MHT Blog

Welcome to the MHT Blog Site and our Posts try to not be dusty topics or blah military history but things we find interesting and hope you will too! Below is our MHT Blog Archive for additional topics. We will have more from the sites we visit now that MHT is back on the road. Thanks for checking us out – The Editor

CLICK TO SEE THE 2025/26 TOURS

SEE the update to the Blog 03/21/2022 - For Want of a Horse, the MiG-29s Were Lost?

MHT’s Military Movie Reviews (Below are USA, USN & USMC Reviews click this link to read the USAF movies!)

We have gotten complaints we don’t do enough movie reviews of this or that service so we put together a Top 10 list (with some modifications) of each service (OK No U.S. Coast Guard but we do list Petty Officer Scott Ruskan, a USCG rescue swimmer deployed from Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, as a true American Hero for his saving of 165 people during the recent Guadalupe River flooding in Texas working with the U.S. Army National Guard in an example of military relief efforts in sharp contrast to the haphazard effort during the Hurricane Helene devastation in 2024. We will pass on listing Space Force as only the very mediocre sitcom of the same name by Steve Carell could qualify.) What I noticed while researching these lists was Hollywood has seemed to be heading in the Tim Walz image that “a real man is a beta man” with the traits of 1) Collaborating & cooperating with others to make decisions; 2) Struggles with saying “no”; 3) Not competitive; 4) Friendly & warm; 5) Comfortable with his emotions & feeling; 6) Does not have a big ego & 7) Prefers to follow & not lead.

I became concerned there is no widespread evidence of a "lack of action stars" concerns in the media. The Gold standard class of “action stars” are aging out as we can’t rely on these 60, 70, & 80 year-olds; Tom Cruise, Wesley Snipes, Chuck Norris, Kurt Russel, Arnie Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, Kevin Costner, Sly Stallone, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, Russell Crowe, Jack Nicholson, John Malkovich, Scott Glenn, Sam Shepard, Antonio Banderas, Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Kevin Bacon, Nick Nolte, John Travolta, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Cage, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Steven Seagal, & Robert Duvall too much longer.

The brightest “up-and-comers” are no longer that young: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (53), Matthew McConaughey (55), Chris Hemsworth (41), Chris Pine (44), Chris Evans (44), Dave Bautista (56), Christian Bale (51), Henry Cavill (42), Vin Diesel (58), Jason Statham (57), Keanu Reeves (60), Tom Hardy (47), Leonard DiCaprio (50), Edward Norton (55), Jeremy Renner (54), Matt Damon (54), Ben Affleck (52), Will Smith (56), Hugh Jackman (56), Chris O‘Donnell (55), Chris Pratt (46), Ryan Reynolds (48), Charlie Hunnam (45), Timothy Olyphant (57), Jon Bernthal (48), John Cusack (59), Ethan Hawke (54), Cillian Murphy (49), Luke Evans (46), Daniel Craig (57), Bradley Cooper (50), Adam Driver (41), Jamie Foxx (57), Jason Momoa (45) Ben Stiller (59), John Krasinski (45), Owen Wilson (56), & Gerard Butler (55).

Discussions within the film community often highlight the emergence of new talent & the challenges of achieving blockbuster "action star" status. There aren’t that many! Why don’t Glen Powell (36), Miles Teller (38), Timothee Chalamet (29) (something that isn’t Dune!), Austin Butler (33), Joseph Quinn (31) (OK after “Warfare” he is the Human Flame in the new Fantastic Four movie), Michael B. Jordan (38), & Will Poulter (31) have more action movie roles? Here are stars who have already failed as “action star” or probably would if given a chance: Jesse Eisenberg, Seth Rogan, Jamie Dornan, Adrien Brody, Shia LeBeouf, Tobey Maquire, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Steve Carell, Topher Grace, Johnny Galecki, Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, Will Ferell, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, & Josh Gad.

Enough hand wringing, compare your list against our MHT lists with 54 movies & mini-series.

