Chocs away for a stirring tale of wartime heroics as the RAF hit the enemy where it hurts. Michael Anderson's account of one of the most celebrated raids of the war, in which the 617 squadron destroyed three German dams, is the quintessential British war film. Pipe-smoking boffins, clipped accents and handlebar moustaches balanced on stiff upper lips abound. And then there's that unforgettable soundtrack...

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Film version of Wolfgang Petersen's superior soap set in the claustrophobic world of a World War II German submarine. The director exploits his claustrophobic setting to maximum effect, paradoxically using a steady-cam which rushes through the cramped interior only adding to the sense of isolation. Combined with the soap opera dramatics of the crew's life on board, Das Boot makes compulsive viewing.

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An at-once epic and intimate depiction of three buddies Michael, Nick and Steven (played by Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Savage) drafted to Vietnam, for which director Michael Cimino won an Academy Award. The carefully described relationships in the film's opening section (almost an hour long) accentuate the horror of their subsequent capture by the VietCong. Recognised by contemporary critics as the most harrowing of all the Vietnam movies.

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With its 12 angry men, relentless pace and explosive violence The Dirty Dozen is a glorious, gung-ho, authority-baiting action epic. Robert Aldrich's direction repeatedly goes for the balls but he's also alert to the ironies and hypocrisy of military politics. Big, brutal and expertly executed, the result is a quintessential, made-for-men war flick.

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Stanley Kubrick's celebrated satire on the cold war features Peter Sellers in three hillarious roles and a deeply cynical ending. When U.S. Air Force Colonel Jack Ripper goes insane and orders his bombers to destroy the U.S.S.R. the Russians threaten to detonate the 'Doomsday Device' and destroy the world. Sellers sparkles as the three men that might avert disaster, British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, U.S. President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick turns the end of the world into the ultimate absurdity as the world's most powerful men are caught in a trap of their own making.

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