United Artists
To some Americans , Memorial Day is just another three - day holiday weekend . But for anyone who has been to war , or lost loved ones to overseas conflicts , Memorial Day has special import as an chance to honor the fallen and reflect on the sacrifices they made on behalf of our country .
While the vast majority of civilians will never go to warfare , Hollywood has been urinate war movies for decades . The best war movies allow the rest period of us to well interpret the people who lived through it , as well as what they recede and left behind . That was the criteria we used to pick the three bestAmazon Prime Videowar flick you should watch on Memorial Day . Prime Video does n’t have a circumstances of the classics in the genre , but it does sport a handful of the greatest war moving picture ever made .
United Artists
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Nownearly shew to be fateful for its direct serviceman , Martin Sheen , who suffered a heart attackduring the filming . It was a notoriously hard shoot that resulted in an all - time classic . Director Francis Ford Coppola update Joseph Conrad ’s novellaHeart of Darknesswith co - writer John Milius , and Michael Herr . They moved the story up in time almost a century to the Vietnam War , which was still in America ’s recent past times when the film came out .
Sheen plays Captain Benjamin L. Willard , a seasoned warrior who is sent to assassinate Colonel Walter Kurtz ( Marlon Brando ) because Kurtz has cash in one’s chips demented and turn against his state while waging his own private war against the Viet Cong . Kurtz ’s followers care for him like he ’s a live god and they ’re fanatical in their idolatry . But getting close to Kurtz requires Willard to go on a grave journeying that may destruct what ’s left of his soul long before he comes face - to - face with his target .
WatchApocalypse NowonPrime Video .
All Quiet On The Western Front (1979)
Erich Maria Remarque ’s novelAll Quiet on the Western Fronthas been adapted multiple times , most recently by Netflix . But the 1979 adjustment has already clear its place among the all - prison term great war movies . The news report is set during World War I as a German teenager , Paul Bäumer ( Richard Thomas ) , and his friends are swept up by quixotic and patriotic rhetoric to join the warfare effort against the French .
Stanislaus “ Kat ” Katczinsky ( Ernest Borgnine ) wise man the younger flock , who soon discover that the war is far more brutal than they guess . demise is their unremitting companion on the battlefield , as Paul is squeeze to see the man around him fall one by one with the noesis that he could be next at any open bit .
WatchAll Quiet on the Western FrontonPrime Video .
Glory (1989)
At the timeGlorywas released , Matthew Broderick was a bigger name than his co - starDenzel Washington . However , Washington ’s execution and subsequent Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor went a long path toward establishing him as a wiz in the fashioning . This motion-picture show is found on the true story of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw ( Broderick ) , the man who led the first all - Black regiment of flock during the Civil War .
Alongside his friend Major Cabot Forbes ( Cary Elwes ) , Shaw attempts to mold Private Silas Trip ( Washington ) , Sergeant Major John Rawlins ( Morgan Freeman ) , and the eternal sleep of their men into a joined force . But they face up racialism within the Union army that threatens to keep them from proving themselves in battle . Shaw quickly realizes that he needs to support his men for realize their cartel . Yet , even the bonds of trade union and braveness that emerge may not be enough to carry them to victory and the respect that they merit .
WatchGloryonPrime Video .
