To honor all of those who have served on this Veterans Day, BackstageOL presents the Top 10 Veterans Day movies of all time.
Whether its adapting back to civilian life (Heroes For Sale/Born On The Fourth of July) , fighting to save your fellow brother in arms (Saving Private Ryan/Black Hawk Down), or dealing with the psychological horror of war (Full Metal Jacket/Platoon), each film was selected to represent a different physical or emotional struggle that almost every veteran faces.
Thank you for all who have served. We are forever in your debt.
10. Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Ryan Phillippe, Barry Pepper and Joseph Cross.
The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII.
9. Born On The Fourth of July (1989)
Directed by Oliver Stone and starring Tom Cruise.
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
8. Heroes For Sale (1933)
Directed by William A. Wellman and stars Richard Barthelmess.
A veteran of the Great War, Thomas Holmes, struggles to make his way in civilian life in almost every way imaginable.
7. Black Hawk Down (2001)
Directed by Ridley Scott and stars Josh Hartnett, Ewan MCGregor and Tom Sizemore.
123 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.
6. Platoon (1986)
Directed by Oliver Stone and stars Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe.
A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
5. The Deer Hunter (1978)
Directed by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Cazale.
An in-depth examination of the way that the Vietnam war affects the lives of people in a small industrial town in the USA.
4. The Great Escape (1963)
Directed by John Sturges and starring Steve McQueen, James Garner andRichard Attenborough.
Allied P.O.W.s plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
3. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D’Onofrio.
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.
2. Paths of Glory (1957)
Directed by Stanley Kubrik and starring Kirk Douglas.
When soldiers in World War I refuse to continue with an impossible attack, their superior officers decide to make an example of them.
1. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and Tom Sizemore.
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
