Oliver Stone's controversial career

“Platoon” (1986)

The gritty chaos of war is given a most unflattering close-up in one of the greatest films ever made about the Vietnam War. For Stone, the epic also resonated as a project ripped from the pages of his own life story (he served in the conflict as a 21-year-old infantryman). "Platoon" rejects the familiar archetypes of honor and heroism, casting the battlefield instead as a breeding ground for the very worst instincts of human nature.