U.S. Army Movies

1) Saving Private Ryan (1998): Virtuoso Director Steven Spielberg crafts a World War II (WWII) D-Day masterpiece that focuses on a squad's mission to find and bring home a paratrooper whose three brothers have been killed in action (KIA.) It's renowned for its intense realism & graphic depiction of the D-Day beachhead. The film introduced a host of soon to be famous young actors including Adam Goldberg, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Nathan Fillion, Paul Giamatti, Ryan Hurst, Vin Diesel, Edward Burns, Byran Cranston & Matt Damon. The film was anchored by a Tom Hanks (Captain Miller) Oscar winning performance but was robbed by a foreign nod to someone named Roberto Benigni. Worse still, Harvey Weinstein did to the Oscar nomination process what he did to so many actresses by violating the Oscars for a lightweight cross-dressing gender fluidity “Shakespeare in Love” that is the worst winner in history until challenged by “Crash” & the Hollywood wasteland of winners from 2014 until “Oppenheimer” in 2023. You can walk the section of Omaha Beach where the 2nd Ranger Battalion came ashore on every MHT D-Day Tour.

2) Patton (1970): The epic biographical war film about U.S. Army General George S. Patton during WWII. George C. Scott gives a tour de force performance as Patton with a strong supporting role for Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley. Scott won the Best Actor as his opening monologue with an enormous American flag behind him, remains an iconic scene & almost Trumpian in grandeur. Every MHT tour to the Battle of the Bulge will make a stop at the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Luxembourg American Cemetery to visit the General’s gravesite.

3) Fury (2014): This film, set in the final days of WWII, follows a M4A2E8 Sherman tank crew led by Brad Pitt as hardened Staff Sergeant “Wardaddy” Collier as they battle their way into Germany. The Sherman “Fury” was borrowed from Bovington Tank Museum as was the German Tiger I Ausf. E #131 with its infamous 8.8cm KwK 36 gun with both being part of one of the great tank duels ever filmed. The majority of Tiger tanks seen in WWII films were either stock footage or mock-ups constructed on top of other tank chassis. Tiger 131 seen in “Fury” is the only real Tiger I still running in the world & the first time it appears in a film.

4) Black Hawk Down (2001): This Ridley Scott film, based on an ill-conceived Clinton peace-keeping mission in Somalia that goes horribly wrong on 3 October 1993. Task Force Ranger (3rd Battalion (Bn)/75th Ranger Regiment, C Squadron-Delta Force, & 1st Bn 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment including 8 MH-60 Black Hawks, 4 AH-6 & 4 MH-6 Little Birds) enters Mogadishu on a “snatch n’ grab” mission leading to a fierce & prolonged firefight within the city. It is praised for its realistic depiction of urban combat and the chaos of battle. The performances of Sam Shepard, Eric Bana, William Fichtner & Kim Coates as Delta Force Operators & Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Tom Hardy, Ewan McGregor, Orlando Bloom, Jason Isaacs as Rangers were all noteworthy.

5) We Were Soldiers (2002): The movie starring Mel Gibson as US Army Lieutenant Colonel (LtCol) Moore & Sam Elliott as Sergeant Major Plumley dramatizes the Battle of Ia Drang on 14 November 1965. In 1954, the French Army's Group Mobile 100, is ambushed & wiped out by Viet Minh forces in the Ia Drang Valley during the First Indochina War. Viet Minh commander Nguyen Huu An orders his soldiers to "kill all they send, and they will stop coming." Eleven years later, LtCol Moore leads his newly-created Air Cavalry Bn of 400 men into the same Area of Operations where a captured enemy scout confesses, they are opposed by a veteran North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Division of 4,000 men who will seek to dispense the same fate as befell the French.

