Best Battles seen in movies...

just wondering what everyone thought...
which ones were nicely done?
favorites?
i have seen many movies, and paid attention to like the whole personal soldierly accuracy (weapons/equip./armour/discipline stuff)
some are quite good at that, and acting/directing/special effects can make it quite entertaining if all are good...
never cared for or worried about the otherwise 'historical' accuracy of movie battles, as one couldnt trust holywood to get that right aswell, rather its usually more so flawed with that aspect...
but i was wondering what movies and their battles people enjoyed...
~:cheers:

I liked the battle at the start of Gladiator. BraveHeart also had some good fight scenes.

I wasn't too keen on any LOTR battle scenes. Don't know why, they just seemed rather silly.

Waterloo has probably the most accurate battle scenes.

I hate battles in Hollywood movies. The enemy commander is always stupid and the good guys always come up with some clever plan that involves fire traps.

Wallace to Nobles: "Take your horses and flank them, but make it look like you're legging it."

English: "See! every scot with a horse is fleeing. Now they can't flank us!"

The Battle of Stirling in Braveheart... in reality it was called the Battle of Stirling BRIDGE, and might better be called the Massacre of Stirling Bridge. That's right, in Braveheart they dropped the flipping bridge and made a whole new battle. They make Wallace look like a genius and make his bright idea of using pikes against horses look like he invented the concept.


The last battle in Arthur, Saxon Command: "Hmm, it seems they've left the door to the wall open. It must be a trap. I'll send one war band in and let my entire army hear them scream as they are cut to pieces."

Pickets Charge in Gettysburg at the end of the 4 and half hour of running time. Heart breaking stuff particularly as the movie invests in both sides equally.

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Originally Posted by Morgan Frydman

I wasn't too keen on any LOTR battle scenes. Don't know why, they just seemed rather silly.

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I agree on that. Especially the battle at Helms Deep, where the archery in particular was rather clumsy done. ~:wacko:

And munrock, we all now Hollywood can't make movies ~:).

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I agree on that. Especially the battle at Helms Deep, where the archery in particular was rather clumsy done.

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Exactly. The archers were stupid. Why did they wait for the Orks to go all the way up to the outer wall before firing?
And how did Ganadlf's cavalry ride through that entire pike formation? Ok, so they had the sun in their eyes and they're dumb, ugly orks. But still they all must have been pointing they're spears in the opposite direction for the cavalry to ride over them so easily. It's beyond belief.

Agreed on Gettysburg. There's nothing glamorous about it - heart-rending, awful, amazing all at the same time.

First off there is bugger all wrong with the LOTR fight sequences.

I like the First battle in Gladiator, The siege and sack in a flesh and blood and the fighting in Stalingrad

The best battle scene ever in terms of raw, in-your-face realism was the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.

I thought Gettysburg was quite good also, but would rank it behind the opening scene in SPR because it lacked the same gritty realism. In the movie men just fell over and died rather cleanly, when in reality most suffered horrific wounds and died agonizing deaths.

Other interesting battle scenes; Steiner (James Coburn) skirmishing in Russia during WW2 in Cross of Iron from Sam Peckinpah.

Recommanded.

Louis,

Yes i like that film, Coburn is very good in that. Is that the one where one of the officers is having a homosexual relationship and that mad new officer finds out about it! or am i thinking of something else

The final battle in Spartacus was impressive for its day.

Some of the uniforms and weapons aren't quite right, and they had to guess at the tactics because the Romans felt slightly embarrased about fighting mere slaves instead of the best that rival nations had to offer, and so they didn't record how the battle went in much detail. However, all the extras they employed give you a good idea how powerful the discipline and organisation of the Roman army actually was, and how frightening it must have been to be opposing them.

These days the film makers can get away with just using a couple of hundred extras and let the computer generated special effects do the real work.

besides the ones mentioned already I'd have to say I enjoyed the battles in Troy. It might not have been the best, but it certainly was entertaining - the archers pelting the Greeks and the compact Trojans slowly advancing against them - the band of Achilles taking the beach was rather nice, though a little unrealistic it was cool to see the tactics of a small unit as that work so seamlessly.

In my opinion, LOTR: Return of the King had the best battle scene I've ever seen. The Battle of Pelennor Fields was simply nuts.. the whole scene- the speech and all- of the charge of the Rohirrim had me going nuts, it was amazing.
Helm's Deep in The Two Towers and the battle at the beginning of The Fellowship were also pretty great.. in the Fellowship, watching the legionary style of battle and seeing the field of gold from the allied troops was pretty rad.
Also Glory, Gettysburg, and Saving Private Ryan.


