War Is Hell: 10 Notable Vietnam War Movies

1. Apocalypse Now (1979)

Based upon Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is another cracking Vietnam War film which barely made it to our screens as the production was so beset by disasters. The film follows Captain Benjamin Willard as he is set on a mission to track down and kill Colonel Walter E Kurtz who went up the Nung River into deepest darkest Cambodia and turned some troops into his personal army.

Willard is given a crew to travel with up the Nung. Along the way there are napalm strikes, surfing, the wiping out of everybody on a Sampan, the crew on drugs, the crew trying to kill Willard. Apparently Kurtz was a model soldier - possibly even a general - gone bonkers. Willard is informed that a Captain Colby went on the hunt for Kurtz but disappeared. Willard approaches the compound. There are dead bodies and severed heads littering the place. A photographer (Dennis Hopper) is taking pics and tells Willard of Kurtz's great philosophical oratory skills which spellbind people. Willard finally comes face to face with Kurtz who derides him as a message boy. He ties him up, but then lets him loose giving forth great speeches on philosophy, war, humanity and civilisation. As the villagers sacrifice a water buffalo, Willard stabs Kurtz in the back with a machete and he utters those great words: "The horror... The horror..." Apocalypse Now is an astonishingly beautiful film. The cinematography is amazing and the soundtrack - principally Wagner's The Ride of the Valkeries - has become iconic. The film is not an historical account of Vietnam but rather a meditation on the themes of power and corruption during war time. All power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. This applies to Kurtz. Is Kurtz a symbol of the US effort in Vietnam? Answers on the back of a postcard please. Like this list? Which Vietnam war movies would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.