A SALUTE TO CLASSIC WAR FILMS: A FATHER'S DAY MARATHON ON NETFLIX

Father’s Day is a time for bonding over common interests, and for many, those interests play out in the gripping, intense drama of the war film. Rich with history and heroism, it’s a classic canvas for the big-screen story. This Father’s Day weekend, turn to Netflix, which features a selection of war movies that screams valour and the troubles of the human heart. Let’s dig in to an annotated menu of classics that will make this Father’s Day memorable.

THE TIMELESS JOURNEY OF 1917 (2019)

A Classic Tale of Courage

In the one-shot feature 1917, which tells a classic tale of derring-do as two soldiers try to stop a deadly ambush by traversing enemy trenches, camaraderie and dogged determination in the darkest of times feature prominently in world cinema’s foremost act of world-building on Father’s Day. 1917 is a classic of cinema as world-building, and ‘making’ – but it is also a classic of a more particular and earnest kind. 1917 centres on the unfashionable, wonderful theme of the forgotten foot soldier of the First World War.

WAR'S GRIM REALITY IN ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (2022)

A New Classic on an Old Front

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), adapted to the screen in 1930, is a classic war story of the loss of innocence as told by a soldier on the Western Front. It’s a story that returns again and again in classic war fiction. It has an almost formulaic feel. And it should, because it’s a heart-wrenching movie. All Quiet on the Western Front is mostly about how young people lose their innocence fighting a war, and it’s lovely to watch. They gave it a few Oscars too.

EXPLORING THE AFTERMATH IN BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989)

A Classic Transformation

Tom Cruise gives one of the greatest performances of his career in Born on the Fourth of July, the archetypal story of a returning veteran, a classic portrayal of a man who goes from patriot to peace activist. A perfect film to watch this Father’s Day, Born on the Fourth of July unearths, from the mud and blood and carnage of the Vietnam war, the lonely struggles of the redeeming soldier.

THE HIGH STAKES OF THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)

A Timeless Classic Adventure

The Guns of Navarone – the movie every war film should aspire to – is perhaps the quintessential of that classic four-letter-word adventure, brimmi... [content truncated]