Now that "Dunkirk" has all but cemented its place, with critics at least, as one of the greatest war movies ever made you're starting to see a lot of "Greatest War Movies of All-Time" lists showing up online. It's too early to know the impact that "Dunkirk" will have and the lasting impression it will make on the next generation of moviegoers, but there's no doubt in my mind that we will likely see it on such a list in the near future. It's just too early for me to put it anywhere near these classics.
I'd say these are, more or less, the essentials of the genre:
Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg)
Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
Platoon (Oliver Stone)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo)
La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir)
The Great Escape (John Sturges)
The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick)
Downfall (Olivier Hirschbiegel)
Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner)
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick)
Am I missing anything? Post your own list in the comments section and let us know if "Dunkirk" is worthy of the essential "War Movie" cannon.