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The question of whether it's actually possible to make a true anti-war film has, without hyperbole, hovered over the entire history of film, without ever quite being answered to satisfaction. What makes it a tricky imbroglio is that the very idea of anti-war filmmaking presupposes that a film will be going against one of the core tenets of commercial cinema: The mission to thrill, entertain, and satisfy viewers. To be truly anti-war, a movie can't stop at just paying lip service to the idea that war is a bad thing whose professed heroics are an illusion; it has to actually live that idea, inhabit it in its very emotional charge, making an active effort to not glorify combat or naturalize war's dehumanizing emotional logic by wringing catharsis from its trials and triumphs. And, by nature, any such movie will be some degree of unsatisfying, if not outright hostile to the viewer.

War is a living nightmare, wreaking its destruction on innocent lives and civilizations. It casts deep wounds that shape our history, present circumstances, and potential prospects for the future.

War has been a central theme in all of human history since its inception. It inspires both captivation and terror, with stories of bravery, resilience, and courage, as well as violence and death. It is the peak of danger – where any semblance of safety or security ceases to exist for those who fight. All that remains are humanity’s yearning for survival against insurmountable odds.

Hollywood has no shortage of war films meant to both awe and educate. Some promote the best humanity can offer as people come together for a common cause. Others reveal the horrific truth behind conflict’s brutality and man’s capacity for harm on an unimaginable scale.

Here is the ultimate fan selection of the top...

The director of this unblinking account of the genocide in Belarus in 1942 and 1943 said that “people in America can’t watch my film. They have thrillers but this is something different.” He certainly got that right. A young farm boy is a witness to and victim of horrendous barbarism inflicted on a civilian population… now the most common kind of terror. The Politburo wanted a film to commemorate Victory Day, and director Elem Klimov gave them something nobody would forget. Although cinema gut-wrenchers have gone much further in the last 25 years, Kilmov’s unforgettable horrorshow rivets us through the haunted, paralyzed face of young actor Aleksei Kravchenko, who can scarcely process what he sees.

Come and See

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1035

1985 / Color / 1:37 / 143 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 30, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas, Evgeniy Tilicheev, Viktors Lorencs, J¨ri Lumiste.

Cinematography: Alexei...

Accompanied by a younger friend, Belarusian teenager Florya digs through the sandy trenches that now pepper his native land. The boys scavenge for a weapon of some sort, a gun that might bolster their chances of acceptance into the partisan resistance against invading Nazi forces. Unearthing the paraphernalia of war’s remnants—helmets, radios, other discarded portents of recent death—the youth also mimic the crude language of an older individual, Florya’s uncle. In this fleeting moment of innocent enthusiasm, a preliminary indication of the innocence soon lost and irrevocably shattered, the two are excited by the possibilities of potential engagement. Though it’s not likely to diminish anyway, it’s nevertheless imperative that this early exhibition of juvenile conduct remains fixed in the mind for the duration of Come and See (Idi i smotri), Elem Klimov’s staggering 1985 anti-war epic, for all that transpires in the principally adult realm of ruination to come,...

War is hell, for sure, but war can make for undeniably brilliant movie-making. Here, the Guardian and Observer's critics pick the ten best

• Top 10 action movies

• Top 10 comedy movies

• Top 10 horror movies

• Top 10 sci-fi movies

• Top 10 crime movies

• Top 10 arthouse movies

• Top 10 family movies

10. Where Eagles Dare

As the second world war thriller became bogged down during the mid-60s in plodding epics like Operation Crossbow and The Heroes of Telemark, someone was needed to reintroduce a little sang-froid, some post-Le Carré espionage, and for heaven's sake, some proper macho thrills into the genre. Alistair Maclean stepped up, writing the screenplay and the novel of Where Eagles Dare simultaneously, and Brian G Hutton summoned up a better than usual cast headed by Richard Burton (Major Jonathan Smith), a still fresh-faced Clint Eastwood (Lieutenant Morris Schaffer), and the late Mary Ure (Mary Elison).

Parachuted into the German Alps, they have one...