War may be hell, but it's also a Hollywood staple.

Especially World War II. More than 300 films have been made about "the last good war," stretching from the battle front to the home front and back again. The movies have taken us into the foxholes of Europe, the death camps and the island-by-island struggle in the Pacific. They've celebrated heroism and debunked it, too, smeared us with the blood of the fallen and saluted those who served far behind the lines. We've seen the absurdity of war as well as its glory, 24 frames per second.

SERGIO STRIZZI/Miramax (ENLARGE)
Giorgio Cantarini, Roberto Benigni and Nicoletta Braschi cope with concentration camp existence in "Life Is Beautiful."
Associated Press (ENLARGE)
The SS' Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) encounters Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davitdz, second from left) in "Schindler's List."
DAVID JAMES/Dream Works (ENLARGE)
The D-Day invasion of Normandy is re-created in harrowing detail in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan."
MOST POPULAR STORIES Lisa Marie Presley gives birth to twins Jolie says Pitt changed her mind about pregnancy Boxed set shines light on legendary Cash prison show Electro-pop, soul and Mexican rock coming up What's the weirdest thing Angelina Jolie has done?
EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR

With Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima epic, "Flags of Our Fathers," opening Friday, here's a look at some WWII film classics — some everyone should know, and several less-famous titles that AJC movie writers Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Bob Longino and Steve Murray suggest should be on anyone's must-see list:

FROM EPIC TO ESOTERIC: 21 MUST-SEE MOVIES

"Lifeboat" (1944) — Talk about a microcosm of the war. Hitchcock's claustrophobic at-sea drama finds survivors from a sunken vessel — six men and three women (one being Tallulah Bankhead at the top of her game) — in the same small boat with a German seaman from the attacking U-boat. (BL)

"Attack!" (1956) — Robert Aldrich ("The Dirty Dozen") directed this powerful picture about the clash between a cowardly, well-connected captain (Eddie Albert) and his heroic underling (Jack Palance). Not so much anti-war as it is a critique of a military bureaucracy perpetuating privilege and self-interest. (ERG)

"The Elusive Corporal" (1962)— Jean-Pierre Cassel ("Army of Shadows") stars in Jean Renoir's tale of a raffish Frenchman determined to escape and escape and escape again from a POW camp. Think Steve McQueen without his motorcycle. (ERG)

"How I Won the War" (1967) The moptop magic was already fading for John Lennon when he undertook this absurdist black comedy with Richard Lester, who'd directed the Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" Lennon is part of a British squad ordered to build a cricket pitch on the front lines. (ERG)

"Catch 22" (1970) — Worse than hell, war is insane in this effective comedy based on novelist Joseph Heller's unsettling parody of bureaucracy, about a bombardier (Alan Arkin) maniacally trying to be certified bonkers. It depicts war as anti-heroic. (BL)

"The Tin Drum" (1979) — In response to the craziness of the prewar world around him, a young Polish boy (David Bennent) wills himself not to grow up in Volker Schlöndorff's gripping, gruesome version of the Günter Grass novel. (SM)

"The Big Red One" (1980) — Rummaging through his old soldier's trunk, B-movie master Sam Fuller brings us the blood and guts, hold the glory, of the grunts' war. Lee Marvin leads some raw recruits (including Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill) through hell, high water and beyond. (ERG)

"Das Boot" (1981) —One of the greatest sea films of all time, director Wolfgang Petersen's tale of a German submarine crew led by Jürgen Prochnow is aptly claustrophic, overtly tense and technically proficient. (BL)

"Eye of the Needle" (1981) — Kate Nelligan, as an Englishwoman on an isolated isle, and Donald Sutherland, as a German spy in hiding, become not only lovers but a microcosm of the war in Europe in this beautifully acted, gripping thriller. Filmed by Welsh director Richard Marquand, who later made "The Return of the Jedi." (BL)

"Mephisto" (1981) — This tale of a bedeviled ham is about a naive but egotistical provincial actor (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who ends up the toast of Nazi Berlin, but then finds out what it's like to make a deal with a real devil. (ERG)

"Night of the Shooting Stars" (1982) — A child's-eye-view of war, the Taviani Brothers' masterpiece follows a group of Italian villagers who defy the native fascist Black Shirts and head into the countryside, looking for the American soldiers. Filled with magic realism and devastating, sudden bursts of violence. (SM)