6) The Longest Day (1962): A true epic war film based on Cornelius Ryan's 1959 non-fiction book of the same name chronicling the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. The movie was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox, & was directed by Ken Annakin (British & French exteriors), Andrew Marton (American exteriors), & Bernhard Wicki (German scenes.) The film features a huge international ensemble cast that includes John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Steve Forrest, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Stuart Whitman, Rod Steiger, Richard Dawson, Gert Fröbe, Irina Demick (with her famous bike ride to distract the Germans guarding the bridge, she got the part the old Hollywood way courtesy of an affair with studio mogul/producer Zanuck, who cast her as an attractive member of the French Resistance), Curd Jürgens, George Segal, Robert Wagner, & Paul Anka. Many of these actors played roles that were essentially cameo appearances. My favorite snippet was Heinz Reincke playing German Ace Oberstleutnant (LtCol) Josef “Pips” Priller leading his wingman on a single strafing pass on Sword Beach in their Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8s all his command Jagdgeschwader 26 (Fighter Wing) could muster. After strafing run “Pips” tells his wingman “Head for Home! (Laughing) The Luftwaffe had had its great moment!”

7) A Bridge Too Far (1977): The second epic war film also based on a Cornelius Ryan book, this one directed by Lord Richard Attenborough. It depicts Operation Market Garden, a failed Allied operation through Nazi-occupied Netherlands in an attempt to open a direct route into Germany during WWII. It stars an all-star ensemble cast, featuring Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullmann. The plan to capture the bridges along the route proved too difficult including British Field Marshal Montgomery ignoring intelligence & dropping the 1st British Airborne Division on top of the reconstituting II Panzer Corps of both the 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen” & 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" ensuring its gallant destruction. MHT conducts an excellent Operation Market Garden & Invasion of Germany Tour.

8) The Hurt Locker (2008): This movie offers a tense & suspenseful look at a team disarming Improvised Explosive Devices during the Iraq War. Director Kathryn Bigelow gives the Hollywoodization of the physic toll on Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) troops. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, & Guy Pearce. The film follows an Iraq War EOD team who are targeted by insurgents & focuses on their psychological reactions to combat stress. Despite Iraq War veterans criticizing the film's depictions as inaccurate, movie critics praised Bigelow's directing by their votes leading to the Academy Awards for Best Picture & Best Director.

9) Hacksaw Ridge (2016): This WWII biographical Pacific War film was directed by Mel Gibson about conscientious objector Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a Seventh-day Adventist, who refused to use a weapon of any kind. Doss became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his service during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The strong supporting cast includes Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, & an excellent Vince Vaughn. New South Wales doubles as Okinawa as the actual battlefield had been overrun by the island’s urban development.

10) From Here to Eternity (1953): A romantic war drama directed by Fred Zinnemann based on the 1951 novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the tribulations of three United States Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, & Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr & Donna Reed portray the women in their lives. The film's title originates from Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Gentlemen-Rankers," about British Empire soldiers who had "lost [their] way" & were "damned from here to eternity".

Mini-series

Band of Brothers (2001): This miniseries, co-created by Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks is widely considered one of the best war dramas, the episodes follow the men of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from their training in the United States to the end of World War II in Europe. It is praised for its historical accuracy, magnificent cinematography & its focus on the soldier’s personal stories.

U.S. Navy Movies

1) Warfare (2025): A film written & directed by Ray Mendoza & Alex Garland, based on Mendoza's experiences during the Iraq War as a U.S. Navy (USN) SEAL. The film depicts an encounter he & his platoon experienced on 19 November 2006 after the Battle of Ramadi. The script is drawn from SEALs testimonies & is presented in almost real time. Rotten Tomatoes reported 93% of their 223 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus says it perfectly: "Narratively cut to the bone & geared up with superb filmmaking craft, “Warfare” evokes the primal terror of combat with unnerving power." The MHT Blog has our review: https://miltours.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=151

2) Run Silent, Run Deep (1958): Second only to Das Boot in submarine movies this film stars Clark Gable & Burt Lancaster. The title refers to "silent running", a submarine stealth tactic. The story accurately describes WWII submarine warfare in the Pacific Theater & deals with themes of vengeance, endurance, courage, loyalty, & honor, & how these can be tested by wartime stress. In addition to Gable & Lancaster playing the leads, the film also features Jack Warden & Don Rickles.

