"A" WWII movies for me = Patton, Tora,tora,tora and Battle of Britain
also Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers.
I agree with the two Clint Eastwood films and of course Saving Private Ryan, but Patton, Tora, tora, tora and Battle of Britain were action movies in a WW II setting, nothing more or less and their historical accuracy is debatable, though nostalgia might put them in a more favorable light. BoB's redeeming features were really the original (or: Spanish) planes they used, the acting was pretty naff, the film might as well have been about a cricket game between England and Germany.
What those sixties war movies lacked was any in depth psychological analysis of what war does to you - I think it was Private Ryan who showed for the first time that in WW II even the good guys committed crimes (shooting of surrendering German soldiers from machine gun nests after being aggravated by the loss of friends gunned down previously). Or the way Private Ryan showed the shooting of wounded enemy soldiers by advancing soldiers, a routine measure in most wars, but never seen (at least by me) in those sixties war films where - the occasional sadistic Japanese or Nazi officer aside - both sides would be depicted as fighting with some chivalrous dignity.
Inglourious Basterds war gory at times, but it had some more perceptive insights. The fact that a black/jewish couple (everything the Nazis despised) would kill off the Nazi elite was nice irony or the scene where the captured German answers to Brad Pitt's question whether he got the Iron Cross for "killing jews" with the stoic "no, for valor" before having his head smashed in for not giving away German positions. Tarantino could be a much better film maker if, like the very smart kid that clowns in class, he would not have such a strong desire not to be taken too seriously.
And of course Inglourious Basterds was a B movie, Tarantino bent over backwards to make sure it was. Weirdly enough the film is widely appreciated by people who generally don't like war films at all. Or Tarantino films for that matter. It is certainly among his best stuff, the much lauded Kill Bill overstayed its welcome pretty quickly I thought.
