50 Fun Facts About War Movie

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

Steven Spielberg won his second Best Director Oscar for it, yet the film itself lost Best Picture to the romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love.

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

His three brothers have all been killed, a plot drawn from the real Nilands, though one brother presumed dead later turned up alive in a Japanese prison camp in Burma.

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

Apocalypse Now was planned as a shoot of a few months, but a typhoon wrecked the sets and its star had a heart attack, and filming dragged on for more than a year.

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

Marlon Brando arrived far heavier than the gaunt colonel Coppola had pictured, so the director dressed him in black and filmed little but his face in the dark.

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

Vincent D'Onofrio won the part with audition tapes he mailed to Kubrick in England, then gained about 70 pounds for it and wrecked a knee on the obstacle course.

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

R. Lee Ermey was hired only as a technical adviser, but Kubrick saw tapes of him improvising insults at extras and gave him the part; about half his dialogue is his own.

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

Charlie Sheen's volunteer stands in for Oliver Stone himself, who left Yale, enlisted for Vietnam and was wounded twice there before he wrote the script.

Which 1978 Vietnam War film shows American prisoners of war forced to play Russian roulette by their captors?

The Deer Hunter won Best Picture, then came under attack: war reporters pointed out that no case of prisoners being forced to play Russian roulette was ever documented.

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

The Bridge on the River Kwai won its screenplay Oscar for a French novelist who could not write English: the real writers were blacklisted and were credited only decades later.

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

The cooler is the camp's solitary block, where Hilts bounces a baseball off the wall so often that the credits bill him as 'The Cooler King'.

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

Stalag Luft III saw 76 men crawl out through the tunnel in March 1944, but only three reached safety, and 50 of those recaptured were shot on Hitler's orders.

Which 1970 film opens with an American general delivering a speech in front of a giant Stars and Stripes?

Patton opens with a speech of more than five minutes delivered straight to the audience; it won seven Oscars and became a favourite of President Nixon, who screened it at the White House.

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

Refused to accept it: Scott had told the Academy beforehand that he would not take part in a contest between actors, and he stayed away from the ceremony when his name was read out.

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

Erich Maria Remarque's story enraged the Nazis: at its 1930 Berlin run they let off stink bombs and released mice in the cinema, and within days the government banned the film.

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

Netflix got the film only after co-writer Lesley Paterson, a champion triathlete, spent 16 years using her race winnings to keep renewing her option on the novel's film rights.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk weaves together three timelines set in which three places?

Land, sea, air: the beach story covers a week, the boat crossing a day and the dogfight an hour, because Nolan matched each clock to reality and a Spitfire carried about an hour of fuel.

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

Harry Styles auditioned against thousands of young actors, and Christopher Nolan has said he did not realise quite how famous the One Direction singer was when he cast him.

Sam Mendes's 1917 is edited to look like what?

One continuous shot is the trick: long takes were stitched together invisibly, with a single obvious break when the hero is knocked out and the screen goes black. It won Roger Deakins an Oscar.

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

His grandfather, Alfred Mendes, carried messages for the British on the Western Front and told the stories to his grandson decades later; the film is dedicated to him.

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

The Hurt Locker made Kathryn Bigelow the first woman to win Best Director, and it beat Avatar, made by her former husband James Cameron, who sat right behind her at the ceremony.

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

Mogadishu: planned as a quick snatch raid, it became an overnight street battle after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and crashed in the Somali capital.

Which German film set aboard a WWII submarine earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Wolfgang Petersen?

Das Boot went home empty-handed: it lost all six of its nominations, three of them to Gandhi, including Best Director.

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

Hacksaw Ridge was the troops' name for Okinawa's Maeda Escarpment, the cliff down which Doss lowered about 75 wounded men by rope, one at a time.

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

Hans Landa almost sank the film: Tarantino feared he had written an unplayable part and was days from calling the shoot off when Christoph Waltz auditioned.

Which Kathryn Bigelow film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden was shot under the working title For God and Country?

Zero Dark Thirty is, in Bigelow's words, a military term for thirty minutes after midnight, chosen for the darkness and secrecy of the ten-year hunt.

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

Chris Kyle survived four tours in Iraq, then was shot dead at a Texas gun range in 2013 by a troubled veteran he was trying to help, the year before filming began.

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

The Thin Red Line ended Malick's twenty-year break from directing and earned seven Oscar nominations, but it won none, while the year's other Second World War epic took five.

