On its first release in 1945, just after VJ day, Objective Burma came under fire in the British press-much as Saving Private Ryan would do some 40 years later-for portraying the jungle war as a solely American operation. But the passage of time has allowed the movie's many merits to outshine its narrow remit. The movie's bone-chilling portrayal of pain, sacrifice and endurance is astonishing; the jungle atmosphere is so persuasive you'd swear it was shot on the actual locations; and you'll never forget the terrifying last dark night on a mountainside-or the crocodiles. A paratroop captain (Errol Flynn) sets out with a platoon to attack a Japanese outpost in the jungle. The Americans reach their target, take out the enemy with almost balletic precision, then gear up to return home. This feels like the point when a conventional war movie would have reached its action-filled climax, but the journey has only begun. Ahead lies one of the most arduous and agonising adventures any World War II film ever offered, brilliantly directed by that underrated old master Raoul Walsh and photographed with almost tactile realism by the great James Wong Howe. Franz Waxman also contributes one of his finest music scores. Flynn is excellent (he had given his best performance ever in Walsh's Gentleman Jim three years earlier), and he's backed by a solid cast including Henry Hull (as an ageing war correspondent), James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias and Stephen Richards (soon to change his name to Mark Stevens). Incidentally, two of the writers, Alvah Bessie and Lester Cole, were later blacklisted; see if you can spot any Commie propaganda. [+]

The Great Escape image of Steve McQueen (as "The Cooler King") astride his motorcycle has entered silver-screen iconography, alongside Brando on his bike from The Wild One. Based on a true story about a group of POWs who mount a daring breakout from a supposedly inescapable Nazi prison camp, this rousing and suspenseful World War II epic features an all-star cast, including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn and David McCallum. -Jim Emerson A stirring example of courage and the indomitable human spirit, for many John Sturges' The Great Escape is both the definitive World War II drama and the nonpareil prison escape movie. Featuring an unequalled ensemble cast in a rivetingly authentic true-life scenario set to Elmer Bernstein's admirable music (who writes contrapuntal march themes these days?), this picture is both a template for subsequent action-adventure movies and one of the last glories of Golden Age Hollywood. Reunited with the director who made him a star in The Magnificent Seven Steve McQueen gives a career-defining performance as the laconic Hilts, the baseball-loving, motorbike-riding "Cooler King". The rest of the all-male Anglo-American cast-Dickie Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Garner, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Coburn and Gordon Jackson-make the most of their meaty roles (though you have to forgive Coburn his Australian accent). Closely based on Paul Brickhill's book, the various escape attempts, scrounging, forging and ferreting activities are authentically realised thanks also to the presence on set of technical advisor Wally Flood, one of the original tunnel-digging POWs. Sturges orchestrates the climactic mass break out with total conviction, giving us both high action and very poignant human drama. Without trivialising the grim reality, The Great Escape thrillingly celebrates the heroism of men who never gave up the fight. On the DVD: The Great Escape special edition is indeed a special event. [+]

The dew of new stardom was still visible on Marilyn Monroe when she ventured up to Canada to shoot River of New Return (1954), a sturdily entertaining CinemaScope Western. Although director Otto Preminger later claimed little interest in the picture, he couldn't help but bring his even-handed visual style to the widescreen process. The location shooting (in Alberta) is eye-filling, and that river really does look alarming. Best of all, a fresh and vital Marilyn had a costar to match her magnetism but not humour her sometimes scattered approach to acting. Robert Mitchum, as a homesteader with a dark past, is weighty enough to stand next to MM's bright flame without giving any ground; they should have worked together again. Since Marilyn plays a saloon singer, she gets to croon some tunes in her inimitable style, with as much glamour as the gold rush-era trappings will allow, giving "I'm Going to File My Claim" previously unexplored shades of meaning. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

No relation to the 1992 Clint Eastwood film of almost the same name, 1959's The Unforgiven is based-like John Ford's The Searchers-on a novel by Alan LeMay. Again the story focuses on a frontier family divided by racism. But instead of the complex, endlessly resonant demonology of the Ford picture, here John Huston aims for a pat, civil-rights-era allegory of loving solidarity triumphing over societal prejudice-and, to be sure, some noble but dangerous Kiowas. Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn costar as, respectively, the eldest son of a ranching family and the beloved sister who's not his sister at all, but an Indian. However, the film's dark heart belongs to Joseph Wiseman as an avenging ghost who materialises out of the wind and Lillian Gish as the matriarch who will do whatever she must to protect her clan. -Richard T Jameson.

Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2. [+]

Made in the year of his death, this is Hollywood's version of the wartime exploits of John F. Kennedy. Widescreen format, it looks good and the acting isn't bad either.