TORA! TORA! TORA! (1970)

.This is the hands-down best of all the many Pearl Harbor movies, mainly because it shows how the Japanese and American sides slid inevitably into war--the Japanese cock-sure, arrogant and full of hubris; the Americans sluggish and asleep at the wheel. The movie is meticulously made, with tremendous attention to detail, and the attack scenes are breath-takingly realistic--this at the dawn of the CGI era. Martin Balsam, one of Hollywood's most versatile actors, plays Adm. Kimmel, the smug commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Jason Robards is Lt. Gen. Short, the out-of-it Army Air Corps commander at Hickam Field. But the two best roles go to E.G. Marshall and Wesley Addey, respectively the Army and Navy intelligence officers in Washington who vainly try to get the attention of higher-ups as they read decoded Japanese messages. The excellent cast includes Joseph Cotton, Neville Brand, Richard Anderson and the ever-detestable George Macready.