Best war movie theme - Bridge on the River Kwai, or The Great Escape ?

Love it when the theme song cranks up at the end, as Hiltz is brought back to camp, and asked the Commandant, Job didn’t work out, huh? Then – How many? The Commandant replies, Fifty, Hiltz. Then he gets marched back to the cooler. Great ending.

Inglorious Basterds, clearly.
Oh, you meant music…
I do not remember the music, really.

Then there is Hamburger Hill and Apacolypse Now.

Apacolypse Now,,, great flick!

The Colonel Bogey March was written decades before the Bridge on the River Kwai movie (and actual events). So Elmer Bernstein gets the nod for The Great Escape movie music.

He was a force. Wikipedia says:

“Bernstein wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Ten Commandments (1956), True Grit, The Man with the Golden Arm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Robot Monster, Ghostbusters and the fanfare used in the National Geographic television specials.”

“His scores for The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird were ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth and seventeenth greatest American film scores of all time, respectively, on the list of AFI’s 100 Years of Film Scores.”

“Other Bernstein film scores nominated for the list are as follows:”
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Far from Heaven (2002)
The Great Escape (1963)
Hawaii (1966)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Summer and Smoke (1961)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)

If it counts, the Imperial March from Star Wars is quite memorable.

Agreed @ragingloli

Oh, movie theme… never mind…
.
.
.
Neither. They are maybe the best prisoner camp war movies.

My top war films (and two of my top five favorite films) are:

Lawrence of Arabia
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)

And I would also put up for top war films:

The Longest Day (1962)
Das Boot

Of all those, I’d say Lawrence of Arabia is the best film; The Longest Day is the most war-film-like, and so perhaps the best at being a war film; Captain Horatio Hornblower is perhaps the most fun and happiest story, and Das Boot the most grim, tense and revealing, and perhaps the most realistic.
.
.
.
Well, let’s see, the music… um…

Lawrence of Arabia and Das Boot both have great music. The Great Escape’s music is really good too. As is Star Wars’, if that counts. The music from Patton was one of my favorites for a long time – the main theme is really good.

@Zaku Patton, agreed. Star Wars as well. And you can talk the actual movie too, doesn’t have to be about theme music exactly. Take the thread where you will, I’m just tired of politics.