"Shoah" (1985) —A stunning, detailed documentary of the Holocaust that lasts, like, forever (really, nearly 10 hours) and includes interviews with survivors and witnesses. Particularly chilling are the revelations about efficient Germans making sure the trains carrying the victims to death camps ran on time. (BL)

"Empire of the Sun" (1987) — Another child's- eye-view of the war, and the child is a young Christian Bale in Steven Spielberg's film. Separated from his parents in Shanghai, he's interned with other Europeans in a Japanese camp. Uneven but held together by young Bale's remarkable performance. (SM)

"Hope and Glory" (1987) — John Boorman's comic yet poignant memoir of life in London during the Blitz is filtered through the sensibility of a perceptive 9-year-old and the perpetual chaos of childhood priorities. (ERG)

"Europa Europa" (1990) — Director Agnieszka Holland's fact-based tale of a Jewish boy separated from his family echoes "Empire of the Sun" but with a dash of absurdity. The boy (Marco Hofschneider) hides his identity by joining Nazi Youth — but especially has to hide something else: his circumcised penis. (SM)

"Stalingrad" (1993) — A grueling look at the war from the German side, centered on the disastrous Russian front. German director Joseph Vilsmaier captures the starkness of war, its surreal moments of beauty and insanity, in a movie that includes epic scenes David Lean might admire. (SM)

"The Thin Red Line" (1998) — Director Terrence Malick's lusciously filmed and heady account of Guadalcanal is war as Rorschach ink blot, with a steady stream of recognizable stars — Nick Nolte, John Travolta, George Clooney, Jim Caviezel and Senn Penn, for starters — contemplating evil, conflict and military politics. (BL)

"Malèna" (2000) — "Cinema Paradiso" director Giuseppe Tornatore's movie starts off as a fantasia about a young Italian boy's crush on a local beauty (Monica Bellucci). But what could be a Mediterranean "Porky's" deepens into a moving reminder of the sacrifices the women left behind had to make, to survive, in the war. (SM)

"Bon Voyage" (2003) — The evacuation of Paris as German soldiers roar in is depicted as a cast-of-thousands farce, which gradually grows more and more serious. The cast includes Gérard Depardieu and a hilarious Isabelle Adjani as an actress who's the last word in selfish divas. (SM)

"Downfall" (2004) — Actor Bruno Ganz provides a dizzying, near-perfect portrayal of Adolf Hitler in director Oliver Hirschbiegel's in-the-bunker tale of the Nazi dictator's final days. (BL)

"Fateless" (2005) —With its relentless catalogue of the daily horrors endured by those sentenced to the living death of the concentration camps, this movie challenges "Schindler's List" for turf rights to one of the most appalling events in human history. (ERG)

HOLLYWOOD'S WWII CLASSICS

"Casablanca" (1942) — Bogie and Bergman will always have Paris. And we'll always have Bogie and Bergman.

"Mrs. Miniver" (1942) — Greer Garson embodies Britain's collective stiff upper lip during the Blitz.

"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) — A trio of soldiers learn coming home can be just as hard as going to war.

"Twelve O'Clock High" (1949) — Gregory Peck stars in a high-flying tale of the Air Force's heroic raids over Germany.

"From Here to Eternity" (1953) — Set in Hawaii on the eve of Pearl Harbor, this Oscar winner stars Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959) — The most famous diary, perhaps, in history, kept by an idealistic young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis.

"The Longest Day" (1962) — A sweeping epic about D-Day, it stars Henry Fonda, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.

"The Great Escape" (1963) — Steve McQueen and his motorcycle. Plus Charles Bronson, James Garner and James Coburn, digging their way to freedom.

"Battle of the Bulge" (1965) — Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Robert Shaw and Telly Savalas invade Germany in the bitter winter of 1944.

"The Dirty Dozen" (1967) — Tough-guy Lee Marvin trains the titular assortment of murderers to be crack soldiers.

"The Sorrow and the Pity" (1969) — A stunning documentary about the French Resistance and the Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis.

"Patton" (1970) — George C. Scott won — and declined — an Oscar for his portrayal of the controversial general.

"Schindler's List" (1993) — Steven Spielberg's tribute to the real-life German manufacturer who saved Jews from the Nazis by employing them in his factory.

"Life Is Beautiful" (1997) — Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning film about a father who clowns around in a concentration camp to keep his little boy's spirits up.

"Saving Private Ryan" (1998) — Spielberg's D-Day landing at Normandy is probably the most harrowing 20 minutes ever committed to film.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie