My dad fought in the Battle Of The Bulge. 747th Tank Division. He rarely talked about it. He said the movie did a disservice to the men who died. He sadly passed in 2014. A genuine hero.
My wife's grandfather Charlie fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured twice. One of the times, he was attempting to play dead by hiding in a pile of the bodies of his buddies. A German soldier thought he saw him move, so he fired a rifle shot next to his ear causing him to flinch. He wore a hearing aid the rest of his life because of it. To say that they treated him poorly would've been an understatement! At least they tourniquetted his leg to keep the gunshot wound he received in battle from bleeding out. I saw firsthand his PTSD. For instance, he hated the noise from fireworks displays. He died in 2012. RIP Charlie Lyman.
Clonetrooper1139, the Director 's cut was posted here on TH-cam for quite a while. Im not sure if it still is though. I've watched a couple of times here but I haven't for awhile so I'm not sure if it's still up or not.
The 13th Warrior. It is my understanding that Michael Crichton was the director (and author of the book that it was based on, "Eaters of the Dead") and flubbed it. Another director was brought in to salvage it, but Michael had done his damage. Still... I have watched it at least ten times and several scenes still bring tears to my eyes or chills down my spine. A great movie!!
Eaters of the Dead is claimed by Crichton to be something he wrote to prove the core story of Beowulf was based. Not sure if he succeeded or not. Not read Eaters. Seen the movie. Didn't hate it, but only watched it once.
Come And See is maybe the greatest war movie ever made, i think it's on youtube. Kelly's Heroes is one of my favourite ever movies Stalingrad is brilliant
Stalingrad is one of the best Eastern Front movies because the Germans do such a great job of portraying the grim realities of war. Das Boot and Downfall are another two examples.
"Battle of the Bulge" has so much inaccuracy in it it bears no relationship with history so historians avoided it. It is more like a fictional battle than the actual Battle of the Bulge. For all the money and stellar acting in the movie it just falls flat even to this day. It is a lot like "Pearl Harbor" which is about a fictional War situation where two men fought over the same woman and one of them had sex with her in a parachute packing facility (insert joke here). Movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Battle of the Bulge" are not about history, they are soap operas with war backgrounds.
I think that "Battle of the Bulge", and some other movies, were trying to replicate the success of "The Longest Day". What the film makers missed was that that film was based on the actual experiences of men who fought in the battle. "Battle of the Bulge" wasn't. So it ended up as just another so-called "adventure" film, with stereotypical characters and a frankly stupid plot.
Henry Fonda role was particularly nauseating; "Henry's a smart college boy so he knows better than those stupid army guys. Talk about a gateway from WW2 to Robert McNamara and his merry band of moronic, know-nothing useful bean counters.
The most ridiculous scene in The Bulge was when Henry Fonda was taking reconnaissance pictures of the Germans from a plane. The developed pictures are close-up ground level shots.
The film made $11.7 million Australian in 1980s money and then $5m US. This is at a time when Australian movies were lucky to even be shown overseas. Remember Mad Max was redubbed cause the US distributors thought the accents were too thick for American viewers to understand. So yes. Gallipoli - Not a flop and EXTREMELY well regarded. The 'Steel Springs' line still sticks with me and I haven't seen this movie in decades. This list is chalk.
What a film costs to make and what it costs to present to an audience are not the same. "Major studio movies - The average cost to produce a major studio movie is around $65 million, but marketing adds another $35 million or so. " "Small-budget movies - A $15 million film might have a promotional budget that is higher than its production budget. " Then you have the ones the studio knows is sh!t but hypes it to convince people (kids) to attend. "The Barbie movie - The marketing budget for Barbie was $150 million, which was more than the $145 million it cost to make the film."
The movie - and the calculated insult to Britain that it constituted - was so controversial in the UK that it was discussed in parliament, leading to the filmmakers being forced to add a disclaimer on the end of them film declaring that it's a work of fiction and that it was the Royal Navy thyat actually captured the Enigma machine if they wanted to show it in the UK.
I think his selection method was they had to be 'underrated' and 'flops'. So Master and Commander fails on both as everyone says it is awesome and it did make money. GI Jane? Flop? Yeah. Underrated? Ummm... NO. It won Razzies. That movie is rated where it needs to be.
U-571 is not an "underrated" war movie - it's a travesty of breathtaking arrogance. It brazenly appropriates another country's history and brutally Americanizes it. The existence of this movie demonstrates utter contempt for the United Kingdom and its achievements in the war, not to mention smearing the history of the real U-571 as well. U-571 was a Type VII-C boat run by a professional crew. It sank five ships and damaged three more before being sunk with all hands in 1944 by depth charges dropped by an Australian flying boat. For the cherry on the cake, the enigma machine was captured from U-110 by crewmen from corvette HMS Bulldog, a name that couldn't really be more British. In other words, the movie "U-571" can go **** itself.
I can only agree ! I remember the release of U-571 and wondered at the time when the follow-up movie showcasing the US victory in the Battle of Britain would be shown.
Years ago I saw the video/DVD of U-571 on sale at the Australian War Memorial shop. Maybe the staff didn't know this movie was complete BS, but they should have. It's their job.
I was disappointed to see GI Jane here. It's not a war movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather it's nothing but a another shallow woke self-serving Demi Moore project designed to feed her giant vanity. It's so unrealistic that it makes the Shaw/Fonda Battle of the Bulge disaster look realistic. Neither flick belongs on this list.
