The Best War Movies, Ranked by You
Rank the greatest war movies one matchup at a time, Saving Private Ryan vs Apocalypse Now and 1917 vs Dunkirk, then compare with the community. Early results (n = 24): too few finished brackets to call a leader yet. Your first pick is right here. No sign-up.
Size
Inglourious Basterds2009
Black Hawk Down2001
Tap a poster to make your pick. Crowd numbers appear after you choose.
War Movies: early results
Early results (n = 24). Win rate across 496 head-to-head picks from 24 finished brackets. n is the number of matchups behind each win rate; only entrants with 30 or more are listed.
| # | War movie | W–L | Win rate | vs .500 | Titles | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saving Private Ryan1998 | 50–15 | 76.9% | 6 | 65 | |
| 2 | Inglourious Basterds2009 | 37–20 | 64.9% | 2 | 57 | |
| 3 | Hacksaw Ridge2016 | 37–22 | 62.7% | 1 | 59 | |
| 4 | Schindler's List1993 | 33–21 | 61.1% | 2 | 54 | |
| 5 | American Sniper2014 | 29–22 | 56.9% | 1 | 51 | |
| 6 | All Quiet on the Western Front2022 | 24–19 | 55.8% | 2 | 43 | |
| 7 | Full Metal Jacket1987 | 25–20 | 55.6% | 1 | 45 | |
| 8 | 19172019 | 27–22 | 55.1% | 0 | 49 |
War Movies: an early tier list
Early results (n = 24) Too few finished brackets to call yet; the tiers settle as more people play. Placed by win rate, steadied toward 50% for entrants with few matchups: S is 75% or more, A 60%, B 50%, C 40%, D 25%.
Stier, win rate 75% or more
- Nobody yet
Atier, win rate 60% or more
- Saving Private Ryan
- Inglourious Basterds
- Hacksaw Ridge
Btier, win rate 50% or more
- Schindler's List
- American Sniper
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- Full Metal Jacket
- 1917
- Black Hawk Down
- Fury
- Braveheart
- + 2 more
Ctier, win rate 40% or more
- Paths of Glory
- Dunkirk
- Apocalypse Now
- The Deer Hunter
- We Were Soldiers
Dtier, win rate 25% or more
- The Bridge on the River Kwai
- Letters from Iwo Jima
- Platoon
- The Hurt Locker
- The Great Escape
- The Thin Red Line
Ftier, win rate 0% or more
- Nobody yet
How the War Movies bracket works
This war movie ranking is played, not dragged into rows. You get one matchup at a time — Saving Private Ryan or Dunkirk? Apocalypse Now or Schindler's List? — and after 15 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. A straight list invites you to hedge. A matchup does not, and that is what makes the final 24-deep order worth screenshotting.
This bracket runs 4 rounds at the default 16-slot size (Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final), drawn from a pool of 24 films. Everyone gets the same draw on a given day, so you can compare runs with friends; New draw gives you a genuinely different bracket rather than the same path twice. You can also play it at 8 or 24 slots for a shorter or longer run.
15 picks, 4 rounds
- Round of 168 matchups
- Quarterfinals4 matchups
- Semifinals2 matchups
- Final1 matchup
Roughly 1-2 minutes start to finish at the default size.
All 24 entrants
All 24 entrants are listed below, including Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, Apocalypse Now and Schindler's List. Updated
- Saving Private Ryan1998
- Dunkirk2017
- Apocalypse Now1979
- Schindler's List1993
- 19172019
- Full Metal Jacket1987
- Platoon1986
- Hacksaw Ridge2016
- Black Hawk Down2001
- The Thin Red Line1998
- The Bridge on the River Kwai1957
- The Deer Hunter1978
- Inglourious Basterds2009
- Fury2014
- Letters from Iwo Jima2006
- The Pianist2002
- The Great Escape1963
- Paths of Glory1957
- Lone Survivor2013
- American Sniper2014
- We Were Soldiers2002
- The Hurt Locker2008
- Braveheart1995
- All Quiet on the Western Front2022
Tier list instead?
Load all 24 into the tier list maker and sort them into S through F yourself: same entrants, no matchups.
Open the tier list makerMissing something?
Build your own war movie bracket with exactly the entrants you want, then share the link.
Open the bracket makerGetting a ranking you actually agree with
- Pick the film you would actually rewatch tonight, not the one with the better reputation.
- Start at 16 slots. If the result feels too obvious, replay at 24 so more of the 24 films make the field.
- If a matchup genuinely splits you, undo and replay it — a coin-flip pick in round one distorts everything below it.
Questions people ask
How many films are in the War Movies bracket?
The pool holds 24 films. A default run uses 16 of them and takes 15 picks across 4 rounds: Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 24 slots.
Which films are included?
Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, Apocalypse Now, Schindler's List, 1917, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Hacksaw Ridge, Black Hawk Down, The Thin Red Line, The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Deer Hunter, plus 12 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the War Movies bracket take?
About 1-2 minutes — 15 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to an 8-slot bracket. No account is needed, and a run saves after every pick, so you can stop and jump back in later.
Can I turn the result into S/A/B tiers?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other film grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 15 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two films that never met. If you would rather place the films into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 24 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
Can I compare my order with other people's?
Every completed bracket feeds the War Movies community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 24 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
What if a film I wanted is missing?
Use the bracket maker: add your own films, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 24 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.