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<p>RANKED<br />Period / Historical War films included. <br />By definition, the majority of the best WAR films are ANTI-war films. </p><p>“Taking a close look at what's around us, there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder."<br />~Werner Herzog</p><p>"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."<br />- Bertrand Russell </p><p>"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."<br />- Herodotus</p><p>"We can't educate our young people <br />can't feed our poor people<br />can't take care of our old people <br />but we can bomb the shit out of your country..."<br />- George Carlin</p><p>"Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers."<br />- George Carlin</p><p>My top 5 (closely ranked): -<br />Come and See (1985)<br />Apocalypse Now (1979)<br />Seven Samurai (1954)<br />Dr. Strangelove (1964)<br />Paths of Glory (1957)</p><p>Not a "best of" list, just a list with war films I have seen (there are many more, but either I can't recall them, or they were so dreadful I didn't include them). Probably only the first 160-170 or so are recommended, the rest are only for completists. </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p><b>Quora - World History - War</b></p><p>Q: What was the most brutal military tactic in history?</p><p>A: Leave your enemy a way to escape.</p><p>Human beings aren’t so different from the many types of creatures that roam the planet. One of the universal traits shared by so many species is this: Fight or flight or freeze.</p><p>In a situation that presents danger, living creatures will perform one of these actions. Fight, meaning we leap into action and confrontation. Flight, meaning we try to remove ourselves from the danger. Freeze, where we are facing an unfamiliar situation and do nothing.</p><p>As the last several thousand years of recorded history has shown, humans have yet to grow beyond these basic instincts. It’s a part of who we are.</p><p><br /><b>Napoleon’s Folly</b></p><p>It was the year 1812. Napoleon had just realized he couldn’t conquer Russia. Napoleon’s campaign to dominate the largest European kingdom had ground to a halt. He could win on the battlefield, but an extended conflict would ultimately accomplish nothing. The Russians refused to surrender, even when their own capital had been seized and the Tsar had fled. Facing an impossible situation, Napoleon ordered a withdrawal.</p><p>Now the Russians could have counterattacked, encircled Napoleon and tried to capture him with their superior numbers and knowledge of the land. What they did was worse. They let the French walk back the way they came.<br />The French army marched back through lands they had already conquered. These areas had been picked clean of food. In their places was less than nothing. Napoleon’s grand army, the largest on Earth at that time, was cut off from supplies. This was literally as the Russian winter was beginning.</p><p>But they could still escape. The Russians were only behind them. So they started walking back.</p><p>All the while, the Russians bled them with raids. Mounted horsemen, Irregular militias. Pin prick attacks from a thousand directions. But never a concentrated military attack. The Russians kept bleeding the French. Bit by bit by bit.</p><p>The French couldn’t turn around and retaliate. The invasion had failed and now all they wanted to do was go home. They thought they would be safe if they just kept walking west. And they kept getting more and more hungry. The weather became worse and worse.</p><p>This is when the Grand Army began to break down. Deserters abandoned the army in droves. Their equipment was insufficient for fighting in winter and broke down in unrelenting cold. And the Russians kept circling their flanks. Never surrounding them. Never stopping them from retreating.</p><p>So the French kept walking west. There was still a chance they probably thought. If they endured a few more days, a few more hundred miles, they could make it. They kept weakening themselves. Structure and order were undone as desperation infected the French ranks. They lost whatever advantage they may have had fighting the Russians directly and weakness began to suffocate them. Hunger, disease and deprivation on a massive scale.</p><p>The retreat from Russia lasted from October to December of 1812. By the time the Grand Army had entered friendly territory, they had been reduced to barely 20,000 emaciated survivors.</p><p>And that’s how you destroy an army of 700,000 men. You give them hope of escape.</p><p>- Donovan Walls<br />Quora - World History</p>