A lot of it is TIMING. "Kelly's Heroes" might have done better if it'd come out two years earlier, but by 1970, with the American public weary of both the Vietnam War itself and the protests, "War", even in a semi-comedic (more sardonic) heist film in a WWII setting, just wasn't something that folks flocked to movie theaters to see. It got its "legs" in endless reruns on TV, especially with tank enthusiasts.
13th Warrior is one of my favorite movies. It's just a shame that it came out the same summer as Star Wars Phantom Menace and Austin Powers spy who shagged me. I truly believe it should have done better in the box office. I watched it a few months ago and it still holds up beautifully.
It was a movie from the Soviet Union during late stages of the Cold War. Though a masterpiece and classic, it might have been shown in five theaters in the US the year of its release, so its US box office reciepts were going to be tiny.
PATHS OF GLORY (1957) Even before filming began Kirk Douglas knew this WW1 epic would flop. Yet he told director Stanley Kubrick "This film won't make a nickel but it still has to be made!"
"Hamburger Hill" is to war genre, as "Homicide: Life on the Streets" is to series TV. Hill paved the way for Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers/War in the Pacific, and other 'reality' based war movies. Homicide showcases a never-before-seen and unflattering portrayal of "cops and robbers," detailed in The Corner/Wire.
Compare "Battle of the Bulge" to the vastly superior "Battleground" and you will notice one striking difference- the weather conditions! Good lord, where was the freaking snow in the former? In the latter it was all done on a massive soundstage but looked so much more authentic. "Windtalkers" was single-handedly sunk by Nicolas Cage's awful performance. "U-571" was all flash and no substance, the "Mermphis Belle" of submarine movies. A series of impossible escapes piled one after the other. "Flags of Our Fathers" pales in comparison to the truly great "Letters From Iwo Jima" mainly due to the terrific acting by the Japanese cast. "Johnny Got His Gun", "Hamburger Hill", "Jarhead", "Gallipoli", "Come and See" and "The Thin Red Line" are all excellent-to-great films. Most of these war films are downers. which is most likely why the bombed at the box office. Most overlooked war film? "Go Tell The Spartans".
Or TV revenue. Kelly's Heros was a staple of TV movies for most of the 70s. Even with the numbers given, it was the 25th most revenue producing movie worldwide the year of its release.
@13:30 - You may also be interested to know that the film "Enemy Below," 1957, which did win an Oscar for special effects, was based on a book by a British author involving British naval personnel. However, the film depicts an American navy ship chasing a German U-boat.
Cage is not protecting the code talker, he's protecting the code. I went to basic training & AIT with one of the code talkers in the movie, Roger Willie. D-2/54. He was our house mouse in 4th plt.
@@clarkwilson6340 Soviet cinema wasn't on the same wavelength as Hollywood. Not after hits and box office. But Come & See is a great film, admired by just about everyone.
I couldn’t get into it. Disjointed is a good description. I don’t mind a little introspection, but I couldn’t finish watching it. I thought When Trumpets Fade was better.
Malick’s approach does seem very disjointed. But the way he pieces his scenes (if you can even call them that) together in the editing room removes a lot of the chronology. His films always seemed very open ended to me, to where you can pick up and leave off in different places throughout and it wouldn’t defer or detract from his central themes and messages
“One of the greatest war movies of all time.” What determines greatness? Casting? Historical realism or honesty? Dramatic scenes? Special effects? Dialogue? Quirky iconic moments? What makes a war film great? Midway or Pearl? Hands down Midway. The Alamo with John Wayne or The Alamo with Billy Bob Thornton? Most war movies about modern war are fraught with politics.
At the time, they also interviewed Hasso Von Manteuffel, the German commander of the 5th Panzer Army during the battle, and he basically confirmed that the movie as an historical account is an abomination. But of course anyone with even a basic understanding of the battle knows this intuitively. The movie was about entertaining American audiences first and foremost.
I remember finding Scott's direction of the combat sequence in "GI Jane" strangely shot and not terribly exciting. He did much better with "Black Hawk Down."
"Gallipoli" was a major box office hit in its native country of Australia, and its North American take was respectable. I didn't see "Kelly's Heroes" until about 30 years after its release, and I didn't like it at all. The characters aren't fighting for any righteous cause, they're just out for themselves. The Donald Sutherland character, a 1970 caricature planted in a 1945 setting, makes no sense at all. Telly Savalas reportedly turned down "Patton" to take his role in this movie.
I recently saw GI Jane for the first time, very good movie and reasonably accurately depicts the day to day life of a BUDs sailor's journey through one of the toughest training courses in the world.
I didn't care for Thin Red Line when I first watched it. But it was playing on HBO and when I surfed channels I would stumble across it and had to watch. Now it is one of my favorites.
