This article lists notable films related to the Vietnam War.
Post-war films
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, there was an increase in American films that were more "raw,” containing actual battle footage. A FilmReference.com article noted that American filmmakers "appeared more confident to put Vietnam combat on screen for the first time" during that era. These American post-war film representations have generally been more realistic and gritty, such as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979).
There were several broad stereotypes about American Vietnam veterans. One stereotype was thinly disguised versions of the real Lieutenant William Calley, notorious as the officer responsible for the My Lai massacre of 1968, the so-called "psycho vets” who were portrayed as bloodthirsty psychopaths who wreak havoc upon their return to the United States. Such portrayals of the "psycho vet,” while acknowledging atrocities in Vietnam, most notably blamed the atrocities upon one deranged individual, suggesting that the atrocities, at least by Americans, were aberrations in the war. Films that portrayed the "psycho vet" archetype mostly took place in the United States and the victims of the "psycho vet" were usually his fellow Americans rather than the Vietnamese. A more popular stereotype was the "wounded veteran,” a veteran who was always psychologically and sometimes physically traumatized by the war. The character of Nick Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter, a once promising young man who as a result of his war experiences is reduced to obsessively and hopelessly playing Russian roulette for the amusement of sadistic Vietnamese gamblers in Saigon, despite the manifest dangers to himself, is one of the best known examples of the "wounded vet" stereotype. Chevotarevich was drafted into the Army in 1968 and throughout the film is portrayed as a victim, a man who was just incapable of overcoming the damage done to his soul by the war. Another example of the "wounded vet" archetype was the embittered and paralyzed veteran Luke Martin in the 1978 film Coming Home, whose suffering is redeemed by his winning the love of a good woman, Sally Hyde, the wife of a Marine. The British scholar Eben Muse noted in contrast to Luke, Sally's husband, Bob Hyde, is portrayed as a killer who enjoys the war and commits suicide after the war ends, suggesting veterans "...may either be an innocent or a killer, but not both.”
Another stereotype was that of "the innocent,” which portrayed the war as a sort of ghastly coming-of-age ritual for young American men who, provided that they survived, became real men. An example of the "innocent" stereotype is the character of Chris in the 1986 film Platoon. Chris is a naïve and innocent young man who joins the Army in 1967 out of a sense of patrotism. At the beginning of the film, Chris can barely take care of himself; by the end of the film, Chris is no longer an innocent, and has become a man. Although Chris has lost his innocence, the film suggests that this is a necessary part of growing up to become a man. Another example of the "innocent" stereotype was in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, where a young man, J.T. Davis, aka "Joker," joins the Marine Corps in 1966. The first half of the film concerns training at Parris island, where an inept and overweight trainee, Leonard Lawrence, is brutally bullied, humiliated and hazed until he snaps, murders the drill sergeant, and then commits suicide. The second half of the film is set in the Battle of Hue in 1968, where the Marines fight to retake Hue, and the film climaxes with an extended scene where an unseen Viet Cong sniper kills a number of men in the Marine squad Joker is attached to. The film ends with Joker coldly executing the sniper, a badly wounded woman who begs for mercy. Joker in his closing narration notes that he has finally become a Marine and hence a man. Muse noted that both stories in Full Metal Jacket that made up Joker's quest were full of repulsive elements and imagery, but argued the film justifies the brutality of these stories. Lawrence, bearing a "disgusting fatboy” label, "clearly needed some sense beaten into him,” even if the methods employed against him were excessive, while the female Viet Cong sniper had just killed a number of men in Joker's squad and her execution might be seen as a mercy killing as she was unlikely to survive her wounds.