War movies themselves should be seperated by the wars themselves. I mean different times, different views, different terms of context:

Best American Vietnam War Movie - Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Besides being the undisputed king of Vietnam Movies by many critics, its arguably the greatest war film ever.

Runner-Ups - Stanley Kubrick's criminally underrated Full Metal Jacket and Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, and Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter.

First Gulf War(1991) - David Russell's Three Kings. Only 3 films about that war that I'm aware of. Of those 3, this is the best(and its a decent movie in the vein of many WW2 "Men on a Mission" sub-genre films like Kelly's Heroes, Where Eagles Dare, and Guns of the Navarone).

Runner-Up - The Made-for-HBO movie LIVE FROM BAGHDAD with Michael Keaton. Fine small-scale film about the CNN crew who brought those stunning night vision-filled battle footage over in Baghdad, and their fights with the Iraqi propaganda machine.

I'll post more later today.