Best on the list: "Come and See" is a masterpiece. It really is more than just a motion picture. I also very much like "Kelly's Heroes" and "Thin Red Line." And in the third-tier, still good and worth a watch: "Hamburger Hill" and "Gallipoli," though the latter does a disservice to the British. Filmmakers Peter Weir, David Williamson, Robert Stigwood, and Patricia Lovell simply lie, accusing the British of sacrificing Australian lives to save their own, making up facts to serve this argument; but "Gallipoli" is still a good film even if it is anti-Pom propaganda. I've never seen "Stalingrad" or "Hotel Rwanda," reportedly both good films. Worst are "Windtalkers" in which the Nicholas Cage character has orders to murder the Navajo codetalker Adam Beach if he's in danger of being captured; B.S. and a bad film. I read the book "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford and the guy was a stereotypical buddyf***er; in one scene he's in any empty squad bay and nonchalantly steals stuff off other Marines' bunks. Swofford became a campus-radical writing professor after leaving the Marines. I've never seen the film. "U-571" takes a real-life British triumph and re-writes it so Americans are the heroes; the film is mediocre. Most egregious is "Johnny Got His Gun." Dalton Trumbo was a secret member of the Communist Party USA, a Stalinist. He wrote "JGHG" after the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, when the USSR and Nazi Germany allied against the British, French, and Poles. The CPUSA was under orders to do everything it could to block American aid to the Allies. Trumbo did his part and invented a story about a literal "basket case," a doughboy who had all four limbs blown off in WWI (and was figuratively sent home in a wicker basket), and also lost his powers of speech and sight. Communist folk singers such as Pete Seeger were already producing anti-FDR and anti-war songs, to oppose conscription and Lend-Lease to Britain, and "JGHG" was a book, and was being made into a stage and radio production. Then two weeks after the book's release, Hitler invaded the USSR. American Communists were now ordered to get the U.S. into the war as soon as possible. Trumbo withdrew publication of "Johnny Got His Gun" and cancelled the stage premiere. A few years later, Dalton Trumbo was one of the "Hollywood Ten" blackballed for being Soviet "agents of influence." A few decades later Trumbo and fellow leftists dusted off "JGHG" and made it into a film to oppose U.S. support for South Vietnam and to demonize the U.S. military in general. I've never seen the film, nor have I seen "Trumbo," which apparently celebrates the writer as a hero and victim of "McCarthyism" and the anti-Communist witch hunt, even though it's been known since the fall of the USSR Trumbo was a loyal Stalinist, despite his lies to the contrary.
Battle of the Bulge might have done better. They planned on filming in the snow, but it was an extra warm winter and they had very little of it to work with. Then for some reason, they moved filming to the desert instead of a forest, where the battle happened. Kelly's Hero's might have done better if it wasn't filmed in the middle of the Vietnam war. Oddly, it was filmed in a Communist country, Hungry, because they still had a lot of US made WW2 equipment at the time.
Kingdom of Heaven - WELL worth renting or buying the 'extended version'. The extra 45 (!) minutes provides ALL the reasons characters did what they did. Well thought out, and excellent...one of my favorite movies now. You cannot have action only in an action film.
While there were incredible inaccuracies in the Battle of The Bulge, something that really was stupid was after the machine gunning execution by the Nazis of the captured soldiers as they stood around in the snow was the absolute total lack of blood anywhere on the snow as the soldiers lay dead in it. Is it nit-picky? Maybe. But come on, can’t they put at least a tiny bit of effort in making a scene realistic.
THE LONGEST DAY, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, TORA TORA TORA, MIDWAY are awful films, historically and truthfully, yet those filmmakers had plenty of eye-witness experts to correct them - but they preferred THE LIE rather The Truth. grrr. It's no wonder those films were shunned in theaters - and rightfully should be. There were simply too many Real Vets to let The Lie these films' lies wander around without criticism or flat out shirking them. Which is what I always recommend. PEARL HARBOR and recent Big Lie films should be skipped, too.
Box office doesn't mean everything. Every single one of these did well on cable, video sales, and they're all still around online. I just watched 13th Warrior, again, the other day. This entire video is bogus, based on a couple weeks in theatrical release.
I'd head that the Russian War and Peace was considered a bomb... 22,000,000 gross against a 100 million dollar budget. But IMDb suggests that the budget was under 10 million... so...
13th Warrior is a good movie, always enjoy it and listen to the soundtrack regularly. Kingdom of Heaven is also a good movie, and it's soundtrack Battle of the Bulge is for me nostalgic and still watchable Kelly's Hero's is a fun and wonderful movie and who cares what critics say too? usually one takes the opposite of what they say since they live in a bubble.
So, I notice some of these made reasonable box office worldwide, but this video decides they are 'flops' just because the US box office was disappointing. The US market rarely responds well to deep and meaningful, or depressingly realistic, movies, whereas the rest of the world often does, so this is a flawed method of deciding success! The world does not begin and end in the USA, and money is money wherever you earn it!!!
Enemy at the Gates told the story of Stalingrad from the Russian point of view. Stalingrad is told from the German POV. I have never heard of Stalingrad but it looks like a better, more accurate film just from the clip. As for G,I, Jane has any female ever become a Navy Seal? I guess I should Google it.
Battle of the bulls was inaccurate, and it was terrible. The tanks that they used were inaccurate. They used American tanks in place of German tiger tanks. They used the American Pershing tank in place of the German tiger tank.
This list is Chalk. Only real point of interest is that Ridley Scott is in it twice. Considering Napoleon he probably should have been in a third. Forth if you count Gladiator 2 as war movie.
This is a bit…no…a lot deceptive. Some of the movies, like Stalingrad, were made in German and did exceptionally well overseas but poorly in the US where it was dubbed - in fact it is on the list of the World’s 100 Best War Movies. According to Variety the budget for Flags of Our Fathers was $60 million, not $90 million although some lesser sites do show the $90 million cost. In the end it really all depends what a movies is released against and when it was released - but keep in mind that movies have a long, long life beyond their box office release. Nearly everyone knows what Apocalypse Now is about but few remember Kramer vs Kramer.
