Curator Watchlist
Patton
A towering, old-school war epic that works as both battlefield spectacle and character study. It’s grand, quotable, and surprisingly skeptical about the myth of the great man, with one of George… Read more
Curator Watchlist
A towering, old-school war epic that works as both battlefield spectacle and character study. It’s grand, quotable, and surprisingly skeptical about the myth of the great man, with one of George… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Sun · 2h 52m
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young
"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with Patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.
Franklin J. Schaffner
George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young
A towering, old-school war epic that works as both battlefield spectacle and character study. It’s grand, quotable, and surprisingly skeptical about the myth of the great man, with one of George C. Scott’s defining performances.
Patton is one of the great American war films because it understands that victory and vanity can look almost identical on screen. Franklin J. Schaffner stages the film with real grandeur, but the movie’s real subject is a man who cannot separate discipline from self-mythology. The famous opening speech announces the scale of the performance, yet the film keeps asking whether Patton is a genius, a liability, or both at once.
George C. Scott gives the role volcanic force without flattening it into mere bluster. The film moves between battlefield logistics, political friction, and private contradiction, which gives it a richer shape than a simple heroic biography. It has the sweep of a studio epic, but its intelligence lies in how often it resists easy patriotism.
Even when it feels old-fashioned, that is part of the appeal: the pageantry, the rhetoric, the sense of history being argued over by larger-than-life personalities. It remains a benchmark for war cinema because it treats command as drama and ego as destiny.
theriverjordan (4.5★) · 398 likes
“Patton” succeeds utterly as a biopic for its insistance on remaining the detailed portrait of a single man — despite the immensity of historical events unfolding around him. This determination of focus also becomes the central dramatic conflict of the work: will General George Patton succeed in claiming full personal glory not just of his own film, but of the entire Second World War? Franklin J. Schaffner executes a maneuver of genius directorial subversion with the movie. He is so… more
Barry Daulton (5★) · 339 likes
170 minutes of one classic scene after the next, truly an outstanding movie and possibly the best War movie ever made.
David Sims (4★) · 308 likes
that Patton, he sure was ornery
comrade_yui (5★) · 186 likes
the great man theory of history, the movement of bodies, the duty of chivalry, the love of struggle, the end of principles and the beginning of systems. politics as the continuation of war by other means. twilight of the gods
Geoff Ketchum (5★) · 157 likes
Patton: "God, how I hate the twentieth century." Me: "General, wait until you see much more you hate the 21st century." Known as one of the greatest war movies of all-time, this 1970 Best Picture winner is less about battles and more of a fine-tooth study on a man who was comprised of every complicated nuance that mankind possesses. It's ugly and beautiful at the same time... just like the world has always been.
A similarly масштабed World War II production that emphasizes strategy, perspective, and the machinery of history over simple heroics.
Another large-scale war epic about command decisions, ambition, and the cost of overconfidence.
A classic study of military obsession and pride, with a commanding central performance and imperial-scale tension.
A sweeping portrait of a charismatic, self-mythologizing figure whose brilliance is inseparable from instability.
For viewers drawn to war films that mix battlefield action with philosophical reflection and inner conflict.
Shares the fascination with command, obsession, and the collapse of heroic self-image under war’s pressure.
A tense, immersive war film that turns military procedure and pressure into character drama.
A more intimate but still muscular war film that balances combat with the psychology of soldiers and leadership.
An epic about leadership, rebellion, and the making of legend through spectacle and performance.
For its grand studio-scale filmmaking, formal confidence, and old-Hollywood sense of historical pageantry.
A rougher, more cynical companion piece for audiences who enjoy military swagger and combustible personalities.
A classic wartime adventure built on planning, pressure, and ensemble military dynamics.
World War II, military leadership, ego and ambition, patriotism and skepticism, biographical drama, command and strategy, historical epic, masculinity
war epic, biopic, World War II, prestige drama, military strategy, antihero, historical, patriotic tension, classic Hollywood, character study