By Richard T. Jameson
Special to MSN Movies

At the onset of World War I, young Albert Narracott of Devon, England, watches heartbroken as his horse Joey is commandeered for use by the cavalry in France. As the war rages, Joey will bear both British and German riders before being cast adrift in no-man's-land. And eventually, Albert, never having forgotten his beloved steed, sets off on an odyssey of his own.

Sounds like it should be a Steven Spielberg movie — and that's just what "War Horse" is. There's even a certain serendipity in Michael Morpugo having written this children's novel around the time Spielberg was celebrating another inter-species heart-to-heart in "E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982). The movie doesn't follow Morpugo's strategy of narrating the entire tale from the horse's POV; we trust that a human cast including the likes of Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, Benedict Cumberbatch, and newcomer Jeremy Irvine will hold up their end. When the film opens on Christmas Day, to borrow a line from E.T. himself, we'll be right there.

But while awaiting the release of this most unorthodox war film, we invite you to ponder some other distinctive entries in the genre. The idea isn't necessarily to select the "10 Greatest War Movies" — though some of these would be in the running — or recycle the received wisdom on "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Platoon," Spielberg's own "Saving Private Ryan," "The Hurt Locker," et al. Instead we salute a gallery of fine films that deserve to be better known.

(DreamWorks)