As for someone's question about the Helm's Deep battle- I can probably give a decent explanation for why the horses were able to charge straight into a line of pikes. Regular orcs were not able to be in view of the sun.. it would burn their flesh. You will notice that at all times when regular orcs are on the screen, the sky is darkened, or, as in Mordor, it is simply black.
Uruk-Hai are a merger of orcs and wild humanoids- they were created by Saruman. They are easily distinguishable by their greater size over normal orcs, and can march in the sun without dying. However, they are still part orc, so having the sun directly in their eyes is probably INTENSELY painful. Hence that happening would have probably caused a great loss of concentration in the face of the charge- picture yourself facing a charge, and having someone shove toothpicks in your eyes the moment before the charge hit you.

Actually the Uruk-Hai at Helms Deep wernt being affected by sun as Gandalf came running down the hill, it was the light from his staff. Uruk-Hai are imune to the pain of sunlight, whether its in the eyes or not. I know its off-topic ahwell.
Anyways best battle scenes, hmmm well that would have to be Gladiator and SVP, although Black Hawk Down was also very very good.

Most of my favorites have already been mentioned. I enjoyed Gettysburg and Saving Private Ryan, but I also thought that Enemy at the Gates had some neat sequences, as did Black Hawk Down, although it was almost exhausting to watch because of the constant conflict once the character building stage of the movie is finished. In terms of sci-fi, who could argue against The Matrix....I mean wow. Who would not like to be able to do the stuff they do in either of those three movies. :jumping:

Well most have been mentioned, but here are my favourites

The Assault on Dog Green beach in "Saving Private Ryan"

Picketts Charge in "Gettysburg"

Most of "Platoon"

River crossing and subsequent frontal human wave assault in "Enemy at the Gates"

Neys cavalry charge in "Waterloo"

Forest battle in "Gladiator"

Naval battle in "Ben Hur"

Battle of Hoth in "The Empire Strikes back"

Stirling and Falkirk in "Braveheart" (though unhistorical, rather entertaining)



Dont get me started on Lord of the Jackson Franchise ~:mad:

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Dont get me started on Lord of the Jackson Franchise

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What are you talking about?

The only thing i didn't like in LOTR was the dead army at pelloner and thats it, the battle scenes are wonderful and thats all i'm going to say about it

I enjoyed the battle scenes in the Japanese movie "Ran."

Sci-fi - "Starship Troopers" those bugs were nasty. :whip:

I thought that "Ran" was alright, and did have better battle scenes than Kagemusha, than I saw "Heaven and Earth" (directed by Haruki Kadokawa), now that movie had some awsome battle scenes. Now lets also not forget the opening fights in "Last Samurai", it gives you a real insight into samurai psychological warfare with the yelling and the look, and the fact that Tom Cruise should have died, but hey he's the big hollywood actor.

Well, I'm all for historical accuracy, but I like to see a bit of blood and gore there aswell.

The battle at the start of gladiator is good, but unrealistic in some ways. Also, for you film critics, look closely at all the shots of the barbarian army before they charge, there are arrows sticking into the ground and tree's around them before the romans fire a single shot.

Troy was good, but again it;s not historical, the siege went on for years, not days. The actual fight of the battle wasn't that good though, it was all geared up for the hero-battles.

Starship troopers worked well, watch the marines get slaughtered by the bugs.

Saving private ryan, the normandy landing was very good, I loved the grittyness of it, and the way troops were dropping like flies, and it showed that well.


As to LOTR, well, firstly remember it's fantasy.

The battle at the beginning (the last alliance) was the best one in my opinion, it had more of the 'classic' good against evil feel to it.

The battle of helms deep was reasonably good, but I have to nitpick, it focussed to much on the main characters, and you didn;t get a feel for the size of it. As to waiting for the oruks to be within range, one large volley is far more decimating against an anemy if you kill the entire front rank. This however, does not work when fighting oruk-hai. They do not tire, they do not feel pain, they do not fear. They are the ultimate fighting force, and would willingly march up to the walls of helms deep and try to break it down by headbutting it if instucted to. For gandalf and the rohirim, it was the dawn, gandalf uses magic like that all the time and it was he who made the waters rise up like horses in the first film, even though it was arwen who summoned the flood. Gandalf never did flashy stuff in the books, it was all using what was available.