You should have included "Inchon", a real shit show of a movie, sponsored by the Moonies (ask your parents or google Sun Myung Moon/moonies). Sir Laurence Olivier as Douglas MacArthur in a korean war movie where divine inspiration apparently plays a key part.
I was part of a group of people who picketed the film's screening when it opened here in Toronto. Funny thing was when the local media came to cover the picket, one of the cameramen from one of the station told us that he served in Korea during the war.
All I can say is I've seen most of the movies and found them excellent matter of fact. They make great day of watching if you're watching all at once sitting. The definitely are some gems in there.
Most of these movies are classics in my book. Loved them. Stalingrad, Kellys Heroes, Casualties of War and more. A recurring theme seems to be that Americans doesn't like realistic movies and just wants patriotic, flag waving bullshit movies without basis in any realism or truth.
Seems that I was automatically drawn to many of these failures! The good news for some of these films is that with DVDs, downloads and streaming some got back to the black!
G I Jane was a horrible film and a painful watch. Some of these other "failures" were less about war movies and more about preachy, political narratives. They were destined to fail. But some of the other ones you list as 'failures' were commercial successes and profitable. No idea while you would include them.
13 th Warrior is a screen adaptation of Michael Chrichton’s Eaters of the Dead and a retelling of the Beowulf mythology. I don’t know what fantasy element you are talking about but the movie deserved better as it was well acted and tr storyline was believable.
My dad fought in the Battle Of The Bulge. 747th Tank Division. He rarely talked about it. He said the movie did a disservice to the men who died. He sadly passed in 2014. A genuine hero.
My wife's grandfather Charlie fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured twice. One of the times, he was attempting to play dead by hiding in a pile of the bodies of his buddies. A German soldier thought he saw him move, so he fired a rifle shot next to his ear causing him to flinch. He wore a hearing aid the rest of his life because of it. To say that they treated him poorly would've been an understatement! At least they tourniquetted his leg to keep the gunshot wound he received in battle from bleeding out. I saw firsthand his PTSD. For instance, he hated the noise from fireworks displays. He died in 2012. RIP Charlie Lyman.
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Hamburger Hill makes the list, but Pearl Harbor gets a pass? I'm calling shenanigans!
Pearl Harbour was 4 with 140 million budget. Hamburger Hill was 8 with under 10 million budget. That says it all.
"Kingdom of Heaven" was butchered for the theatre. You have to see the Director's Cut.
Clonetrooper1139, the Director 's cut was posted here on TH-cam for quite a while. Im not sure if it still is though. I've watched a couple of times here but I haven't for awhile so I'm not sure if it's still up or not.
The 13th Warrior. It is my understanding that Michael Crichton was the director (and author of the book that it was based on, "Eaters of the Dead") and flubbed it. Another director was brought in to salvage it, but Michael had done his damage. Still... I have watched it at least ten times and several scenes still bring tears to my eyes or chills down my spine. A great movie!!
Eaters of the Dead is claimed by Crichton to be something he wrote to prove the core story of Beowulf was based.
Not sure if he succeeded or not. Not read Eaters. Seen the movie. Didn't hate it, but only watched it once.
Kelly’s Heroes has got to be one of the best movies. Can’t believe it didn’t do well.
If they are still counting the money it is still collecting. I was surprised also.
Stalingrad is one of the best war movies ever made 👌👌
Thomas Kretschmann's best nazi performance.
Come And See is maybe the greatest war movie ever made, i think it's on youtube.
Kelly's Heroes is one of my favourite ever movies
Stalingrad is brilliant
Stalingrad is one of the best Eastern Front movies because the Germans do such a great job of portraying the grim realities of war. Das Boot and Downfall are another two examples.
Agree, Stalingrad is a fantastic film.
If you get it on DVD, get the German language version. The English dub is a pi$$ poor translation
No way Battle of the Bulge is underrated...it deserves its bad reputation.
Horribly inaccurate 😮has some over the top scenes "Hollyweird" really got its mitts on that one 😮😂😂😂😂
"Battle of the Bulge" has so much inaccuracy in it it bears no relationship with history so historians avoided it. It is more like a fictional battle than the actual Battle of the Bulge. For all the money and stellar acting in the movie it just falls flat even to this day. It is a lot like "Pearl Harbor" which is about a fictional War situation where two men fought over the same woman and one of them had sex with her in a parachute packing facility (insert joke here). Movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Battle of the Bulge" are not about history, they are soap operas with war backgrounds.
I think that "Battle of the Bulge", and some other movies, were trying to replicate the success of "The Longest Day". What the film makers missed was that that film was based on the actual experiences of men who fought in the battle. "Battle of the Bulge" wasn't. So it ended up as just another so-called "adventure" film, with stereotypical characters and a frankly stupid plot.
Henry Fonda role was particularly nauseating; "Henry's a smart college boy so he knows better than those stupid army guys. Talk about a gateway from WW2 to Robert McNamara and his merry band of moronic, know-nothing useful bean counters.
I didn't know the actual Battle of the Bulge was fought on the snowless plains of Spain.
My C.O. was a tank commander who groused about the historically innacurate tanks used in the movie. Just dressed up modern tanks.
@@BrianKirkwood-g3s He was a police detective.
GI Jane is a ridiculous concept
Many movies are. Your point? Oh...are you saying it is too "woke"?
