50 Fun Facts About War Movie

Which director made Saving Private Ryan, famous for its Omaha Beach opening sequence?

Spielberg won his second Best Director Oscar for it, though the film lost Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love.

In Saving Private Ryan, why is Private James Ryan being sent home?

The story was loosely inspired by the Niland brothers and the US 'sole survivor' policy adopted after the Sullivan brothers died together in 1942.

Which Vietnam War film is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness?

Francis Ford Coppola's shoot in the Philippines ran wildly over schedule, with typhoons, a heart attack for Martin Sheen and an unprepared lead.

Which actor arrived on Coppola's Vietnam epic overweight and unprepared to play Colonel Kurtz?

Brando arrived on set overweight and having not read the novella, so Coppola shot him mostly in shadow.

Who plays the overweight recruit Leonard Lawrence in Full Metal Jacket?

D'Onofrio reportedly gained about 70 pounds for the part, one of the largest weight gains ever for a film role.

Which real-life former Marine drill instructor plays Gunnery Sergeant Hartman for Stanley Kubrick?

He was hired as a technical adviser but sent Kubrick a tape of himself hurling insults nonstop, and got the part.

Which actor plays Chris Taylor, the young volunteer at the centre of Oliver Stone's Platoon?

Sheen's father Martin had starred in Apocalypse Now seven years earlier; Platoon won Best Picture and Best Director for 1986.

Which film's Russian roulette scenes among American POWs made it a controversial 1970s Vietnam film?

Michael Cimino's film won Best Picture and gave Christopher Walken a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Which David Lean film about POWs building a Burma railway crossing won Best Picture for 1957?

Alec Guinness won Best Actor as the rigid Colonel Nicholson; the film's whistled 'Colonel Bogey March' became a hit.

In The Great Escape, where does Steve McQueen's Hilts keep ending up after his failed escape attempts?

He passes the time in solitary tossing a baseball against the wall, and befriends the Scot Ives in the next cell.

The Great Escape dramatises a mass breakout from which German POW camp?

Of the 76 men who got out through the tunnel in March 1944, only three reached safety and 50 were executed on Hitler's orders.

Which 1970 biopic opens with its title character delivering a speech in front of a giant American flag?

George C. Scott won Best Actor for the role but refused the Oscar, calling the ceremony a 'meat parade'.

George C. Scott famously did what after winning the Best Actor Oscar for playing a WWII general?

He was the first actor to decline an Academy Award, having earlier described the ceremony as a 'two-hour meat parade'.

Which German author's novel became the 1930 Best Picture winner All Quiet on the Western Front?

Nazi groups disrupted its German screenings with stink bombs and mice, and the film was soon banned there.

The 2022 German-language remake of All Quiet on the Western Front was released mainly on which platform?

It won four Oscars including Best International Feature and a record seven BAFTAs for a non-English-language film.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk tells its story across three timelines. Which three settings does it use?

The land story spans a week, the sea a day and the air an hour, all converging at the climax.

Which pop star made his acting debut as a soldier in Dunkirk?

Nolan said he cast him for the part without fully realising how famous he was.

Sam Mendes's 1917 is edited to look like how many continuous shots?

Cinematographer Roger Deakins won an Oscar for the seamless illusion; the film's story came from Mendes's grandfather Alfred.

1917 was partly inspired by stories told to Sam Mendes by whom?

Alfred Mendes served as a messenger on the Western Front and the film is dedicated to him.

Which Best Picture-winning film about a bomb-disposal team in Iraq was directed by Kathryn Bigelow?

Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar, beating her ex-husband James Cameron's Avatar.

Black Hawk Down depicts a 1993 US raid in which city?

Ridley Scott's film is based on Mark Bowden's book about the Battle of Mogadishu, in which two helicopters were shot down.

Which German U-boat film earned six 1983 Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Wolfgang Petersen?

Petersen later shot Hollywood films like Air Force One and Troy; Das Boot also exists in a much longer television cut.

Which Mel Gibson film tells the story of Desmond Doss, the unarmed medic who won the Medal of Honor at Okinawa?

Doss was a Seventh-day Adventist conscientious objector who saved dozens of wounded men by lowering them down a cliff.

In Inglourious Basterds, what is the name of the SS colonel played by Christoph Waltz?

Waltz, then little known outside German-language TV, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.

What was the working title of Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's film about the bin Laden hunt?

The final title, a military term for half past midnight, was only confirmed at the end of the teaser trailer.

American Sniper is based on the memoir of which Navy SEAL?

Bradley Cooper bulked up to play Kyle, and the film became the highest-grossing war movie in US box-office history at the time.

Which Terrence Malick film about Guadalcanal came out the same year as Saving Private Ryan?

It marked Malick's return after a 20-year absence from directing and earned seven Oscar nominations.

Letters from Iwo Jima is told almost entirely from whose perspective?

Clint Eastwood released it as a companion to Flags of Our Fathers, which showed the same battle from the American side.

Which Best Picture winner starred Peter O'Toole as a British officer who united Arab tribes in WWI?

David Lean's 1962 epic runs over three and a half hours and has no speaking roles for women.

Which Mel Gibson film about Australian troops in WWI was directed by Peter Weir?

Its climax dramatises the doomed charge at the Nek in August 1915.

In Saving Private Ryan, what does Captain Miller finally reveal his civilian job to be?

The men had run a betting pool on it; he also coached baseball, and the reveal ends a standoff over whether to abandon the mission.

Which Kubrick film stars Kirk Douglas as a French colonel defending three men court-martialled for cowardice?

France effectively kept the film off its screens for nearly two decades because of its portrayal of the French army.

Which 1989 film about the 54th Massachusetts won Denzel Washington his first Oscar?

Washington won Best Supporting Actor for playing Private Trip; Matthew Broderick played the regiment's colonel, Robert Gould Shaw.

Which Roland Emmerich film about the 1942 Pacific battle came out in 2019?

A 1976 film of the same name starred Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda.

Which Michael Bay film cast Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as pilots in the 1941 Japanese attack?

Despite savage reviews it grossed nearly $450 million worldwide and won an Oscar for sound editing.

Which David Ayer film puts Brad Pitt in command of a Sherman tank crew in Germany in 1945?

The production borrowed the only working Tiger I tank in the world from Britain's Tank Museum at Bovington.

Which Soviet film about a Belarusian boy witnessing Nazi atrocities is often called the most harrowing war film?

Director Elem Klimov reportedly used live ammunition in some scenes; the title comes from the Book of Revelation.

Which Studio Ghibli film follows two siblings trying to survive in Kobe at the end of WWII?

Isao Takahata's film was originally released as a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro.

Which Roman Polanski film starred Adrien Brody as a Polish-Jewish musician surviving the Warsaw Ghetto?

Brody became the youngest Best Actor winner ever at 29; Polanski himself had escaped the Kraków Ghetto as a boy.

Which 2004 German film starred Bruno Ganz as Hitler in his bunker during the last days of the war?

Ganz's ranting scene became one of the internet's most-parodied clips, with subtitles rewritten thousands of times.

Which Robert Altman film about a mobile army surgical hospital spun off a long-running TV series?

Though set in Korea, it was widely read as commentary on Vietnam; the TV series ran 11 seasons, longer than the Korean War itself.

In Good Morning, Vietnam, Robin Williams plays a real Armed Forces Radio DJ named what?

Cronauer said the real story was far less confrontational; Williams improvised most of the broadcast monologues.

Which film starring Jude Law and Ed Harris as duelling snipers is set during the Battle of Stalingrad?

Law's character is based on the real Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev.

Which 1977 Richard Attenborough epic dramatises Operation Market Garden with Connery and Redford?

The title comes from a remark attributed to General Browning about the Arnhem bridge.

Which 1962 D-Day film starred John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum and Richard Burton?

Producer Darryl F. Zanuck used three directors for the American, British and German storylines.

In Full Metal Jacket, what nickname does the drill instructor give the overweight recruit Leonard Lawrence?

The others are all nicknames of squadmates too; Lawrence's ends the boot-camp half of the film in the barracks latrine.

In Platoon, the unit is torn between which two sergeants?

Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the roles.

Which 2002 film about the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang starred Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore?

It was adapted from the book We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, co-written by Moore and reporter Joseph Galloway.

Which Peter Weir film stars Russell Crowe as a Napoleonic-era Royal Navy captain, from Patrick O'Brian's novels?

It won Oscars for cinematography and sound editing but lost Best Picture to The Return of the King.

Which legendary Japanese director was originally to direct the Japanese half of Tora! Tora! Tora!?

Richard Fleischer directed the American side; he later said Kurosawa was a genius but 'miscast for this film'.