its strange that there arnt any american korean war movies

M.A.S.H.

What about Inchon (1981)?

I had uncle who served with the Canadian Army in Korea - he never got the attention he deserved. Hollywood ignored this war.

I suppose the reasons are many and varied, but I think some of these may be relevant:

The Korean war wasn't a US war. The Korean war was a UN "police-action" (war).

There were 27 nations, fighting North-Korea, China and Russia (with Soviet-block nations making up triage and support).
The US and the UK, as usual, made up the largest bulk of the force from the west, but still half that of South-Korea itself. (350 000 UN + 600 000 South-Korea). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War


The Korean-war was unpopular

Nobody wanted to go to war in Korea, so it was a very unpopular war, both domestically and also internationally (European nations were for the most part also against any actions, since it meant that security in Europe would suffer).
In the end, the war and it's consequences, caused Truman to be the most unpopular president in the history of the US and he did not seek another term in office.



Douglas MacArthur wanted to nuke China.

The famed general wanted to use nuclear weapons in Korea and also openly expressed political views and wishes to go to a full-scale war with the Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur#Removal_from_command
This was in conflict with the directives, given by the president and the famed WWII general was relieved of command.



The Korean war is still not over

Korea was divided before the war, and after the war, so very little was gained or lost. (apart from human lives).
In the end, a ceasefire was reached, and is still in effect today.

Thus, the star-spangled banner thumping, all-American Hollywood nationalism-mush will not work here.
And if that doesn't work, why make a movie about it?

Vietnam took the limelight

As war-movies go, the tragedy in the American-war in Vietnam (which is the Vietnamese term for the war), is way more movie-friendly. Even from a war with no clear strategy (apart from winning by attrition, killing everyone), huge losses of lives and in the end a loss, the story of the American-war in Vietnam is way cooler to make a movie about.
- Invaders gets portrayed as heroes and misunderstood liberators.
- You get to quote Kennedy \o/
- The music was great
- It's all-american (apart from the 2 million Vietnamese lives lost)
- The weapons used were cooler.
- The language and swearing is more modern.
- The stories can be made so much greater than they really were.
- The 60's was a much more interesting decade than the 50's, you have the Kennedy-assassination, Cuba-crisis, space-program, hippies, protestors and is a water-shed between the old and the new America (or so they say). Who the heck knows what happened in the 50's?
- You get to stereotype a whole continent as slant-eyed 'charlies' (in the film), kick commie-ass and turn a loss into nationalistic 'measurbation' (mis-spelled intentionally)
Thus, the start-spangled banner thumping, all-American Hollywood nationalism-mush will indeed work here.
And if that does work, why not make a few dozen movies about it?


:P

And for you Americans, there are indeed (great) movies about the Korean-war, but you need to watch a movie in another language (Korean) and read the subtitles (like 97,5% of the rest of the world), but I suppose that is not interesting. :)))

personally, after all the tongue-in-cheek, the Korean-war should be filmed and the stories told, also from Hollywood, the people who fought in that war deserves to get their stories told as well. Would be cool to see an American war-movie also portraying other nation's efforts as well, it's a tendency to 'forget that' sometimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steel_Helmet
The Steel Helmet is a great Korean War movie produced during the war by Sam Fuller. Definitely worth watching.

Men In War (1957)

Because we didn't win, and because Hollywood was pulling for the commies.

WW2 everyone could agree the Nazis were bad.
Vietnam most people were against, so it was easy to make anti-war war movies about it.

Not many WW1 movies either, no one understands it.

I don't think you actually looked, at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Korean_War_films#United_States

The Steel Helmet, 1951
Fixed Bayonets!, 1951
Korea Patrol, 1951
I Want You, 1951
Tokyo File 212, 1951
Submarine Command, 1951
Japanese War Bride, 1952
Retreat, Hell!, 1952
One Minute to Zero, 1952
Battle Zone, 1952
Flat Top, 1952
Battle Circus, 1953
Sabre Jet, 1953
The Glory Brigade, 1953
Take the High Ground!, 1953
Cease Fire, 1953
The Bamboo Prison, 1954
Prisoner of War, 1954
Dragonfly Squadron, 1954
Men of the Fighting Lady, 1954
The Bridges at Toko-Ri, 1954
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, 1955
The McConnell Story, 1955
Target Zero, 1955
Hold Back the Night, 1956
The Rack, 1956
Men in War, 1957
Battle Hymn, 1957
Sayonara, 1957
Time Limit, 1957
Tank Battalion, 1958
The Hunters, 1958
Pork Chop Hill, 1959
All the Young Men, 1960
Cry for Happy, 1961
Marines, Let's Go, 1961
Sniper's Ridge, 1961
The Manchurian Candidate, 1962
The Nun and the Sergeant, 1962
War Hunt, 1962
The Hook, 1963
War Is Hell, 1963
The Young and The Brave, 1963
Iron Angel, 1964
Sergeant Ryker, 1968
M*A*S*H, 1970
The Reluctant Heroes, 1971
MacArthur, 1977
Inchon 1981 (joint US-ROK production)
For The Boys, 1991

This took about 30 seconds of searching on the internet.