved himself, more or less, and the thing was still suspenseful, even on this third or fourth viewing. I’ll never understand folks rhapsodizing on the beauty of Kate Nelligan, but she is just perfect in this movie, as is the remainder of the entirely British cast.
    Also ‘Foyle’s war’ is something I have binge-watched two or three times now. Michael Kitchen is simply the greatest as Foyle, but a lot of the fun is spotting young actors who later became stars along with practically every great British character actor working at the time. In one of the early episodes you’ll find a near-teenage Emily Blunt in a major role, for example. Sometimes the plots don’t make much sense and get resolved faster than an old Rockford episode, but the characters and the acting! Even the thick-legged redhead, the oh-so-British Honeysuckle Weeks, is perfect in her role. Highly recommended.

    1. I read Follet’s “The Eye Of The Needle” years ago.
      It pleased me to find out at the end, the whole story was Grandpa telling his grandchildren how he’d met their Grandmother.

  2. Both your lists are top choices. I’d put Sink the Bismarck in the first list, displacing In Which We Serve which I think is better suited to your second list.

  3. Went the Day might be more realistic, but it didn’t feature the gorgeous Jenny Shutter…

  4. no mention of Zulu, Zulu Dawn or Breaker Morant? How about Gunga Din? No Richard Sharpe Series or Master and Commander?

    Attack Force Z, Gallipoli and the Light Horsemen are all about Commonwealth soldiers so I guess they don’t count for this list

    1. Other than the fact that NONE of your suggestions took place in WWII, I’d agree with you.

  5. What about The Wooden Horse with Anthony Steele or Cockleshell Heroes with Jose Ferrer? Smaller, quieter movies without gigantic battle scenes, but both deal with the bravery necessary for soldiers.

  6. I would add “Master and Commander – Far side of the World” Set during the Napoleonic Wars When the British Navy really did rule the world.

    1. I think you’ll find that by WWII, the Brits had moved on from sailing ships, and their enemy had changed from France to Germany.

  7. You’ve got some good ones on your list. I would add “The Silent Enemy”, the story of Cmdr. Lionel Crabbe’s fight against Italian frogmen in Gibraltar. Very much a fictionalized account, but it never claimed to be a documentary.

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