Ten Must See Vietnam War Films

Ken Burn’s latest documentary, Vietnam, is currently broadcasting nightly on PBS. Up until the 1960s, war films were good business for Hollywood. It all changed with the Vietnam War.  With no clear military objective, the war became more and more unpopular on the home front. Hollywood knew a hot potato when they saw one and the major studios were slow to put themselves on the front line. There were exceptions. Most were low budget independent productions like A Yank in Vietnam (1964)  and To the Shore of Hell (1966). Other low budget films dealt with the returning Vietnam Vet. Most times they were portrayed as disturbed crazies: Motorpscyho, Targets, Taxi Driver and The Visitors. Then there was John Wayne’s The Green Berets, the only film at the time distributed by a major studio. Arguably it is the worst movie made about the Vietnam War, and I am not even talking about its politics. It is just a poorly made film. With this in mind here are ten must-see films about the Vietnam experience.