Production notes

The seeds of what would become Platoon began as early as 1968, months after Oliver Stone had completed his own tour of duty fighting in the Vietnam War. Stone first wrote a screenplay called Break, a semi-autobiographical account detailing his experiences with his parents and his time in Vietnam. Stone's active duty service resulted in a "big change" in how he viewed life and the war. Although Break was never produced, he later used it as the basis for Platoon. His screenplay featured several characters who were the seeds of those he developed in Platoon. The script was set to music from The Doors; Stone sent the script to Jim Morrison in the hope he would play the lead (Morrison never responded, but his manager returned the script to Stone shortly after Morrison's death; Morrison had the script with him when he died in Paris). Although Break was never produced, Stone decided to attend film school. After writing several other screenplays in the early 1970s, Stone worked with Robert Bolt on the screenplay, The Cover-up (it was not produced). Bolt's rigorous approach rubbed off on Stone. The younger man used his characters from the Break screenplay and developed a new screenplay, which he titled Platoon. Producer Martin Bregman attempted to elicit studio interest in the project, but was not successful. Stone claims that during that time, Sidney Lumet was to have directed the film with Al Pacino slated to star had there been studio interest. But, based on the strength of his writing in Platoon, Stone was hired to write the screenplay for Midnight Express (1978). The film was a critical and commercial success, as were some other Stone films at the time, but most studios were still reluctant to finance Platoon, because it was about the unpopular Vietnam War. After the release of The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, the studios then cited the perception that these films were considered the pinnacle of the Vietnam War film genre as reasons not to make Platoon. Stone responded by attempting to break into mainstream direction via the easier-to-finance horror genre, but The Hand failed at the box office, and he began to think Platoon would never be made. Instead, he cowrote Year of the Dragon for a lower-than-usual fee of $200,000, on the condition from producer Dino De Laurentiis that he would next produce Platoon. Year of the Dragon was directed by Stone's friend Michael Cimino, who had also helmed The Deer Hunter. According to Stone, Cimino attempted to produce Platoon in 1984. The Department of Defense refused to support the production of the film due to its depiction of American war crimes, claiming the script was "rife with unrealistic and highly unfavorable depictions of the American soldier" for its depiction of the murder and rape of South Vietnamese civilians by American soldiers, the attempted murder of one US soldier by another, drug abuse and portraying the majority of American soldiers as "illiterate delinquents." The film was also accused of perpetuating racist stereotypes of African-American soldiers. De Laurentiis secured financing for Platoon, but he struggled to find a distributor. Because De Laurentiis had already spent money sending Stone to the Philippines to scout for locations, he decided to keep control of the film's script until he was repaid. Then Stone's script for what would become Salvador was passed to John Daly of British production company Hemdale. Once again, this was a project that Stone had struggled to secure financing for, but Daly loved the script and was prepared to finance both Salvador and Platoon. Stone shot Salvador first, before turning his attention to Platoon.

James Woods, who had starred in Stone's film Salvador, was offered the role of Barnes. Despite his friendship with Stone, he turned it down, later teasingly saying he "couldn't face going into another jungle with [Oliver Stone]". Denzel Washington expressed interest in playing the role of Elias, a character Stone said was based on a soldier he knew in Vietnam. Stone confirmed in a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly that Mickey Rourke, Emilio Estevez and Kevin Costner were all considered for the part of Barnes. He believes Costner turned down the role "because his brother had been in Vietnam." Stone also verified in the interview that Keanu Reeves turned down the role of Taylor because of the violence. Kyle MacLachlan also turned down the role of Taylor. Sheen said that he got the part of Taylor, because of Dafoe's nod of approval. Jon Cryer auditioned for the role of Bunny, which eventually went to Kevin Dillon. Crispin Glover also met Stone regarding an unspecific role in the film. Many Vietnamese refugees living in the Philippines at the time were recruited to act in different Vietnamese roles in the film. Stone makes a cameo appearance as the commander of the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry in the final battle, which was based on the historic New Year's Day Battle of 1968 in which he had taken part while on duty in South Vietnam. Dale Dye, who played Captain Harris, the commander of Company B, is a U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran who also served as the film's technical advisor. The third US Army veteran who appears in the film is a member of the crew who was briefly seen shirtless in the climactic battle.

