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8 Underrated War Movies You Need to Watch This Week. Your Watchlist Has Been Lying to You.

Posted October 18, 2026 • by movie guru

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Fury has 621,265 IMDb votes. Das Boot has 291,176. Something is broken. Here are eight war movies the crowd keeps skipping, counted down.

The last one has half a million votes and still gets shortchanged.

  1. 8The Great Dictator poster
    Chaplin roasted a dictator to his face in 1940.
    9.2 on movie.guru, and audiences beat 98% of movies. The weakness: the slapstick runs a beat long before the big speech. The speech makes up for it.
  2. 7The Bridge on the River Kwai poster
    David Lean made a reported $2.8M look like an empire.
    9.5 movie.guru, $27.2M worldwide. Alec Guinness plays pride like a slow fuse. Yes, the first hour marches. That's the point.
  3. 6All Quiet on the Western Front poster
    The best war movie of the 2020s so far. In German.
    8.9 movie.guru, 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a reported $20M budget that looks triple. Metacritic's 76 says some critics found it relentless. Relentless is the job.
  4. 5The Deer Hunter poster
    The Deer Hunter (1978)9.3
    The wedding is long. You need every minute of it.
    9.3 movie.guru, Meryl Streep and John Cazale in support, $49M worldwide on a reported $15M. Patience required. Payoff guaranteed.
  5. 4Incendies poster
    Incendies (2010)9.1
    Denis Villeneuve's best movie, and almost nobody has seen it.
    9.1 movie.guru, just $6.8M worldwide on a reported $6.5M budget. Go in knowing nothing. Seriously, close the trailer tab.
  6. 3Paths of Glory poster
    Paths of Glory (1957)9.6
    Kubrick's sharpest movie is the one nobody quotes.
    9.6 movie.guru, Metacritic 90, and the fewest IMDb votes on this list at 243,404. Kirk Douglas versus the brass, and the brass deserve every second of it.
  7. 2Das Boot poster
    Das Boot (1981)9.6
    The most claustrophobic movie ever made. Not close.
    9.6 movie.guru, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Jürgen Prochnow says more with one stare than most scripts manage. Fewer IMDb votes than Fury. Explain that.
  8. 1The Hurt Locker poster
    The Hurt Locker (2008)9.1
    IMDb's 7.5 for The Hurt Locker is a crime.
    Metacritic 95, critics beat 97% of movies, audiences only 85%. The shaky cam is a lot. Jeremy Renner on a bomb is still tenser than most blockbusters.
Change my mind. Rank these from most to least underrated. Hurt Locker defenders and haters, you know where the comments are.

$83.47 says the comments fight about #1 before a single person presses play on #3.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it