The Deer Hunter (1978, Universal, dir. Michael Cimino, 182 min, R). I remember standing in line in a rare Dallas snowstorm at Northpark in January 1979 to see this. This is a monumental but structurally simple film about some working class, factory buddies from the Pittsburgh mills who get drafted and go off to Vietnam together, escape death and come back and try to put their lives back together, literally over kitchen tables.
The film’s 'middle' contains a notorious game of Russian roulette in the Vietnam rice paddies.
At the time of the film's first showing, Selective Service registration had stopped, but was resumed in 1980 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Yet in 1981 the Pentagon crafted its 123 words absolutely banning gays from the military ("homosexuality is incompatible with military service") to be replaced by "don't ask don't tell" in 1993 under Bill Clinton and finally repealed in 2011 under Obama.