Remember December 7. Here are 11 films about Pearl Harbor. Which is your favorite?

U.S Naval Institute ^ | December 7, 2012 | U.S. Naval Institute

[Saint X]

Great list of Pearl Harbor movies. Some were good, some were awful. The most ridiculous one is still the best - The Final Countdown ("Splash the zeros!") The video clips bring back memories.

[Bob]

My favorite Pearl Harbor movie was “Midway”. :=)

[Maine Mariner]

Tora Tora Tora

Midway was pretty good too!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

****My favorite Pearl Harbor movie was “Midway”. :=)***

That is because so many scenes from TORA TORA TORA were used in MIDWAY.

[Gaffer]

The one where Hiroshima and Nagasaki get the ever lovin’ hell nuked out of them.

[chimera]

Gotta be From here To Eternity. Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Doesn't get much better for that in terms of casting. That and Sinatra's Oscar make it memorable.

On the other side of the coin, we should diss Final Countdown for typically lousy performances by Martin Sheen and Katharine Ross. How they ever got parts in major motion pictures (other than eye candy for Ross) is a mystery to me. Sheen isn't bad as a mid-range character actor, but he can't carry a leading role.

[Gaffer]

Actually, “Midway” was the best, I think.

[pgkdan]

1.Tora! Tora! Tora!
2. In Harm's Way
3. Winds of War
4.From Here to Eternity

[KC_Lion]

I modeled my whole life around this documentary when I was a kid.

But When America needs to to speak, those ships spoke with 14 and 16 inch projectiles.

[yarddog]

The first time I saw “Tora Tora Tora”, it seemed boring. A couple of more times and it got better each time.

[Bob]

It think it was more that I liked the ending better. :=)

[fish hawk]

Liked Midway a lot but could have been better by cutting out all the crap about Heston’s son and that Japanese girl.

[Mouton]

Been partial to Task Force....my dad was a B-17 guy and resembled John Garfield.

[Himyar]

I watch Tora,Tora,Tora every DEc. 7. Lest we forget.

[Twotone]

We visited Hawaii a few weeks ago & took the Pearl Harbor tour, which included the Battleship Missouri. Those guns are intimidating just standing there. And to see a sample projectile which weighed as much as a VW Bug was incredible. I wouldn’t want those guns pointed at me!

[Vigilanteman]

Wasn't "Midway" about Midway?

In terms of historical accuracy, the 1970s epoch "Tora! Tora! Tora!"was probably the best film on the subject.

Unlike the more modern "Pearl Harbor" which can most kindly be described as a steamy romance using a historical fiction as a background, TTT was very well researched with a steamy romance fiction subplot thrown in to sell a few extra movie tickets to historical ignoramuses which became the movie going majority by the time that "Pearl Harbor" was released.

My father, God rest his soul, always swore that the soulless FDR baited the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. He needed the war to cover up his economic blundering.

Dad hated FDR with a purple passion. A letter which his sister shared with me after he died, dated November 1941, made this even more clear.

But he was among the first in line to join the Naval Air Corps when his local recruiting station opened on December 8, 1941. Go figure.

[fungoking]

Animal House, “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I loved the way the camera panned around and we saw three Jap carriers burning in the frame!

[trisham]

Best: "From Here to Eternity" 1953

Worst: "Pearl Harbor" 2001

[skeeter]

I saw TTT with my father as a kid (we were disappointed that only half of the movie contained action) & have seen that movie a dozen times since. I also have the 50 year commemorative DVD.

Earlier this year I saw a version that contained edited scenes I have never seen before, they'd been edited out for some reason.

I agree, the more I see it the more appreciate the good job they did in putting it together.