Panthera tigris altaica

Of this list, I would have to say Hamburger Hill and Full Metal Jacket are my favorites with an honorable mention for We Were Soldiers. Just to be fair to other nationalities besides the US, i think their contributions ought to be noted mainly because it involved other countries as well, aside from the US.

Vietnam War in film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vintersorg

I love all of these above, but if I have to pick one, I'll say Full metal Jacket.
Wenge and Jake10's choices are also excellent movies

Gile na Gile

Not only is it 'about' that war but Coppola's movie is explicitly anti-Vietnam with the screenplay commissioned in 1969 at the height of anti-war protests. The implied parallel with Leopold's notorious rape of the Congo couldn't make this more obvious. As he said himself; 'this movie isn't about Vietnam, it is Vietnam'.

All the viewer is required to do is substitute the dire underbelly of 19th c European colonisation exposed by Conrad with all it's disastrous outcomes for the natives concerned for a latter day presumptive American interventionism and it's corresponding destruction of South Vietnam. See especially the scene where an entire village complex is cluster bombed just to make way for a soldier's surfing paradise. If that doesn't amount to a critique of misguided chauvinistic intervention I don't know what does.

Amazingly, these scenes with Duval's ludricously over the top and gung-ho "I love the smell of napalm" character is taken in some quarters to be a glorious justification of war as in film critic Frank Tomasulo; “the U.S. foisting its culture on Vietnam, including the destruction of a village so that soldiers could surf, affirms the film's pro-war message".

Of the anti-war message Coppola says “...the fact that a culture can lie about what's really going on in warfare, that people are being brutalized, tortured, maimed, and killed, and somehow present this as moral is what horrifies me, and perpetuates the possibility of war”.

What lies is he talking about? Gulf of Tonkin, bombing of Cambodia, use of Agent Orange? Who knows as he doesn't specify but he seems pretty peeved at something.

That said, it's only a movie at the end of the day and funnily enough suffers from the same defects that Conrad's novella did; ie the inability to depict native Congolese or Vietnamese as anything beyond two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. A pretty distasteful implication when it's only through contact with the native as unembellished 'Other' that one slips into the so-called 'heart of darkness' - dragged down to their level as it were.

bartieboy

Im a good old doors fan... I don't have a choice

NewModelSoldier

Platoon for me. Apocalypse Now is a brilliant movie but because of the specific and fantastic nature of the story, I don't find it is necessarily what Vietnam would be like, but I could be wrong. To be honest, the Vietnam War had so many dimensions to it, a soldier could be serving in the cities or be doing a Seek and Destroy, having absolutely different tours of duty. Deerhunter is phenomonal, but the thing I find with most Vietnam movies is that they have an agenda, and with Platoon, it's the life of the grunts. There's no politics, no inherent anti-war ideology, and it was written and directed by someone who was actually in Vietnam, which is helpful.

dagul

I like "Full Metal Jacket" a lot, but I voted for "Hamburger Hill" as the the best.

markdienekes

Full Metal Jacket and Platoon for me. Sadly, I've never really been a fan of Apocalypse Now at all...

jeroenrottgering

All good, but I have to go with Platoon.

Jake10

What was the name of that movie where a group of soldiers in Vietnam form a soccer team? If they wanted to stay away from battle they just needed to go around losing, but they chose to win instead?

Crowned Prince

Is Full Metal Jacket anti-war or pro-war? Stanley Kubrick intended to make an anti-war film, but the movie is like a recruitment film for the marines. People see the movie, then are inspired to join the service.