The Best Squad-Based Action Films
There are too many WW2 films and Westerns to list here, and "best" is always relative, but these are the kinds of films that remind me of squad-based video games, or deserve to be squad-based video games.
This list focuses on World War 2, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Gulf Wars, along with other conflicts both real and fictional, venturing into modern action, superhero movies, sci-fi and anime, but they all tend to revolve around small squads of soldiers leading desperate battles against incredible odds.
This list focuses on World War 2, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Gulf Wars, along with other conflicts both real and fictional, venturing into modern action, superhero movies, sci-fi and anime, but they all tend to revolve around small squads of soldiers leading desperate battles against incredible odds.
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- DirectorTay GarnettStarsRobert TaylorGeorge MurphyLloyd NolanIn 1942, in the Bataan peninsula of the Philippines, a ragtag American unit commanded by Sergeant Bill Dane attempts to blow-up a bridge in order to slow the Japanese advance.
- DirectorRaoul WalshStarsErrol FlynnJames BrownWilliam PrinceA platoon of special ops are tasked to parachute into the remote Burmese jungle and destroy a strategic Japanese radar station, but getting out isn't as easy.
- StarsScott GrimesDamian LewisRon LivingstonThe story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and their mission in World War II Europe, from Operation Overlord to V-J Day.
- DirectorLloyd BaconStarsRichard WidmarkDana AndrewsGary MerrillThe new commander of a Navy Underwater Demolition Team--nicknamed "Frogmen"--must earn the respect of the men in his unit, who are still grieving over the death of their former commander and resentful of the new one.
- DirectorZoltan KordaStarsHumphrey BogartBruce BennettJ. Carrol NaishAfter the fall of Tobruk in 1942, during the Allied retreat in the Libyan desert, an American tank picks-up a motley group of survivors but they face advancing Germans and a lack of water.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
- DirectorJ. Lee ThompsonStarsDavid NivenGregory PeckAnthony QuinnA team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.The Guns of Navarone has all the ingredients of an action-packed James Bond film, and its not surprising since 007's early producers wanted their fictional spy to be a mix of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and The Guns of Navarone. Gregory Peck leads an expendable team into Nazi-occupied Greece on an impossible mission to sabotage a pair of massive cannons that threaten the Allied ships invading by sea. The spy genre wouldn't be what it is today without this film.
- DirectorTim BurstallStarsJohn Phillip LawMel GibsonSam NeillA group of Australian commandos launch a secret mission against Japanese forces in World War II.
- DirectorRobert AldrichStarsLee MarvinErnest BorgnineCharles BronsonDuring World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsWilliam HoldenCliff RobertsonVince EdwardsA US Army lieutenant colonel is tasked with forming an elite commando-style unit from crack Canadian troops and the dregs of the US Army.The rights to the novel were bought two years before The Dirty Dozen, but it came out a year after, and follows many of the same beats, so its hard not to compare, and obviously this one isn't a household name. Still, if you like the "recruit, train, test, and unleash" formula, there's plenty of action adventure to be found here. William Holden is put in charge of training a group of convicts and their non-convicted Canadian counterparts to take over a German garrison and storm an impregnable castle.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsLee MarvinErnest BorgnineKen WahlDuring WW2, American General Worden orders Major Reisman to pick 12 soldiers from the military prison for the dangerous mission of killing a Nazi General.Okay, so this made-for-TV movie isn't the classic it was spawned from. It still features Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Richard Jaeckel in the same roles, and while 18 years passed for them, only 18 months passed for their characters. Get over it and enjoy it for what it is - a combat comic book/ love letter to the original - and you'll have a good enough time. This time, Reismann is on trial himself for stealing steaks bound for superior officers. Borgnine gives him the option to either stand trial, or lead another dozen. Its an entertaining-enough shoot'em-up which co-stars Sonny Landham (48 Hrs, Predator), Larry Wilcox (CHiPs), and Ken Wahl (Wiseguy).
- DirectorLee H. KatzinStarsTelly SavalasErnest BorgnineVince EdwardsDuring WW2, American General Worden orders Major Wright to pick 12 condemned soldiers from the brig and parachute into occupied France where they must destroy a Nazi nerve gas facility and extricate the foreign scientists working there.Telly Savalas plays a new, more heroic character after his nuttier one in the original, and only Ernest Borgnine returns in the same role. He wastes little time asking Savalas to put together a Dirty Dozen. This time, they have to go into Nazi-occupied France and stop the Axis from loading deadly nerve gas onto experimental rockets aimed at the United States. Its the law of diminishing returns with this series, but they're entertaining for what they are - TV movies with the kind of combat you practiced with your friends when you were 10 - but if you enjoyed playing "war", these guys do it with enough machine guns and explosions to satisfy your inner child.
- DirectorLee H. KatzinStarsTelly SavalasErnest BorgnineHunt BlockA team of renegade soldiers in World War II tries to stop the creation of the Fourth Reich in the Middle East.Telly Savalas comes back for his final film appearance, leading yet another dozen against the Nazis, who are laying the seeds for a 4th Reich just in case Hitler fails. The Dozen have to stop a train on the Orient Express before it reaches neutral Turkey. Heather Thomas and Ernie Hudson co-star along with Ernest Borgnine.
- StarsBen MurphyJohn BradleyJohn D'AquinoThe show follows the World War II exploits of a group of military prisoners turned soldiers. The soldiers were led by the tough as nails Lt. Danko who assigned each squad member a place based on their abilities.I fondly remember this show as being slightly better than the Dirty Dozen TV movies that preceded it. I grew up on The A-Team, where nobody ever got killed, and they killed EVERYBODY in this show; strangled, beaten, shot, stabbed, blown up... we're talking grenades thrown into CROWDS of Nazis... it might've been largely bloodless, cartoon violence, but it was WAR! Filming in Yugoslavia meant "the suits" weren't breathing down the producers' necks, so they seriously got to blow the sh!t out of some stuff. Only EIGHT action-packed episodes burned hot and then vanished without a trace, but a baker's dozen were planned. Shame too, I thought this had the potential for greatness. Ben Murphy starred as the leader of "Danko's Dozen", John D'Aquino (SeaQuest, Pumpkinhead) and John Slattery (Mad Men, Tony Stark's dad in the Marvel films) co-starred as some of the other guys you could count on to survive week-to-week.
- DirectorBrian G. HuttonStarsRichard BurtonClint EastwoodMary UreAllied agents stage a daring raid on a castle where the Nazis are holding American brigadier general George Carnaby prisoner, but that's not all that's really going on.
- DirectorJohn GuillerminStarsGeorge SegalRobert VaughnBen GazzaraAs the Allied armies close in, the Germans decide to blow up the last Rhine bridge, trapping their own men on the wrong side. But will it happen?George Segal plays Hartman, the American soldier tasked with taking and holding the bridge at Remagen, and Robert Vaughn plays the Nazi tasked with blowing it up. The battles are furious, and while its far from the finest war movie you've ever seen, it boasts some of the best - and fastest - tank combat ever put on celluloid. Wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg watched this one before making Private Ryan, because there's a similar shot with a tank coming up over a rise with soldiers looking back at it and running. E.G. Marshall and Ben Gazzara co-star.
- DirectorRichard AttenboroughStarsSean ConneryRyan O'NealMichael CaineOperation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.This Robert Altman epic set out to be as massive as Operation Market Garden itself, and like the mission upon which its based, it kind of fails in parts, but it has no shortage of great scenes, great actors, or great action as it covers this massive campaign from all angles. It also boasts one of the greatest casts ever assembled - Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, James Caan, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neil, Robert Redford, John Ratzenberger, Maximillian Schell, Hardy Kruger, and Lawrence Olivier, just to name a few.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsRichard BurtonRoger MooreRichard HarrisA British banker hires a group of British mercenaries to rescue a deposed African President from the hands of a corrupt African dictator.
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsGregory PeckHarry GuardinoRip TornDuring the Korean War peace talks, U.S. troops fight to retake a hill from the Communist Chinese forces.
- DirectorRandall WallaceStarsMel GibsonMadeleine StoweGreg KinnearThe story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, and the soldiers on both sides that fought it, while their wives wait nervously and anxiously at home for the good news or the bad news.
- DirectorJohn IrvinStarsAnthony BarrileMichael BoatmanDon CheadleA very realistic interpretation of one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
- DirectorBrian Trenchard-SmithStarsWings HauserR. Lee ErmeyRobert ArevaloA tough U.S. sergeant and his sidekick roll into a demoralized firebase, where they attempt to rebuild morale and fortifications amid a climactic battle with the Viet Cong.
- DirectorTed PostStarsBurt LancasterCraig WassonJonathan GoldsmithDuring the early 1960s, U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam discover the same challenges that plagued the French army in Indochina ten years prior.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsCharlie SheenTom BerengerWillem DafoeChris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMartin SheenMarlon BrandoRobert DuvallA U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.