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Best War Movies of the 1980s

War films released 1980–1989, ranked by TMDB rating among titles with at least 500 votes.

📊 A century of movies in numbers 28 titlesavg ★ 7.19 avg 123 min War Drama Action History

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#1 Grave of the Fireflies (1988) · ★ 8.4 · 6,595 votes · 1h 29m · drama, animation, war
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with t…
#2 Come and See (1985) · ★ 8.2 · 1,977 votes · 2h 22m · drama, horror, history
The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Flyora into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl,…
#3 Full Metal Jacket (1987) · ★ 8.1 · 11,786 votes · 1h 57m · drama, war
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.…
#4 Das Boot (1981) · ★ 8.1 · 2,651 votes · 2h 30m · drama, history, war
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and t…
#5 Kagemusha (1980) · ★ 7.8 · 772 votes · 3h 0m · action, drama, history
Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When…
#6 Platoon (1986) · ★ 7.7 · 5,309 votes · 2h 0m · action, drama, war
As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.…
#7 First Blood (1982) · ★ 7.5 · 7,144 votes · 1h 33m · action, adventure, thriller
When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war agains…
#8 Empire of the Sun (1987) · ★ 7.5 · 2,213 votes · 2h 33m · drama, history, war
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who lo…
#9 Glory (1989) · ★ 7.5 · 1,882 votes · 2h 2m · drama, history, war
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.…
#10 The Killing Fields (1984) · ★ 7.5 · 866 votes · 2h 22m · drama, history, war
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. Wh…
#11 Au Revoir les Enfants (1987) · ★ 7.5 · 748 votes · 1h 45m · drama, war
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, t…
#12 Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) · ★ 7.3 · 3,112 votes · 2h 1m · comedy, drama, war
A disk jockey goes to Vietnam to work for the Armed Forces Radio Service. While he becomes popular among the troops, his superiors disapprove of his humor.…
#13 Sophie's Choice (1982) · ★ 7.3 · 968 votes · 2h 31m · romance, drama, war
Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survi…
#14 Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) · ★ 7.3 · 549 votes · 2h 4m · drama, history, war
Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound…
#15 Casualties of War (1989) · ★ 7.2 · 1,050 votes · 1h 53m · drama, history, war
During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.…
#16 The Last Metro (1980) · ★ 7.2 · 536 votes · 2h 11m · romance, drama, war
In occupied Paris, an actress wed to a Jewish theater owner must keep him hidden from the Nazis while doing both of their jobs.…
#17 Birdy (1984) · ★ 7.1 · 600 votes · 2h 0m · drama, war
Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospi…
#18 Gallipoli (1981) · ★ 7.1 · 575 votes · 1h 52m · drama, history, war
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.…
#19 Born on the Fourth of July (1989) · ★ 7.0 · 1,898 votes · 2h 25m · drama, war
Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.…
#20 Heartbreak Ridge (1986) · ★ 6.9 · 1,165 votes · 2h 10m · drama, war
A hard-nosed, hard-living Marine gunnery sergeant clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.…
#21 Escape to Victory (1981) · ★ 6.9 · 1,044 votes · 1h 56m · drama, war
A group of POWs in a German prison camp during World War II play the German National Soccer Team in this powerful film depicting the role of prisoners during wartime.…
#22 Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) · ★ 6.7 · 4,457 votes · 1h 36m · action, adventure, thriller
John Rambo is released from prison by the government for a top-secret covert mission to the last place on Earth he'd want to return - the jungles of Vietnam.…
#23 The Final Countdown (1980) · ★ 6.6 · 676 votes · 1h 43m · action, science-fiction, war
During routine manoeuvres near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft-carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before th…
#24 Hamburger Hill (1987) · ★ 6.6 · 529 votes · 1h 50m · action, drama, war
The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it che…
#25 Red Dawn (1984) · ★ 6.3 · 926 votes · 1h 54m · action, thriller, drama
It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town—and their country—from invading Soviet forces.…
#26 Rambo III (1988) · ★ 6.2 · 3,604 votes · 1h 42m · action, adventure, thriller
Combat has taken its toll on Rambo, but he's finally begun to find inner peace in a monastery. When Rambo's friend and mentor Col. Trautman asks for his help on a top secret missio…
#27 The Delta Force (1986) · ★ 6.0 · 546 votes · 2h 9m · action, adventure, thriller
A 707 aircraft jetliner, en route from Athens to Rome and then to New York City, is hijacked by Lebanese terrorists, who demand that the pilot take them to Beirut. What the terrori…
#28 Missing in Action (1984) · ★ 5.9 · 593 votes · 1h 41m · action, adventure, thriller
American servicemen are still being held captive in Vietnam and it's up to one man to bring them home in this blistering, fast-paced action/adventure starring martial arts supersta…

Questions

What is the best war movie of the 1980s?

Grave of the Fireflies (1988) tops the decade with 8.4/10 on TMDB, ahead of Come and See (1985).