10 best war movies to watch on Memorial Day

Memorial Day originated as a day to celebrate the fallen soldiers of the American Civil War. It has grown over the years to now be a day to remember all of our fallen soldiers.
Here are 10 of the best movies to watch this Memorial Day.

10. Platoon (1986) -- One of Oliver Stone's best films, this Vietnam War drama is loaded with scenes that really make you think, if you want to, otherwise it's still a great action flick.

9. Patton (1970) -- Famously, this was Richard Nixon's favorite film, a potent counterbalance to the voices of the protesters and a manly peptalk of righteousness. The opening scene of George C. Scott against the American Flag background is still one of the more iconic images in film.


8. Saving Private Ryan (1998) -- Steven Spielberg's WWII drama weds an intimate story to the sweep of history—and even if you didn't care for the fortunes of one lucky soldier, you couldn't avoid being floored by the movie's epic mounting of the 1944 Omaha Beach landing. 

7. Casualties of War (1989) -- Michael J. Fox plays a soldier in Vietnam that is totally different than anything else he has been in before or since, but it plays perfectly as he discovers just how quickly integrity can go out the window when men go to war.


6. The Hurt Locker (2008) -- This is the film that made Katheryn Bigelow the first woman to win the best director OSCAR, and with good reason. While there is no happy ending here, it does manage to portray the hellish time that soldier in Iraq have had to go through for the past decade.

5. MASH (1970) -- Based on a book, this Korean War comedy struck out against war. Released in the midst of the Vietnam War, it was tough to not draw comparisons to the least popular war in U.S. history.


4. Starship Troopers (1997) -- This fun future war movie tells the tale of the Earth being attacked, and then striking back at a planet full of man-size Alien bugs. Just stay away from the two sequels that this spawned.

3. Full Metal Jacket (1987) -- Stanley Kubrick's take on the Vietnam War is done in two-parts. The first half is set at the Paris Island Marine training facility, where a group of men are turned into killing machines. the second part follows those same men as they learn to cope with being said killers.


2. The Patriot (2000) -- The tale of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) who was a hero from the French-Indian war just wanted to be left alone. He gets drawn into the Revolutionary war when a sadistic British soldier murders his son.


1. Apocalypse Now (1979) -- Fan's of director Francis Ford Coppola still argue to decide if this or "The Godfather" is truly his masterpiece, but no one denies that this film is one of the greatest war movies ever made. Martin Sheen had a heart attack on set which was just one of the myriad of problems that happened on set to cause more than a year's worth of delays to the film. When it was all said and done, this is the movie that the modern war movie strives to be.