A female going through the training is ridiculous?
Pure garbage vanity project designed by the BossGrrl herself.
@ A woman couldn’t survive seal training
@ Amen
The most ridiculous scene in The Bulge was when Henry Fonda was taking reconnaissance pictures of the Germans from a plane. The developed pictures are close-up ground level shots.
You are not supposed to notice. 😉
Eisenhower himself trashed “Battle of the Bulge” when it came out.
Gallipoli doubled its budget and its a flop?
It's an incredible film.
The film made $11.7 million Australian in 1980s money and then $5m US.
This is at a time when Australian movies were lucky to even be shown overseas. Remember Mad Max was redubbed cause the US distributors thought the accents were too thick for American viewers to understand.
So yes. Gallipoli - Not a flop and EXTREMELY well regarded. The 'Steel Springs' line still sticks with me and I haven't seen this movie in decades.
This list is chalk.
@@mudcrab3420 I have the DVD in my collection amongst some other classic war films .
What a film costs to make and what it costs to present to an audience are not the same.
"Major studio movies - The average cost to produce a major studio movie is around $65 million, but marketing adds another $35 million or so. "
"Small-budget movies - A $15 million film might have a promotional budget that is higher than its production budget. "
Then you have the ones the studio knows is sh!t but hypes it to convince people (kids) to attend.
"The Barbie movie - The marketing budget for Barbie was $150 million, which was more than the $145 million it cost to make the film."
@@lamoe4175The theaters also get half the box.
Flops and ‘didn’t do well in America’ aren’t the same thing
U-571 was not based on fact, but US jingoism. It was as real as the tooth fairy and a liar like ARGO; neither happened …
The movie - and the calculated insult to Britain that it constituted - was so controversial in the UK that it was discussed in parliament, leading to the filmmakers being forced to add a disclaimer on the end of them film declaring that it's a work of fiction and that it was the Royal Navy thyat actually captured the Enigma machine if they wanted to show it in the UK.
This guy lists the utter crap 💩GI Jane💩 but misses the brilliant Master & Commander.
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I think his selection method was they had to be 'underrated' and 'flops'.
So Master and Commander fails on both as everyone says it is awesome and it did make money.
GI Jane? Flop? Yeah. Underrated? Ummm... NO. It won Razzies. That movie is rated where it needs to be.
U-571 is not an "underrated" war movie - it's a travesty of breathtaking arrogance. It brazenly appropriates another country's history and brutally Americanizes it. The existence of this movie demonstrates utter contempt for the United Kingdom and its achievements in the war, not to mention smearing the history of the real U-571 as well. U-571 was a Type VII-C boat run by a professional crew. It sank five ships and damaged three more before being sunk with all hands in 1944 by depth charges dropped by an Australian flying boat. For the cherry on the cake, the enigma machine was captured from U-110 by crewmen from corvette HMS Bulldog, a name that couldn't really be more British. In other words, the movie "U-571" can go **** itself.
Hey, I did get to visit the set in Malta. 🇲🇹. It was ‘revolutionary’ at the time. Too bad the movie was so horrible! 😢😢
I can only agree ! I remember the release of U-571 and wondered at the time when the follow-up movie showcasing the US victory in the Battle of Britain would be shown.
Years ago I saw the video/DVD of U-571 on sale at the Australian War Memorial shop. Maybe the staff didn't know this movie was complete BS, but they should have. It's their job.
@@oldfella3919 Well we got Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour.....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Grazier .. not a yank, Was awarded the George Cross (one down from a VC) and gave his life in the process.
Wait until Hollywood makes a Ukraine war film with Zelenski as a Churchillian figure played by Iris Elba....
BARF! Bloody Hell dont give those clowns any ideas!
I was disappointed to see GI Jane here. It's not a war movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather it's nothing but a another shallow woke self-serving Demi Moore project designed to feed her giant vanity. It's so unrealistic that it makes the Shaw/Fonda Battle of the Bulge disaster look realistic.
Neither flick belongs on this list.
Get a grip you melt. Some bird must have really left you with blue balls.
A lot of it is TIMING. "Kelly's Heroes" might have done better if it'd come out two years earlier, but by 1970, with the American public weary of both the Vietnam War itself and the protests, "War", even in a semi-comedic (more sardonic) heist film in a WWII setting, just wasn't something that folks flocked to movie theaters to see. It got its "legs" in endless reruns on TV, especially with tank enthusiasts.
I wonder how well Catch-22 did, I believe it flopped also, though I love that movie.
M.A.S.H. did rather well, which came out in the same time.
13th Warrior is one of my favorite movies. It's just a shame that it came out the same summer as Star Wars Phantom Menace and Austin Powers spy who shagged me. I truly believe it should have done better in the box office. I watched it a few months ago and it still holds up beautifully.
Such an original story, auck an awesome movie. Love it
13 warrior is great movie
Windtalker & Battle of the bulge are classics, the studio's fail to promote these movies
That Viking prayer is still my favorite.
The 13th warrior is EPIC. Bulwuif (i know it's spelled incorrectly) is a true hero and honorable king.
Come and see clearly wasn't a flop, wtf are you talking about 😂😂😂
It was a movie from the Soviet Union during late stages of the Cold War. Though a masterpiece and classic, it might have been shown in five theaters in the US the year of its release, so its US box office reciepts were going to be tiny.
No mention of Tora Tora Tora? The bomb that almost sank 20th Century Fox?
WTFunk?!! I love that one!
@@slaakattak So do I. I have it on DVD. But it bombed at the box office.
PATHS OF GLORY (1957) Even before filming began Kirk Douglas knew this WW1 epic would flop. Yet he told director Stanley Kubrick "This film won't make a nickel but it still has to be made!"
I hate the phrase, “Audiences weren’t impressed.” Those of us who actually served in some of these battles aren’t very impressed by the audiences.
What about "84 Charlie MoPic"?? Great underrated Vietnam war movie!!
I hadn't heard of that one, thanks for the tip!
Excellent movie, starring Richard Brooks, before he was more well known in Law & Order.
My combat vet buddy said this was the most realistic film about Vietnam
Windtalkers was about the nick cage character not the Native Americans. And it was a disappointment.
It's now racist to call them "Native Americans". The better term is "Indigenous Americans".
@@SamBrickell I could care less.
The history of the Navajo code talkers is fascinating. This movie however, was trash. I was very disappointed.
Exactly
First Nationals is a more respectful term.
"Hamburger Hill" is to war genre, as "Homicide: Life on the Streets" is to series TV. Hill paved the way for Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers/War in the Pacific, and other 'reality' based war movies. Homicide showcases a never-before-seen and unflattering portrayal of "cops and robbers," detailed in The Corner/Wire.
Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron with James Coburn about germans on the eastern front is better than most of the movies on this list.
Great movie. Certainly better than U-571.
Compare "Battle of the Bulge" to the vastly superior "Battleground" and you will notice one striking difference- the weather conditions! Good lord, where was the freaking snow in the former? In the latter it was all done on a massive soundstage but looked so much more authentic.
"Windtalkers" was single-handedly sunk by Nicolas Cage's awful performance. "U-571" was all flash and no substance, the "Mermphis Belle" of submarine movies. A series of impossible escapes piled one after the other.
"Flags of Our Fathers" pales in comparison to the truly great "Letters From Iwo Jima" mainly due to the terrific acting by the Japanese cast.
"Johnny Got His Gun", "Hamburger Hill", "Jarhead", "Gallipoli", "Come and See" and "The Thin Red Line" are all excellent-to-great films.
Most of these war films are downers. which is most likely why the bombed at the box office.
Most overlooked war film? "Go Tell The Spartans".
Spartans is a great movie.
GI Jane = weak fantasy.
It's interesting that you only use the box office reciepts, and don't include rentals, streaming, or overseas income.
Or TV revenue. Kelly's Heros was a staple of TV movies for most of the 70s. Even with the numbers given, it was the 25th most revenue producing movie worldwide the year of its release.
@13:30 - You may also be interested to know that the film "Enemy Below," 1957, which did win an Oscar for special effects, was based on a book by a British author involving British naval personnel. However, the film depicts an American navy ship chasing a German U-boat.
Come and see is the greatest war movie ever it takes
Weeks to get over watching it
Cage is not protecting the code talker, he's protecting the code. I went to basic training & AIT with one of the code talkers in the movie, Roger Willie. D-2/54. He was our house mouse in 4th plt.
Come and See not making money in the US doesn't count. How much did it make in the USSR and elsewhere?
If it don’t make it in the US then it doesn’t make it simple truth
According to Wikipedia it made $21 million and this is the first time I've heard it described as a flop.
@@peterhall8532 A number of the movies in this list seem to be far from "flops".
@@clarkwilson6340 Soviet cinema wasn't on the same wavelength as Hollywood. Not after hits and box office. But Come & See is a great film, admired by just about everyone.
Jar head one of the most wasted movies ever made.
Thin red line totally disjointed.
Explain??
horrid pap and too many ridiculous soliloquy's
@@Losantiville Hated it.
I couldn’t get into it. Disjointed is a good description. I don’t mind a little introspection, but I couldn’t finish watching it. I thought When Trumpets Fade was better.
Malick’s approach does seem very disjointed. But the way he pieces his scenes (if you can even call them that) together in the editing room removes a lot of the chronology. His films always seemed very open ended to me, to where you can pick up and leave off in different places throughout and it wouldn’t defer or detract from his central themes and messages
*Stalingrad* (1993) is amazing. The movie covers the gamut of experiences on the Eastern Front. I'm surprised it didn’t do well.
Battle of the Bulge was shown almost annually on NYC tv in the 1970's and 80's.
someone remind me to never listen to this channel for movie recommendations he has crap taste
“One of the greatest war movies of all time.” What determines greatness? Casting? Historical realism or honesty? Dramatic scenes? Special effects? Dialogue? Quirky iconic moments? What makes a war film great? Midway or Pearl? Hands down Midway. The Alamo with John Wayne or The Alamo with Billy Bob Thornton? Most war movies about modern war are fraught with politics.
Nicolas Cage is just like Richard E Grant, he’s basically the same in every single movie he ever makes.
Stalingrad 1993 is a real GEM. A midnight clear those German helmets are Spanish.
I've read after accepting to view a screening of " The Battle of the Bulge " Eisenhower got up and walked out half way through it .
Who ?
@@moboutmen Colonel Hessler himself.
@moboutmen i fixed it
At the time, they also interviewed Hasso Von Manteuffel, the German commander of the 5th Panzer Army during the battle, and he basically confirmed that the movie as an historical account is an abomination. But of course anyone with even a basic understanding of the battle knows this intuitively. The movie was about entertaining American audiences first and foremost.