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

Japanese soldiers: Clint Eastwood made it as a companion to Flags of Our Fathers, which shows the same battle from the American side, and he shot the two films back to back.

Which Best Picture winner starred Peter O'Toole as a British officer leading a desert revolt against the Ottomans?

Lawrence of Arabia won seven Oscars, Best Picture among them, yet Peter O'Toole lost Best Actor to Gregory Peck: the first of eight nominations that never brought him a competitive win.

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

Gallipoli ends at the Nek, where on 7 August 1915 Australian light horsemen charged Turkish trenches on foot in four waves; 372 of the 600 were killed or wounded in under an hour.

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

Schoolteacher: the company had a pool of several hundred dollars riding on the answer, and he finally gives it to defuse a standoff among his own men.

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

Paths of Glory did not reach French cinemas until 1975, eighteen years late: it was never formally banned there, but distributors judged it wiser not to show it.

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

Glory's regiment really did fight over pay too: the men of the 54th refused their wages for about eighteen months, until Congress granted Black soldiers equal pay in 1864.

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

Midway was made outside the studio system: Roland Emmerich spent years raising its $100 million budget himself, a rare price tag for an independent film.

Which Michael Bay film cast Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as fighter pilots in love with the same nurse?

Pearl Harbor earned six Razzie nominations and four Oscar nominations in the same season, winning for sound editing, and it still took about $449 million worldwide.

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

Fury faced a real German tank: the Tank Museum at Bovington lent Tiger 131, captured in Tunisia in 1943 and the only Tiger I still running when the film was made.

Which 1985 Soviet film follows a Belarusian boy who joins the partisans and witnesses Nazi atrocities?

Come and See takes its title from the Book of Revelation and proved to be Elem Klimov's last film: he lived until 2003 but said he had already done everything that was possible.

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

Grave of the Fireflies opened in April 1988 on a double bill with the light-hearted My Neighbor Totoro: the only time a Takahata film and a Miyazaki film were released together.

Which Roman Polanski film starred Adrien Brody as Władysław Szpilman, a Polish Jew hiding in the ruins of wartime Warsaw?

The Pianist was personal for Polanski, who escaped the Kraków Ghetto as a boy; it won him Best Director, and in 2003 Brody, aged 29, became the youngest Best Actor winner to that date.

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

Downfall's bunker rant became a staple of internet parody, and its director was delighted: Oliver Hirschbiegel said he had watched about 145 of the spoofs and called them the best compliment he could get.

Which Robert Altman comedy about army surgeons in the Korean War spun off a long-running TV series?

M*A*S*H the series ran for 11 seasons from 1972, more than three times as long as the Korean War itself, and bowed out in 1983 with one of the most-watched broadcasts in American history.

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

Adrian Cronauer was no rebel: the real airman called himself a lifelong, card-carrying Republican, and Robin Williams ad-libbed much of the on-air patter the film made famous.

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

Enemy at the Gates casts Law as the real Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev, but historian Antony Beevor says the duel itself was a figment of Soviet propaganda with no trace in the archives.

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

A Bridge Too Far takes its title from a warning attributed to General Browning before the operation; the film gives him the line only after the defeat at Arnhem.

Which 1962 epic about the Normandy landings starred John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum and Richard Burton?

The Longest Day let its Germans and French speak their own languages under subtitles, unusual for a Hollywood war epic then, and used separate directors for the British, American and German scenes.

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

Gomer Pyle was the lovably naive Marine recruit of a top-rated 1960s sitcom, whose innocence drove his short-fused sergeant to distraction, so from Hartman the name is pure insult.

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

Elias and Barnes were both drawn from life: Oliver Stone said he served in Vietnam with a sergeant as scarred and obsessed as Barnes, and with a real Elias too.

Which 2002 film about the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang starred Mel Gibson as Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore?

We Were Soldiers comes from a book Moore wrote with reporter Joseph Galloway, who was on the ground at Ia Drang: in 1998 the Army gave him a Bronze Star for rescuing wounded men under fire.

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

Master and Commander earned ten Oscar nominations but won only two, for cinematography and sound editing: The Return of the King won all eleven of its categories that night.

Which Japanese director was originally hired for the Japanese half of a 1970 epic about the attack on Hawaii?

Akira Kurosawa spent more than a year preparing his half of Tora! Tora! Tora!, but the studio fired him a few weeks into shooting, with only a few minutes of film to show for it.