'Best war film ever' according to fans - not Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now

Fans have dubbed a lesser-known as one of the "best ever" - and it's not Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now. It was critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated but tends to go under the radar compared to other .

In a Reddit thread on the best war films, one user said that "The Thin Red Line is the best war movie ever made". The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American epic written and directed by Terrence Malick.

The adaptation of James Jones' 1962 autobiographical novel stars Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Adrien Brody and . It tells a fictionalised version of the Battle of Mount Austen, which was part of the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific Theatre of World War 2,

The user said: "There's something about this movie that transcends. The opening scenes of tranquillity are sheer bliss: Faure's In Paradisum mixing into the sound of Melanesian choirs as a man swims in the sea and watches children play.

"Then the surreal, steaming jungle leading to complete f*****g madness as one bigshot officer after another orders his men to charge the machine guns."

The user said that Japanese soldiers are buried alive and the voiceover is from their point of view.

He said it says: "Are you loved? I was. Do you imagine your suffering will be less, because you love goodness? Truth?"

They added: "This movie shook me. I'll be thinking about it for weeks."

Another said: "My grandfather fought in the Pacific and told me The Thin Red Line is the best film depiction of his experience. I'm sure it still doesn't come close to the horrors he saw, but when I watch it, I think of him."

One user said seeing it at the cinema when it was released was "mind-blowing".

They added: "I'd never seen anything like it. I rewatch it every few years and it's still just as powerful and amazing. One of the few war films that says something deeper about war beyond war = bad."

The film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It has an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 78 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Film critic Gene Siskel described The Thin Red Line as the "finest contemporary war film I've seen, supplanting Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from earlier this year, or even Oliver Stone's Platoon from 1986."

And critic Richard Corliss wrote for Time: "Some films deal in plot truth; this one expresses emotional truth, the heart's search for saving wisdom."