Great war movies are filled with award-winning action, which tends to dictate their greatness. But dialogue is just as important to a great war movie as the action sequences it’s built around. For that reason, we’ve decided to build a list of the greatest military movie quotes of all time.
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Here’s the list. We’ve even gone ahead and marked off the times so you know when they’re coming. Some of the quotes feature explicit language — you’ve been warned.
Apocalypse Now (1:32 into clip): “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Predator: “I ain’t got time to bleed.”
Platoon (1:43 into clip): “Lovely f*cking war.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0gv0SASjg
Inglorious Basterds: “I’ve been chewed out before.”
Full Metal Jacket: There are too many incredible quotes, so the entire opening monologue from Gunnery Sgt. Hartman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZYlXEUo-Lo
The Hurt Locker (0:48 into clip): “If I’m gonna’ die, I’m gonna’ die comfortable.”
Jarhead (1:21 into clip): “Please don’t use your d*cks.”
Zero Dark Thirty (1:28 into clip): “Who here’s been in a helo crash before?”
Saving Private Ryan: The “gripe” scene.
The Deer Hunter (0:18 into clip): “Now we’ve got ourselves a game.” The Russian Roulette scene is one of the most iconic movie moments of all time, but Robert De Niro delivers such an understated line.
If you haven’t seen any of the above movies, we highly recommend you do. They provide a lot more than just the quotes above.
And for the record, while “Predator” is technically considered a horror movie, it’s built on the foundations of warfare. Ipso facto, it’s a military movie.
