History WarIsHell / LiveActionFilms

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[VideoGame/{{Fallout}} War. War never changes.]]'']]

* The Russian film ''Film/ComeAndSee'' is this trope ''incarnate'', being about a little boy turned partisan during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. It ends in insanity and shows incredible cruelty on both sides. The title itself is a reference to the biblical Apocalypse.

* ''Film/ForrestGump'' wanted to tell a rally about his horrifc experiences in Vietnam but the sound was sabotaged. By the time he finished, all they heard was "That's all I have to say about that" which is his euphemism for when his stories are too sad to continue telling.

* ''Film/ForrestGump'': Though somewhat downplayed by Forrest's naive and childlike outlook on the world, you still see this when [[spoiler:Dean loses his legs, and Forrest's best friend Bubba dies. Forests thought on this is: "Bubba was supposed to be a shrimping boat captain, but instead he died by that river in vietnam". 58 000 stories in one.]]

* ''Film/{{Kuroneko}}'': The disconnect between nnobles and peasants when it comes to the hardships of war. Poor Hachi goes mad after finding out that his mother and wife were killed while he was off playing war hero.

* ''Film/{{Onibaba}}'' and ''Film/{{Kuroneko}}'' are both set in war torn medieval Japan and deals with the deprivation of war and how low people will sink just to survive.

* ''Film/{{Onibaba}}'' and ''Film/{{Kuroneko}} are both set in war torn medieval Japan. The films deal with the deprivation of war and how low people will sink just to survive.

* Interestingly, Creator/{{Troma}} got in on this trope with ''Film/CombatShock'', an ''extremely'' brutal and [[TearJerker bleak]] depiction of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and one veteran's attempt to rebuild his life. [[spoiler: He ends up having a flashback and murdering his wife and young child. He snaps out of it, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realizes what he just did,]] and [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself.]]]]

** Which his partner, one of the native Wachatis, translates as "I want to fight you...so go to hell!"

* The Russian film ''Film/ComeAndSee'' is about a little boy turned partisan during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. It ends in insanity and shows incredible cruelty on both sides. The title itself is a reference to the biblical Apocalypse.

[[quoteright:350:[[AllQuietOnTheWesternFront1930 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/downloadjpeg_44.jpg]]]]

* ''Film/ThePatriot'': Benjamin Martin helps win the war but his home is destroyed, two of his sons are dead and the other two are forced to kill at a young age, irreversibly changing them both (one is scarred for life, the other likes it too much).

* Interestingly, Creator/{{Troma}} got in on this trope with ''Combat Shock'', an ''extremely'' brutal and [[TearJerker bleak]] depiction of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and one veteran's attempt to rebuild his life. [[spoiler: He ends up having a flashback and murdering his wife and young child. He snaps out of it, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realizes what he just did,]] and [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself.]]]]

** ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' for the use of War Is Hell surrealism as the engine that transforms Willard and sets up the [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness final confrontation]] and the ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' revelation. Kurtz whispering "The horror ... the horror..." while dying is now [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic a classic image]] of anti-war cinema. Interestingly enough ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' also turns up in WarIsGlorious.

* ''[[Film/Fury2014 Fury]]'' is the result of World War Two meeting the ultra-realistic style of filmmaking in 2014. Nothing about the war is portrayed as glorious or inspirational, but the whole thing is instead shown as a giant, soul-destroying bowl of misery and horror. Shocking and cruel ways to die and war crimes happen countless times every day, including but not limited to: people burning alive inside a tank, people being run over by tanks, the use of ChildSoldiers, the summary execution of war criminals (and sometimes just ordinary soldiers who rubbed the enemy the wrong way or were in the wrong place at the wrong time), the terrorizing and murder of civilians to force them to fight a doomed war, the Nazis shelling or burning down entire towns and cities for surrendering to the Americans, soldiers having sex with civilian women with QuestionableConsent, etc. Even barely focused on background moments can show the horror at work, such as at the beginning of the movie when the crew of the tank "Fury" returns to base and forklifts are seen in the background piling dead bodies into a mass grave. What makes it especially jarring is that it's set in April 1945, and everyone in the film knows that the war in the European theatre is over and it is absolutely impossible for Germany to win (Hitler's suicide and the surrender of Germany is only a few weeks away at most), and yet fanatics still go out to fight and die for (or force others to fight and die for) something that's already a foregone conclusion. The deleted scenes make things even grimmer, as it shows more of the horrific toll that years of combat have taken on the Fury's crew, explains why Don is such a DeathSeeker, and features other cheerful events like driving past a field full of concentration camp victims who were either executed or dropped dead while being marched from one camp to another. For an idea of just how brutally the war is portrayed, here is one veteran of the Fury's crew telling NewMeat Norman about what they did after arriving in France after D-Day.

* ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'': The meat-grinder of the D-Day landings: the traumatic chaos and helplessness in the face of extreme violence (for example, a horrifically gored soldier who had the unfortunate fate of [[GuttedLikeAFish having his guts splattered from his stomach]] in [[{{Gorn}} graphic, stomach-churning detail]] while holding his entrails and calling for his mother before screaming in horrible agony, all pictured above for a very good reason). In fact the opening ''played down'' what a nightmare the Omaha Beach landing was by showing it being over relatively quickly. Extend that scene out to a day if you want to imagine the real thing. Also, that was after the defense was fooled in moving more than half of their forces away. Imagine how a full frontal assault would have gone down!

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[[caption-width-right:259:deaths in trenches]]

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