3) Lone Survivor (2013): Based on a true story, this film portrays the harrowing experience of a Navy SEAL team during 2005’s Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. Four Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) & "Axe" Axelson (Ben Foster) are inserted on a mission of surveillance to track down Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. It goes horribly wrong when the team is discovered by two local teenagers who the SEALs make the moral decision not to eliminate.

4) They Were Expendable (1945): This war film directed by the incomparable John Ford portrays the exploits of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three, a Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat unit defending the Philippines against the invading Imperial Japanese Forces during WWII’s Battle of the Philippines (1941–42.) LT "Brick" Brickley (Robert Montgomery) commands a squadron of agile but small & unproven USN PT boats. He puts on a daring demonstration of their maneuverability & fighting capabilities with the help of LTJG. “Rusty” Ryan (John Wayne) who when wounded begins a romance with strong-willed & wholesomely attractive Army nurse Sandy Davyss (Donna Reed), who a patient rates her allure as, "Eleven-thousand men can't be wrong."

5) Top Gun & Top Gun Maverick (1986 & 2022): Two massively successful films in their own right. "Top Gun" is a classic that captured the huge patriotic swell of the Reagan years, while "Top Gun: Maverick" saved a post Chinese Coronavirus movie industry with a sequel that builds upon the foundation of the original, with a better screenplay that foreshadows our recent Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran. The first film introduced us to the Navy's Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) that brought us starring roles for the F-14 Tomcat plus Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan & Tom Skerritt. The sequel brought back Tom Cruise plus Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris, & the final film for Val Kilmer. The critics hated the first film for what I’m sure those Beta men would call “toxic masculinity” but men & women flocked to the theaters making it the #1 box office film of the year while the Oscars honored the Vietnam fantasy “Platoon.” The second, despite getting people back to theaters & having a box office of 1.5 billion dollars , yes that is $1,500,000,000 it was bypassed for an independent absurdist comedy-drama that no one saw that explores philosophical themes such as existentialism, nihilism, surrealism, and absurdism, Neurodivergence, Depression, generational trauma, and Asian American identity. Skip those & see the two Top Guns again.

6) American Sniper (2014): Yet another superb, biographical war drama directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood that follows the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in US military history. Kyle became a deadly marksman with 255 terrorists killed from four tours in the Iraq War, 160 of which were officially confirmed by the Department of Defense. While Kyle was celebrated for his military successes, his tours of duty took a heavy toll on his personal & family life. Bradley Cooper as Kyle is superb & was robbed of an Academy Award by a boring British actor & Sienna Miller also did her finest work as Kyle’s wife Taya.

7) Midway (1976 & 2019): These two American war films chronicle the Battle of Midway, a turning point in WWII’s Pacific Theater of Operations. The 1976 film was directed by Jack Smight & starred Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda, supported by a large international cast of stars including James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Ed Nelson, Hal Holbrook, Robert Webber, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada & Tom Selleck. The more recent “Midway” was directed by Roland Emmerich (action veteran with Independence Day, White House Down, Godzilla, & The Patriot on his resume.) This film stars Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Tadanobu Asano, Darren Criss, and Woody Harrelson. The film was a passion project of Emmerich's but he found anti-hero Hollywood wanted nothing to do with it so he raised the funds on his own. With a production budget of $100 million, to date it is one of the most expensive independent films of all time & its box office take easily surpassed the budget. The Los Angeles Times gave the film the woke treatment "so square, so old-school & old-fashioned, it almost feels avant-garde", adding: "It aims to celebrate heroism, sacrifice, determination and grit, and if you don't like that it really does not care.” For those not woke brain-washed it is worth the watch!

8) Tears of the Sun (2003): Directed by Antoine Fuqua who has such action hits as Training Day, King Arthur, Shooter, Olympus Has Fallen, The Equalizer & The Magnificent Seven. The film depicts an eight-man U.S. Navy SEAL team amidst a fictitious 21st-century version of a civil war in Nigeria. Bruce Willis stars as the oldest Lieutenant in the Navy & commands the SEAL team sent on a rescue mission to extract U.S. citizen Monica Bellucci. She plays a physician on a Doctors Without Borders mission at a Christian jungle hospital. A coup d'état overthrows the President of Nigeria, sending the country into chaos & ethnic cleansing as the Muslim rebels try to eradicate the Christians. The rebel troops are led by Peter Mensah who makes a perfect villain as his men rape & kill all at the hospital & a village but need to catch the SEALs & those ambulatory patients they’re escorting. It is a race to the Cameroon border.