Even to a human the light straight in your eyes would be painfull, to an ork it wold be almost blinding, and to an Oruk it would hurt quite a bit. The horses had sufficiant momentum to leap over the front rank of spears and into the nemy, the oruks didn;t raise their spears to stop this because they couldn;t see, thanks to the sun.

The battle of gondor (the siege, not the battle of pelinor fields) was better still, the siege equipment was realistic, you got a real feel for the size and determination of the enemy, and you thought they were screwed from the moment it started. You really got a feel of being trapped in a great citadel, that although it was designed to withstand a siege, it wasn;t counting on the largest army middle earth had ever seen (larger even than the one defeated by the last alliance)

The battle of pelinor fields I didn;t like. The orks would have held posion for the initial charge, 6,000 ish horsmen would not have routed an orc army that easily, and in the books the remainders of the army of gondor came out to help. Also, while Aragorn did go and rouse the ghosts, they helped to kill a different orc army and get Aragorn the ships, they did not have a hand in the battle of gondor at all. untll the ships, loaded with allied not enemies, arrived the battle of pelinor fields was desperate, and they were losing. With th ships they had the enemy trapped between tham, and though still outnumbered greatly they managed to rout it.

The battle at the black gate just annoyed me.

I like Gods and Generals.

The last battle in Arthur, Saxon Command: "Hmm, it seems they've left the door to the wall open. It must be a trap. I'll send one war band in and let my entire army hear them scream as they are cut to pieces."[/QUOTE]


I just saw this movie and was extremely disappointed but I wanted to know one thing - how the hell did that gate in Hadrians wall keep opening & closing - there wasn't anybody on the wall and I'm fairly certain I didn't see Arthur with a remote control. Just made a poor film stupid imo.

Back on topic I agree opening scene in SPR was pretty good. Made it seem like hell on earth and not something I would ever want to experience nor wish on anyone else.

I rarely like ancient historical fight scenes as they just seem to turn into a one on one brawl which just seems wrong. They all seem to forget their training to hold the line which I find immensley annoying.

Here's my top 5

#1 Tie LOTR-Battle for Gondor
Saving Private Ryan opening scene
#2 Opening scene in Gladiator
#3 Last 45 mins of Star Wars II Attack of the Clones
#4 LOTR Battle for Helms Deep
#5 Battle of Stirling "Braveheart"
Just out of the top 5
First battle in "Last Samurai",Hector vs Achilles,and Achilles taking the beech in "Troy",Drop into Normandy in "Band of Brothers"

I based it on which scenes I either enjoyed the most,or which I thought was the best done.

LOTR was patheticly dissapointing in the battles, save for the charge of rohan in the third film. Helms deep was just unfullfilling, it left you wondering what pellonor was goping to be like seeing as that was dissapointing, as for pellanor, well the oliphants completey screwed it, not to mention the quick clean up using the undead armies, which imo seemed like it was a huge rush job.

As far as good battles go, nothnig gets past band of brothers. Look at the battles of Market Garden, Foye, and plenty of others, its defintly the height of decency in battles. the intro to saving private ryan was quite good, though when you know more of the story of the assault you feel that so mch more could have been done.

I found the last battel in the last samurai to be quite entertaining as well, even for the scale of it.

But when it comes to my #1 movie for battles, i cant go past Alexander Nevsky. Its an old russian film but still has the most amazing battles in it

I'm surprised no one mentioned Glory. though the fights are short they are intense. I also really enjoy the end batlle in the Moderen Henry V. Then there is Last of the Mochicans.

i was gonna go see that arthur movie but when i got there i saw it was pg-13, and i dont wanna be paying the price to see an oldschool battle movie that isnt rated r, i mean really, that didnt inspire me atall,
i'll wait a bit to see that one i spose
~:doh:

Arthur, as a take on the Arthurian legend, did the legend justice. It conveyed the principles about honest goodness well enough.

I would rate Arthur over Braveheart. Braveheart wasn't a take on a legend, it was a twisting of truth. Battles come second to things like this.

Arthur was PG-13 so that kids could watch it, and I'm glad they'll be influenced by that movie, in youth, than any of the other tosh out there.

As for judging a movie by its rating - well that speaks volumes for the kind of people who are like that. Damn, I sound like a grandparent.

The fight at fort william in Last of the Mohicans is bloody fantastic, top notch stuff :saint: