1. The Storming Of Omaha Beach (Saving Private Ryan)
Paramount PicturesIf any film has ever captured the visceral, disorientating, bloody and surprisingly inglorious nature of real warfare it is Steven Spielbergs Saving Private Ryan in particular the unforgettable opening scene in which US Rangers invade Omaha Beach. Spielberg took advice from Hollywoods preeminent combat adviser Captain Dale Dye and the resulting recreation of D-Day made all the other blockbuster re-enactments of WWII which had proceeded it look incredibly tame. The storming of Omaha Beach very much set the standard for what viewers expected from a WWII film and influenced subsequent superb battle-filled movies like The Thin Red Line, Letters from Iwo Jima and Enemy at the Gates. As the American soldiers of Saving Private Ryan approach the Normandy beach, we see the sickening anxiety which has afflicted some of the less battle-hardened men and witness the stomach-churning moment as the landing crafts hatch opens and they enter what is arguably the closest thing to hell on earth in mankinds history. We watch as young men are mercilessly hacked down by German machine gun fire as soon as they step foot on the beach and experience the deafening effects of artillery fire. Amid all of this chaos Captain John H. Miller must compose himself and somehow organise an attack against the enemys machine gun nests. The battle for Omaha Beach is easily one of the finest sequences in the history of cinema and though all the brutality can be difficult to digest is an appropriate tribute to the men who really lost their lives on that bloody day in the June of 1944.