9) Flight of the Intruder (1991): John Milius directs the film version of the classic novel by Stephen Coonts about a Vietnam War, carrier-based USN A-6 Intruder all-weather attack bomber. A pilot schemes with a renegade veteran bombardier/navigator to “go downtown” making an unauthorized air strike on Hanoi. It stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Brad Johnson, & Rosanna Arquette. MHT has a detailed Blog on this film. https://miltours.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=84

10) Up Periscope (1959): A U.S. Navy frogman infiltrates a Japanese-held island during WWII. LTJG Kenneth Braden (James Garner) is inserted by the gruff submarine captain, CDR Paul Stevenson (Edmond O'Brien), who worries about his crew including the always solid Alan Hale Jr. as Ensign Pat Malone. Garner also tries to mirror Burt Lancaster’s famous Hawaiian beach love scene with new girlfriend & intelligence officer Sally Johnson (Andra Martin)

11) Devotion (2022)/The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954): Here are two Korean War films the first is an important biographical war film based on the 2015 book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, & Sacrifice by Adam Makos, which tells of the comradeship between naval aviators Ensign Jesse L. Brown (Jonathan Majors) & LTJG Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) during the Korean War. The film was directed by J. D. Dillard & had good critical reviews with its example of racial brotherhood in a military environment may not have been well-received during a time of an administration promoting racial divisiveness. The second is a classic based on a James A. Michener novel, who spent time aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex off Korea. It deals with William Holden as Navy fighter pilot LT Harry Brubaker flying the Grumman F9F-2 Panther being summoned back to active duty by the Navy & has to fly a dangerous bombing mission. It includes an agreeable love story with Grace Kelly as his wife Nancy, including a comic cultural confusion in a Japanese bath house between their family & a local one where bathing attire is not customary. Supporting cast is frankly excellent with Fredric March as the Admiral, Robert Strauss as Beer Barrel, & Mickey Rooney & Earl Holliman as a stand out helicopter rescue team.

Courtroom Drama Films

The Caine Mutiny (1954): The film’s title refers to both the 1951 novel (by Herman Wouk that won the Pulitzer Prize) & the 1954 film, both which explore themes of leadership, duty, & the psychological effects of war aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer minesweeper during WWII. The story centers on the crew's mutiny against their unstable captain, LCDR Queeg, (Humphrey Bogart) and the subsequent court-martial of the officers involved.

A Few Good Men (1992): This naval courtroom drama is based on Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play & directed by Rob Reiner. It stars an all-star ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J. T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., & Kiefer Sutherland. The plot follows the court-martial of two U.S. Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay & the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare to try the case. It received acclaim for the acting for Cruise, Nicholson, & Moore. It grossed more than $243 million on a budget of $40 million, & was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

1) Full Metal Jacket (1987): Stanley Kubrick's take on the Vietnam War follows quick-witted Private Davis (Matthew Modine), quickly christened "Joker" by his prototypical Drill Instructor (played by R. Lee Ermey who edges out Jack Webb from 1957’s “The D.I.” & trounces Academy Award winner Lou Gossett Jr. from 1982’s “An Officer & a Gentlemen”), & fat-body Private Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio), nicknamed "Gomer Pyle," as they endure the rigors of recruit training to be U.S. Marines. Though Pyle takes a frightening detour, Joker graduates to wear the Eagle, Globe & Anchor, is sent to Vietnam as an combat correspondent, covering & eventually participating in the bloody Battle of Hué City during the Tet Offensive.

2) Sands of Iwo Jima (1949): The definitive WWII classic, this movie starring John Wayne (nominated for an Academy Award as Sergeant Stryker) follows his Marine squad through rigorous training & the brutal fighting on Tarawa & the deadly black sands of Iwo Jima. It's the touchstone for its powerful portrayal of the Marine brotherhood & sacrifice. The Marine Corps lent the production the actual flag raised on Mount Suribachi during the battle for its filming of the legendary flag raising. Due to the film’s success “The Duke” was invited to place his footprints in cement outside Hollywood’s fabled Grauman's Chinese Theater & actual black sand was flown from Iwo Jima to Hollywood & mixed into the cement in which he left his boot prints & "fist print."

3) Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima (2006): Clint Eastwood’s first Iwo film tells the story of the six men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima according to the book of the same name focusing on their experiences during & after the battle. The second film is told from the perspective of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) & Navy troops left below the island’s surface in the caves to die as slowly & kill as many U.S. Marines & sailors as possible. Both provide a poignant look at the human cost of war & the lasting impact on those who fought in this epic struggle.

4) Heartbreak Ridge (1986): The third of Clint’s trilogy in this poll features a hard-nosed, hard-living Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (Starring & directed by Eastwood) who clashes with a superior & his ex-wife (Marsha Mason) as he takes command of an underperforming & disobedient reconnaissance platoon with a bad attitude. Like the legendary Sgt Stryker he has to impart his knowledge & discipline to his Marines before it is needed in battle.

5) The Great Santini (1979): A classic comedy-drama film written & directed by Lewis Carlino. It is based on the 1976 novel by noted southern author Pat Conroy. LtCol Bull Meechum (played magnificently by Robert Duvall) is a great F-4 Phantom II fighter pilot, so great that he has been dubbed "The Great Santini." While his take-no-prisoners attitude & willingness to fight has served him well in the Marine Corps, he's unable to turn it off in peacetime when home with his family. Eventually his competitive nature & abusive behavior take their toll on his relationships with his wife (Blythe Danner) & his 18-year-old son (Michael O'Keefe.)

6) Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957): During WWII, an American Marine (Robert Mitchum) & an Irish nun (Deborah Kerr) form an unlikely friendship after being stranded on a South Pacific Island. They find comfort in one another while hoping for a rescue, but they must avoid being captured by the IJA soldiers. Famed director John Huston does his usual great job.

7) Flying Leathernecks (1951): Major Daniel Kirby (John Wayne), leads a squadron of Grumman F4F Wildcats during the historic WWII battle of Guadalcanal. The movie details the exploits & personal battles of United States Marine Corps aviators during WWII. Kirby as the new commanding officer, a stern & strict leader, cannot believe the lack of discipline exhibited by his Marines. As the men resist Kirby's harsh adherence to orders, Captain Carl Griffin (Robert Ryan) politics for a more relaxed environment. However, by pushing his men beyond their limits, Kirby slowly transforms them into elite battle-ready warriors by forcing all of them to make sacrifices along the way. As indicated in the opening scene of the film, Howard Hughes, himself a pilot very interested in aviation, bankrolled the production. Hughes made the decision to film in Technicolor, making use of color wartime combat footage. Wayne’ character is based on John Lucian Smith (26 December 1914 – 9 June 1972) an American Medal of Honor recipient & Marine Corps flying ace who, as commanding officer of VMF-223, shot down 19 Japanese planes leading his squadron in the destruction of 83 enemy aircraft during the Solomon Islands Campaign.

8) In Love & War (1958): A stark reminder of the incompatibility of love & war & the often-tragic results of their combination. About half of the film is all about relationships between three Marines (Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, & Bradford Dillman) on shore leave in San Francisco & their sweethearts (Dana Wynter, Hope Lange, Sheree North & France Nuyen), four very different characters with very different backgrounds, as are their Marines. The second half is dominated by the Pacific War, with great technical advising helps depicting the Marines arduous hardships & their unimaginable heroic efforts & deeds. You get a very extensive & clear picture of what the war in the Pacific was really like. The four ladies encounter the ordinary fates of female civilian victims during the war, one is widowed with a child, while another spirals downward into an alcohol tragedy, and no one gets out of it unscathed. It is beautifully photographed & filmed in lush colors. It is well worth the watch.