I remember finding Scott's direction of the combat sequence in "GI Jane" strangely shot and not terribly exciting. He did much better with "Black Hawk Down."
"Gallipoli" was a major box office hit in its native country of Australia, and its North American take was respectable.
I didn't see "Kelly's Heroes" until about 30 years after its release, and I didn't like it at all. The characters aren't fighting for any righteous cause, they're just out for themselves. The Donald Sutherland character, a 1970 caricature planted in a 1945 setting, makes no sense at all. Telly Savalas reportedly turned down "Patton" to take his role in this movie.
I recently saw GI Jane for the first time, very good movie and reasonably accurately depicts the day to day life of a BUDs sailor's journey through one of the toughest training courses in the world.
I didn't care for Thin Red Line when I first watched it. But it was playing on HBO and when I surfed channels I would stumble across it and had to watch. Now it is one of my favorites.
The 13th Warrior was an awesome movie.. 👍
Best on the list: "Come and See" is a masterpiece. It really is more than just a motion picture. I also very much like "Kelly's Heroes" and "Thin Red Line." And in the third-tier, still good and worth a watch: "Hamburger Hill" and "Gallipoli," though the latter does a disservice to the British. Filmmakers Peter Weir, David Williamson, Robert Stigwood, and Patricia Lovell simply lie, accusing the British of sacrificing Australian lives to save their own, making up facts to serve this argument; but "Gallipoli" is still a good film even if it is anti-Pom propaganda.
I've never seen "Stalingrad" or "Hotel Rwanda," reportedly both good films.
Worst are "Windtalkers" in which the Nicholas Cage character has orders to murder the Navajo codetalker Adam Beach if he's in danger of being captured; B.S. and a bad film. I read the book "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford and the guy was a stereotypical buddyf***er; in one scene he's in any empty squad bay and nonchalantly steals stuff off other Marines' bunks. Swofford became a campus-radical writing professor after leaving the Marines. I've never seen the film. "U-571" takes a real-life British triumph and re-writes it so Americans are the heroes; the film is mediocre.
Most egregious is "Johnny Got His Gun." Dalton Trumbo was a secret member of the Communist Party USA, a Stalinist. He wrote "JGHG" after the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact, when the USSR and Nazi Germany allied against the British, French, and Poles. The CPUSA was under orders to do everything it could to block American aid to the Allies. Trumbo did his part and invented a story about a literal "basket case," a doughboy who had all four limbs blown off in WWI (and was figuratively sent home in a wicker basket), and also lost his powers of speech and sight. Communist folk singers such as Pete Seeger were already producing anti-FDR and anti-war songs, to oppose conscription and Lend-Lease to Britain, and "JGHG" was a book, and was being made into a stage and radio production. Then two weeks after the book's release, Hitler invaded the USSR. American Communists were now ordered to get the U.S. into the war as soon as possible. Trumbo withdrew publication of "Johnny Got His Gun" and cancelled the stage premiere. A few years later, Dalton Trumbo was one of the "Hollywood Ten" blackballed for being Soviet "agents of influence." A few decades later Trumbo and fellow leftists dusted off "JGHG" and made it into a film to oppose U.S. support for South Vietnam and to demonize the U.S. military in general. I've never seen the film, nor have I seen "Trumbo," which apparently celebrates the writer as a hero and victim of "McCarthyism" and the anti-Communist witch hunt, even though it's been known since the fall of the USSR Trumbo was a loyal Stalinist, despite his lies to the contrary.
And "A Midnight Clear" (1992) is a great warmovie, chillingly good.
Battle of the Bulge might have done better. They planned on filming in the snow, but it was an extra warm winter and they had very little of it to work with. Then for some reason, they moved filming to the desert instead of a forest, where the battle happened.
Kelly's Hero's might have done better if it wasn't filmed in the middle of the Vietnam war. Oddly, it was filmed in a Communist country, Hungry, because they still had a lot of US made WW2 equipment at the time.
Kellys Heroes might've made a million over cost. But it has been on TV a Billion times. Great cast & movie.
Kingdom of Heaven - WELL worth renting or buying the 'extended version'. The extra 45 (!) minutes provides ALL the reasons characters did what they did. Well thought out, and excellent...one of my favorite movies now. You cannot have action only in an action film.
13th warrior is a great historical accurate movie just bad timing and bad advertising needs a re release
Several of these are the best war movies ever made.
While there were incredible inaccuracies in the Battle of The Bulge, something that really was stupid was after the machine gunning execution by the Nazis of the captured soldiers as they stood around in the snow was the absolute total lack of blood anywhere on the snow as the soldiers lay dead in it. Is it nit-picky? Maybe. But come on, can’t they put at least a tiny bit of effort in making a scene realistic.
THE LONGEST DAY, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, TORA TORA TORA, MIDWAY are awful films, historically and truthfully, yet those filmmakers had plenty of eye-witness experts to correct them - but they preferred THE LIE rather The Truth. grrr. It's no wonder those films were shunned in theaters - and rightfully should be. There were simply too many Real Vets to let The Lie these films' lies wander around without criticism or flat out shirking them. Which is what I always recommend. PEARL HARBOR and recent Big Lie films should be skipped, too.
Marines raised the flag on Suribachi, not soldiers.
Box office doesn't mean everything. Every single one of these did well on cable, video sales, and they're all still around online. I just watched 13th Warrior, again, the other day. This entire video is bogus, based on a couple weeks in theatrical release.