Exterior shooting began on the island of Luzon in the Philippines in February 1986, although the production was almost canceled because of the political upheaval in the country, due to then-president Ferdinand Marcos. With the help of well-known Asian producer Mark Hill, the shoot commenced, as scheduled, two days after Marcos fled the country. Shooting lasted 54 days and cost $6.5 million. The production made a deal with the Philippine military for the use of military equipment. Filming was done chronologically. As a result of the Department of Defense refusing to supply historically-accurate equipment and uniforms, the film instead used equipment belonging to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Upon arrival in the Philippines, the cast was sent on an intensive training course, during which they had to dig foxholes and were subjected to forced marches and nighttime "ambushes," which used special-effects explosions. Led by Vietnam War veteran Dale Dye, training put the principal actors—including Sheen, Dafoe, Depp and Whitaker—through an immersive 30-day military-style training regimen. They limited how much food and water they could drink and eat and when the actors slept, fired blanks to keep the tired actors awake. Dye also had a small role as Captain Harris. Stone said that he was trying to break them down, "to mess with their heads so we could get that dog-tired, don't give a damn attitude, the anger, the irritation ... the casual approach to death". Willem Dafoe said "the training was very important to the making of the film", adding to its authenticity and strengthening the camaraderie developed among the cast: "By the time you got through the training and through the film, you had a relationship to the weapon. It wasn't going to kill people, but you felt comfortable with it." Scenes were shot in Mount Makiling, Laguna (for the forest scenes), Cavite (for the river and village scenes), and Villamor Air Base near Manila. In 1986, a novelization of the film script, written by Dale Dye, was published. In 2018 actor Paul Sanchez, who played Doc in the movie, made a documentary about the making of the film, entitled Platoon: Brothers in Arms.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Platoon has an approval rating of 89% based on 122 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Informed by director Oliver Stone's personal experiences in Vietnam, Platoon forgoes easy sermonizing in favor of a harrowing, ground-level view of war, bolstered by no-holds-barred performances from Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 92 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars, calling it the best film of the year, and the ninth best of the 1980s. Gene Siskel also awarded the film four out of four stars, and observed that Vietnam War veterans greatly identified with the film. In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby described Platoon as "possibly the best work of any kind about the Vietnam War since Michael Herr's vigorous and hallucinatory book Dispatches. "The film has been widely acclaimed," Pauline Kael wrote, "but some may feel that Stone takes too many melodramatic shortcuts, and that there's too much filtered light, too much poetic license, and too damn much romanticized insanity ... The movie crowds you; it doesn't leave you room for an honest emotion." However, black journalist Wallace Terry, who spent a two-year tour in Vietnam, and wrote the 1967 Time cover story titled The Negro in Vietnam, criticized the film for its depiction of African-American soldiers in Vietnam. In an interview with Maria Wilhelm of People, he called the film's depiction of black troops "a slap in the face". In the interview, Terry noted that there were no black actors playing officers, and the three notable black soldiers in the film were all portrayed as cowards. He further went on to criticise the film for perpetuating black stereotypes, stating the film "barely rises above the age-old Hollywood stereotypes of blacks as celluloid savages and coons who do silly things". This criticism was echoed by African-American veteran Bennie J. Swans, who stated that "Millions of people are going to accept this movie as an accurate picture of blacks in the war... That makes this a dangerous movie." Some Vietnam War veterans criticized the film for showing the killing of civilians, drug use among soldiers, and its portrayal of officers as ineffective as adhering to stereotypical views of soldiers. Others praised Stone for a realistic depiction of the war. Some veterans accused Stone of covering up war crimes he had himself witnessed as a soldier by failing to report them to his superiors, given the film was based on his autobiographical experiences.