10 War Movie Moments You'll Never Forget

6. Motorcycle Getaway - The Great Escape

The Great Escape Motorcyle Jump
United Artists

We have been blessed with some truly brilliant POW films over the years - the vast majority of which have thrown the spotlight on World War 2 and the various Allied soldiers and airmen who were interned in German camps over the course of the conflict. Billy Wilder crafted the inimitable William Holden-led Stalag 17, Guy Hamilton had The Colditz Story, and David Lean had the Bridge on the River Kwai. (Frank Sinatra also had a great, but slightly pulpier turn in the genre with all-timer Dad Movie classic, Von Ryan's Express.)

However, while I would argue that both Stalag and River Kwai are stronger films, there is no more iconic a POW war movie than John Sturges' The Great Escape.

Boasting one of the most legendary ensemble casts of all time, bringing together Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough, to name but a few, The Great Escape retold the daring Allied escape attempt from the Stalag Luft III POW camp in 1944. While much of the story was true, there were some embellishments, most famously the motorcycle chase depicted in the film, which saw McQueen's Virgil Hilts attempt to outrun his Nazi pursuers on a Triumph Trophy.

Although it wasn't based in reality, Hilts' escape attempt (requested to be done via motorcycle by McQueen) is one of the most iconic and kinetic sequences in movie history, and is a key reason why The Great Escape has been immortalised in quite the way it has.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.