I liked the 13th Warrior, Flags of our Fathers, and Kelly's Heroes.
Johnny Got His Gun managed to gain new attention after Metallica used footage from the film in it's video for the song 'One.'
Stalingrad was awesome, midnight was good. Thin Red and Flag of Our Fathers were boring. Kelly's was good and classic. Gallipoli is A+.
Including "Come and See" in this list of flops gets you a downvote. Come on guy - it was BANNED !!!!!!
"Force 10 from Navarone" is just God-awful, despite some stars in the cast.
A lot of these movies are really good films! In fact many of them are masterpieces.
I'd head that the Russian War and Peace was considered a bomb... 22,000,000 gross against a 100 million dollar budget. But IMDb suggests that the budget was under 10 million... so...
13th Warrior is a good movie, always enjoy it and listen to the soundtrack regularly.
Kingdom of Heaven is also a good movie, and it's soundtrack
Battle of the Bulge is for me nostalgic and still watchable
Kelly's Hero's is a fun and wonderful movie
and who cares what critics say too? usually one takes the opposite of what they say since they live in a bubble.
Clint Eastwood disowned Kelly's Heroes. Supposedly it was not supposed to be so much of a comedy. He felt it made mockery of WWII.
So, I notice some of these made reasonable box office worldwide, but this video decides they are 'flops' just because the US box office was disappointing. The US market rarely responds well to deep and meaningful, or depressingly realistic, movies, whereas the rest of the world often does, so this is a flawed method of deciding success! The world does not begin and end in the USA, and money is money wherever you earn it!!!
Stalingrad was also a foreign language film.
Enemy at the Gates told the story of Stalingrad from the Russian point of view. Stalingrad is told from the German POV. I have never heard of Stalingrad but it looks like a better, more accurate film just from the clip. As for G,I, Jane has any female ever become a Navy Seal? I guess I should Google it.
I absolutely love Kingdom of Heaven, and Eva green was stunning.
I liked most of these. Kelly's Heroes has become a Classic!
13 th Warrior was great no accounting for peoples taste
Battle of the bulls was inaccurate, and it was terrible. The tanks that they used were inaccurate. They used American tanks in place of German tiger tanks. They used the American Pershing tank in place of the German tiger tank.
I had no idea Kelly's Heroes was a flop! What??
This list is Chalk.
Only real point of interest is that Ridley Scott is in it twice. Considering Napoleon he probably should have been in a third. Forth if you count Gladiator 2 as war movie.
A bridge to far was the longest expensive movie at that time !
This is a bit…no…a lot deceptive. Some of the movies, like Stalingrad, were made in German and did exceptionally well overseas but poorly in the US where it was dubbed - in fact it is on the list of the World’s 100 Best War Movies. According to Variety the budget for Flags of Our Fathers was $60 million, not $90 million although some lesser sites do show the $90 million cost. In the end it really all depends what a movies is released against and when it was released - but keep in mind that movies have a long, long life beyond their box office release. Nearly everyone knows what Apocalypse Now is about but few remember Kramer vs Kramer.
You should have included "Inchon", a real shit show of a movie, sponsored by the Moonies (ask your parents or google Sun Myung Moon/moonies). Sir Laurence Olivier as Douglas MacArthur in a korean war movie where divine inspiration apparently plays a key part.
I was part of a group of people who picketed the film's screening when it opened here in Toronto. Funny thing was when the local media came to cover the picket, one of the cameramen from one of the station told us that he served in Korea during the war.
Kelley's Heros is one of the Best movies of All time!!!! It made a Million Dollars in 1970 alot of $$$$ Than!!!!!!
I saw "Windtalkers" at the theater and loved it! I thought it was a great film. Never knew it performed poorly at the boxoffice.
Why is GI Jane even on this list?
All I can say is I've seen most of the movies and found them excellent matter of fact. They make great day of watching if you're watching all at once sitting.
The definitely are some gems in there.
Battles aren't "iconic." Look up the definition. It's "underrated." ffs
Most of these movies are classics in my book. Loved them. Stalingrad, Kellys Heroes, Casualties of War and more. A recurring theme seems to be that Americans doesn't like realistic movies and just wants patriotic, flag waving bullshit movies without basis in any realism or truth.
You really need to work on you math deciding what is a "flop"
Example, just one of several: U-571income to output is just a little over 2 to 1.
Thin Red Line was a poor take on the book.
Kingdom of Heaven is a great film 👍
How Sleep The Brave is a Viet Nam movie that doesn't get enough attention IMO.
Seems that I was automatically drawn to many of these failures! The good news for some of these films is that with DVDs, downloads and streaming some got back to the black!
The best films are the ones that don't well!
"Operation Crossbow" should be seen once, just to watch Sofia Loren.
I find your personal view of these movies, I find that many of the do have some merit, many I agree with. Thank you for your honesty.
G I Jane was a horrible film and a painful watch. Some of these other "failures" were less about war movies and more about preachy, political narratives. They were destined to fail. But some of the other ones you list as 'failures' were commercial successes and profitable. No idea while you would include them.
13 th Warrior is a screen adaptation of Michael Chrichton’s Eaters of the Dead and a retelling of the Beowulf mythology. I don’t know what fantasy element you are talking about but the movie deserved better as it was well acted and tr storyline was believable.
GI Jane is just a really bad movie. with a BS premis.
I love The 13TH WARRIOR and the novel