Platoon

It took ten years for Oliver Stone to get his script made, but when this Vietnam War drama finally reached the screen it became a box-office smash and won four Oscars. Stone has the edge over Michael Cimino, Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick, all of whom made major Vietnam movies, in that he was actually there as a volunteer who fought for patriotic reasons and got wounded before becoming disillusioned. From the scary opening when the new arrivals are greeted by the sight of body bags bound for home, the movie is an authentically messy tour of duty through the paddy fields where two Americans (Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger) are at war with each other and fight for the soul of rookie Charlie Sheen. This is a modern classic and a personal exorcism for its director, who went on to complete a trilogy of Vietnam movies with Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth.