Top 10 War Movies That Left Out the Real Horrific Ending

“Operation Dumbo Drop” (1995)
In 1995, Disney released a family dramedy about the Vietnam War, "Operation Dumbo Drop.” The film centers on real-life missions in Vietnam where the U.S. military brought elephants to Vietnamese villages to foster goodwill. It was important to these soldiers to show the Vietnamese that their aid would be rewarded with American support. That support lasted only so long as the U.S. needed their help. After the rapid U.S. pull-out, the South Vietnamese were left to fend on their own. The CIA left a list of Vietnamese collaborators behind in the US embassy. It was discovered and 30,000 were hunted down and murdered. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Vietnamese were sent to re-education camps. Many were tortured. All suffered starvation, torture, disease, and forced labor.

“The Patriot” (2000)
When “The Patriot” was initially released, historians and other filmmakers roasted the movie for how it whitewashed history. As Spike Lee put it, "For three hours, ‘The Patriot’ dodged around, skirted about, or completely ignored slavery.” Despite owning a South Carolina plantation, Mel Gibson’s ‘Benjamin Martin’ doesn’t own slaves. His Black workers are all freemen. Martin is an amalgamation of several figures from the Revolutionary War. One of those men was Thomas Sumter. Unlike Martin, Thomas Sumter was not so benevolent towards Black people. He pushed the state to adopt “Sumter’s Law” in 1782. The state promised a healthy slave to any white man who enlisted. To encourage enlistment further, any recruiter would ‘earn’ one slave for every 25 white men they could get to sign up.

“Okinawa” (1952)
World War II films released in the 1940s and 1950s tended to push America's moral and military superiority. 1952’s “Okinawa,” was no exception. The film revolves around the officers and a ragtag gun crew on a U.S. destroyer fighting in the naval battle. They're all terrified of the incoming wave of kamikaze pilots. "Okinawa" moralizes over the use of kamikazes while completely ignoring the bloody land invasion. In the years after the war, report after report came out detailing Japanese and American atrocities. Both sides engaged in wholesale slaughter of native Okinawans. Women were terribly mistreated and children were often taken or killed. Before the war, 300,000 people lived on Okinawa. By the end of the war, some estimate that half were killed.

“The Green Berets” (1968)
Oliver Stone came back from his tour in Vietnam and decided to write his own war movie. When “Platoon” was released, he was asked why. Stone said he wanted to write a realistic film to counter "The Green Berets." The year 1968 was a turning point in the war. Public opinion was dropping and the Tet Offensive turned the tide against the U.S. In the middle of that mess, John Wayne decided that America needed a jingoistic pro-war movie. Wayne built an entire career out of ‘white hats vs. black hats’ and ‘cowboys vs. Indians.’ As a vehement anti-communist, that’s how he saw the conflict in Vietnam. But, as Stone showed in “Platoon,” the jungles of Vietnam contained more shades of gray.

“Captain from Castile” (1947)
History is written by the victors. For centuries, the conquest of Mexico was seen from the perspective of the invading Spanish. In that tradition, “Captain from Castile” follows the adventures of a fictional conquistador under Cortes. The machinations and political infighting between Spanish leaders are on full display. What is not, however, are the blood-soaked results of those adventures. At its climax, “Captain from Castile” has the conquistadors march on Cholula on their way to conquering Tenochtitlan. The film doesn’t go into much detail as to the events of Cholula, likely due to their unsavory nature. After gathering the city's leaders, Cortes accused them all of treachery. He and his Tlaxcalan allies then annihilated most of the city. Thousands of unarmed civilians were murdered.

“American Sniper” (2014)
“American Sniper” is based on the life of SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. According to the Navy, he had 160 confirmed kills in Iraq. In the movie, Bradley Cooper played Kyle with nuance and pathos. It’s a portrait of a man obsessed with protecting others, who desperately doesn’t want to kill. He doesn’t rejoice in death, despite his high kill count. The real-life Kyle claimed to have no regret for any of his actions whatsoever. He seemed to have developed an obsession with killing to the point of taking credit for murders that never occurred. He claimed to have killed carjackers in Texas. He also said that the government sent him to New Orleans after Katrina where he murdered thirty people with their okay.

“Battle of the Bulge” (1965)
The 1965 war film “Battle of the Bulge” sits high on many lists of the worst war films ever made. Eisenhower came out of retirement to blast the movie. It completely ignores the Allied intelligence failures and arrogance that cost thousands of lives. What’s worse, half the film doesn’t appear to take place in December. The weather is often sunny, and the hills are lush and green. In reality, The Battle of the Bulge took place in the dead of winter. Tanks had to be chiseled out of blocks of ice. There was zero visibility thanks to freezing rain and snow. Many of the wounded froze to death before they could be saved. Hundreds of men got frostbite and several thousand suffered from trench foot.

“Braveheart” (1995)
Mel Gibson's William Wallace paints the Scottish folk hero as a 'noble savage.' He was well-educated, spoke Latin and French, and was out for justice for his slain wife. In truth, very little is actually known about William Wallace's life outside of war. “Braveheart” took many liberties with history. The movie version of the Battle of Stirling Bridge doesn’t even have the bridge. In actuality, the English foolishly bottlenecked themselves onto a narrow bridge and were slaughtered. Neither does the film show the recorded fate of English General Hugh de Cressingham. According to multiple accounts, Wallace didn’t just kill the man in battle. He had the English commander flayed and made a sword belt from his skin.

“The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957)
Many British World War II veterans took umbrage with the Oscar-winning film “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” It portrays a British commander, played by Alec Guinness, who takes pride in ordering his imprisoned men to build a bridge for the Japanese. In actuality, when forced to build the Burma Railway, British officers encouraged sabotage. In a BBC interview, a former prisoner said that an officer like the movie's Nicholson would have been killed. Conditions, too, were far worse than the movie depicts. Tens of thousands of laborers from Thailand, Burma, and Malaysia were conscripted to aid in construction. By the end of the war, 13,000 POWs died from exhaustion, thirst, starvation, and disease. Between eighty and one hundred thousand civilians also died.

“The Birth of a Nation” (1915)
“The Birth of a Nation” was the first blockbuster ever produced. It was also replete with lies from beginning to end. Covering both the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era, the movie doesn’t just spin history; it inverts it. The film shows Black militias roaming the hillside, murdering southern families. The KKK, however, are just honest white folk defending their homes. Black politicians steal elections, and corrupt the government thanks to Reconstruction. History reveals that the opposite was true. The KKK and similar groups attacked communities all over the American south, stamping out Black voting whenever possible. In Opelousas, Louisiana, a sister organization to the KKK murdered 200 Black people to stop their votes. Corruption and murder killed Reconstruction in its infancy.