9) Battle Cry (1955): The film is based on 1953’s extraordinary novel of the same name by former Marine Leon Uris, who also wrote the screenplay, that was produced & directed by Raoul Walsh. It has an all-star cast including Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Nancy Olson, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone (whose change into a bathing suit is famous), Raymond Massey, & Fess Parker. The film was shot at Camp Pendleton, CA & featured a large amount of cooperation from the Marine Corps. Here is the greatest excerpt from Uris’s book, Battle Cry, 1953, Putnam, Page 468 (Note: On Red Beach One, Saipan, beloved LtCol "High Pockets" Huxley, Commanding Officer 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment has been KIA, casualties are high & the IJA has launched a Banzai charge to drive the Marines into the sea): "As the stunned Marines braced for the death they knew must come, Captain “Two Gun” Shapiro stepped in front of them, his two pistols smoking, He turned to his Marines and over the din they heard a gristly shriek from his lips. 'Blood!' he cried. Max Shapiro sank to his knees, his pistols empty. He threw them at the enemy, 'Blood' he screamed, 'Blood!' The men of Huxley's Whores were petrified. A legend was broken. The invincible Captain, the man bullets could not touch, the man they believed was almost divine, lay there writhing in agony the same as any human being. The blood gushed from his mouth & ears & nose & he rolled over defiantly, trying to crawl to his enemy to kill them with bare hands, the same ghastly word on his lips. Was he human after all? Did he not realize that something must be done to elevate his men to a task beyond human capabilities? Was it his God who sent him forward to sacrifice himself? Or was Max Shapiro merely a mad dog, full of a glorious madness? Huxley's Whores rose to the heights of their dead captain. They no longer resembled human beings. Savage beyond all savagery, murderous beyond murder, they shrieked, 'BLOOD!' 'BLOOD!' ... 'BLOOD!' The enemy," who were mere mortals, fell back." The MHT hotel on Saipan is on one of the invasion beaches with a Sherman Tank still sitting in the surf zone, walk the beaches on the Victory in the Pacific Tour.

10) Rules of Engagement (2000): William Friedkin directs a taunt military legal drama. Col Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) is a 30-year veteran, a decorated Marine officer with combat experience in Vietnam, Beirut & Desert Storm. However, the country he served so well has court martialed him for a rescue mission in Yemen that went terribly wrong. For his attorney, he has chosen Marine Col Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), a comrade-in-arms who owes his life to Childers when both were Lieutenants in Vietnam.

Mini-series

The Pacific (2010): This 10-part HBO miniseries follows the intertwined journeys of three WWII U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theater; PFCs Robert Leckie (Helmet For My Pillow), Eugene Sledge (With the Old Breed: At Peleliu & Okinawa) & Medal of Honor recipient SGT John Basilone, from their first battle against the IJA on Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Peleliu, across the sands of Iwo Jima & the horror of Okinawa, to their ultimately triumphant return after V-J Day. The producing team behind "The Pacific," including Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg, the duo that also was behind HBO's award-winning miniseries "Band of Brothers."

Generation Kill (2008): This HBO seven-part miniseries offers a realistic look at the experiences of a Marine reconnaissance platoon (2nd Plat, Bravo Co, 1st Recon Bn during the 2003 Iraq invasion.)

MHT Blog Archive

07/23/2025 – MHT’s Military Movie Reviews

05/30/2025 – MHT Movie Review of “Warfare”

03/23/2025 – The Battles of Fallujah

12/22/2024 – JFK & The Andrew Jackson

12/03/2024 – Guam MHT’s Favorite Basecamp

09/09/2024 – Rocket Ramblings

07/16/2024 – MHT’s Top 10 Iconic Photographs

06/28/2024 - 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima

06/04/2024 – Discovering PT-109

05/01/2024 – The Space Marines in “Aliens”

03/30/2024 – MHT’s Top 10 War Comic Books