Author Topic: What is the best movie about the Civil War?  (Read 1855 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ironfoot

  • Trade Count: (2)
  • A Real Regular
  • ****
  • Posts: 547
What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« on: January 17, 2011, 05:29:31 PM »
By "best", I suppose I mean your favorite, and why?
Not looking to pick any fights here.
Curious as to whether there are some good ones I should see.
Act the way you would like to be, and soon you will be the way you act.

Offline subdjoe

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3036
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2011, 06:07:32 PM »
For good lines and just a fun watch The Horse Soldiers

For getting a bit of a feel of it, of course it would be Gettysburg

To make you think, Red Badge of Courage and Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  There is one other based on Beirces work, about a sniper whose nest gets hit by a shell, he wakes up with his hair trigger rifle pointed at him and ends up dieing of fright, buit the name escapes me at the moment.

And..


The Outlaw Josy Wales
  Just because.  Lots of good lines in it. 
Your ob't & etc,
Joseph Lovell

Justice Robert H. Jackson - It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

Offline Ga.windbreak

  • Trade Count: (22)
  • A Real Regular
  • ****
  • Posts: 846
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2011, 04:03:06 AM »
The way hollywood plays with truth there is not much to offer yet if looking for realism the two that come to mind:
1.Gone with the Wind - for its Atlanta under sege footage Plus any Southerner who has not seen this movie is surely no real son of the South!

2.Gettysburg - Martin Sheen's portrail of Lee is imvho dead on. The way he handles his Generals seems to me very Lee like. Which is saying alot given Sheen's political leanings.
"Men do not differ about what
Things they will call evils;
They differ enormously about what evils
They will call excusable." - G.K. Chesterton

"It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Anytime you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am", the end is pretty much in sight."-Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men

Private John Walker Roberts CSA 19th Battalion Georgia Cavalry - Loyalty is a most precious trait - RIP

Offline BUGEYE

  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10268
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2011, 04:32:59 AM »
I've seen gone with the wind  5 or 6 times.
Give me liberty, or give me death
                                     Patrick Henry

Give me liberty, or give me death
                                     bugeye

Offline S.S.

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2840
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2011, 05:01:38 AM »
never watched one that was historically correct.
One good one was named "Gods And Generals" I think
it was pretty good.  Jeff Daniels starred in it.
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
"A wise man does not pee against the wind".

Offline SouthernByGrace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 378
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2011, 10:39:17 AM »
Shenandoah is one of my favorites. If Jimmy Stewart was in it, I like it.  :D

Gods & Generals was much more historically accurate than Gettysburg was.

Gone With the Wind showed a lot of the truths about slavery that we talk about on here. But it did show an electric light bulb in a street lamp during the rebuilding scenes in Atlanta.  ???
The sequel, Scarlet, wasn't bad either.

North and South, all 3 books, for their portrayal of life in the South before, during, and after the war. And showing that true friendship (Orry and George) Though they are fictional, they are pretty spot on with several issues that have been discussed on here.

"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees..."
Final words spoken by Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, CSA

Offline williamlayton

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15415
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2011, 10:51:05 AM »
Read the history---see it in your mind.
Nothing about war is gallant, heroic or worth remembering.
I did mention nothing--didn't I.
Blessings
TEXAS, by GOD

Offline eastbank

  • Trade Count: (1)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 401
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2011, 01:58:20 AM »
subdjoe, i thought i was the only one who liked thoses films, they were in black and white, in owl creek the man is hanged from a rail road bridge,after thinking about his escape and meeting his wife/girlfriend. and other one was about a man who kills a young soldier and is shot for it, and buried in a unmarked grave(his worst nightmare). eastbank.

Offline Swampman

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (44)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16518
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2011, 05:35:19 AM »
I like Cold Mountain.
"Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the Book?" Sogoyewapha, "Red Jacket" - Senaca

1st Special Operations Wing 1975-1983
919th Special Operations Wing  1983-1985 1993-1994

"Manus haec inimica tyrannis / Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" ~Algernon Sidney~

Offline srussell

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (14)
  • A Real Regular
  • *****
  • Posts: 838
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2011, 04:36:27 PM »
glory was not a bad movie. Ive been to the site of the fort nothing there just sand dunes but people find things there alot. all tho  one scene showed a lady with a digital watch on

Offline SouthernByGrace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 378
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2011, 01:59:24 PM »
I forgot about Cold Mountain. There were some pretty accurate scenes in that one, like the Crater scene. Yep, pretty good one.

SBG
"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees..."
Final words spoken by Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, CSA

Offline SouthernByGrace

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 378
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2011, 02:02:22 PM »
glory was not a bad movie. Ive been to the site of the fort nothing there just sand dunes but people find things there alot. all tho  one scene showed a lady with a digital watch on

Ha Ha Ha  ;D   I can believe it. It's kind of fun to pick out things like that. Directors get paid millions and let somebody wear a digital watch or show an electric light bulb in a street lamp in Atlanta in 1865...  ???
"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees..."
Final words spoken by Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, CSA

Offline necred

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 17
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2011, 11:25:49 AM »
Outlaw Josey Wales my favorite show of all time, close 2nd is Lonesome Dove. The Generals was a decent movie.
I am a Southerner, if i were born in the north, east or west id be just another human being!

Offline gstewart44

  • Trade Count: (20)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1645
  • Gender: Male
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2011, 02:56:32 PM »
#1 for me is Outlaw Josie Wales hands down,   #2 for  historical perspective is "Ride With the Devil" with Tobie Maguire and Jewel.    A great flick about the Border Wars twixt MO and KA.     
I'm just tryin' to keep everything in balance, Woodrow. You do more work than you got to, so it's my obligation to do less. (Gus McCrae)

Offline P.A. Myers

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (65)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1344
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2011, 12:17:52 PM »
It is hard to top David O. Selznik's 'Gone with the Wind'. The best might be a silent film, D.W. Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation'. My pick would have to be Sergio Leone's 'The Good,The Bad, and the Ugly'. A Lee Van Cleef performance that is so sinister, Vincent Price was the understudy for the part. Heston did a few westerns but I don't recall a war film.

P.A.O. Myers
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty -
never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”
 Winston Churchill

Offline buckeye509

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (15)
  • Avid Poster
  • *****
  • Posts: 247
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2011, 01:39:01 PM »
One I always enjoy is " The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".

Offline skarke

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (1)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1190
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2011, 04:27:56 PM »
Ken Burns did a documentary in the late '80s I think that wasn't bad.  I believe that he strives to present a relatively balanced work, but as a Southerner, it is rare that I see anything that presents the opinions of the Secessionists as well as I'd like.

For me, documentaries are as entertaining as fiction.

http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.  Ronaldus Maximus

Offline P.A. Myers

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (65)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1344
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2011, 04:37:07 PM »
Many documentaries are fiction.

P.A.O. Myers
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty -
never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”
 Winston Churchill

Offline scootrd

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2745
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2011, 04:38:05 PM »
I really enjoyed Glory with Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick.

It was about the Massachusetts 54th an all black Regiment
"if your old flathead doesn't leak you are out of oil"
"I have strong feelings about gun control. If there is a gun around I want to be controlling it." - Clint Eastwood
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjaman Franklin
"It's better to be hated for who you are , then loved for who your not." - Van Zant

Offline skarke

  • GBO Supporter
  • Trade Count: (1)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1190
Re: What is the best movie about the Civil War?
« Reply #19 on: February 16, 2011, 04:50:03 PM »
So true, Mr. Myers, so true. ;)
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.  Ronaldus Maximus