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General William Tecumseh Sherman might have famously declared that “war is hell,” but Hollywood has since decided that war makes the perfect backdrop for a movie. As horrific as it might be to live through, war pushes men and women to their limits. War places us in physical danger, destroys us with crippling emotional loss, and sometimes provides the rare opportunity for rare displays of grace and courage. And that means war is a great place to set a movie.
What makes a truly great war movie? Sometimes it’s the vast scope of the battle scenes, other times its the filmmakers’ commitment to making sure they get every detail of an event right, and sometimes it’s all about putting a new spin on how we see the military (or our own history).
The 20 films on this list will inspire you, terrify you, and take you to the outer edges of your limits. So, it’s a good thing they’re all streaming on Netflix right now. You can salute the troops from the comfort of your couch!
This Academy Award winning film is half action thriller, half brilliant Iraq war drama. It follows a three-man team of bomb disposal experts as they try to balance the horror of the war with the tensions boiling within themselves.
[Stream The Hurt Locker]Photo: Everett Collection
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell star as three Jewish brothers who decide to lead a stunning guerrilla insurgency against encroaching Nazi forces in 1941 Belarus.
[Stream Defiance]Photo: Everett Collection
An all-star cast comes together to tell the true story of when a routine mission in Somalia went wrong. If you dig this film, be sure to read the Mark Bowden film that inspired it.
[Stream Black Hawk Down]Photo: Everett Collection
George Clooney reportedly tussled with acclaimed director David O. Russell on this Gulf War caper, but the fights may have been worth it. Three Kings remains one of the most engaging films about a swiftly changing military culture.
[Stream Three Kings]Photo: Everett Collection
Enemy At The Gates is a brilliant World War II film that was overlooked when it came out for two big reasons: 1) It was about Russian snipers, which isn’t as sexy to American audiences as flicks about our own homegrown heroes and 2) It came out in the shadow of a little film called Saving Private Ryan.
[Stream Enemy At The Gates]Photo: Everett Collection
Do you love World War II movies but wish that they had more blood, bludgeoning, and people blowing Hitler up? Quentin Tarantino feels the exact same way. His wild revisionist take on the genre may be historically inaccurate, but it’s absolutely brilliant.
[Stream Inglorious Basterds]Photo: Everett Collection
This Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece is as much a meditation on the horrors of the Vietnam War as it is a bold re-imagining of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
[Stream Apocalypse Now]Photo: Everett Collection
John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, and more movie legends came together to bring the Allies’ triumphant assault on Normandy to life in this thrilling tribute to D-Day.
[Stream The Longest Day]Photo: Everett Collection
Yeah, it might have given us Steve McQueen’s most iconic role, but The Great Escape is also a fantastic World War II flick…with a twist. Instead of being about the brutality of battle, it’s about thrilling power of the human spirit. And, you know, a kickass prison break.
[Stream The Great Escape]Photo: Everett Collection
In 1997, eccentric German auteur Werner Herzog made a documentary about Dieter Dengler’s crazy journey after being shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War. Herzog was so enthralled by the tale that he revisited it in this fantastic film which casts Christian Bale as the German-American pilot.
[Stream Rescue Dawn] Photo: Everett Collection
There are two sides in every conflict and Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the few films to retell the story of Pearl Harbor from both points of view. Follow the Japanese as they prepare to assault the vulnerable US naval base and watch as innumerable American lives are lost in “the day that will live in infamy.”
[Stream Tora! Tora! Tora!]Photo: Everett Collection
From Here To Eternity is a different kind of war movie that follows the passionate romances and interpersonal drama affecting the lives of three soldiers stationed in Pearl Harbor. Eventually they all have to face their respective fates on the historic day…
[Stream From Here To Eternity]Photo: Everett Collection
Jump across the Atlantic and go back to one of the most tumultuous times in Irish history. The Wind That Shakes The Barley
is a beautifully lyric study of a group of revolutionaries. [Stream The Wind That Shakes The Barley]Photo: Everett Collection
Patriotism was at an all-time in the years following World War II and this classic Gregory Peck flick capitalized off that zeitgeist. The film follows the adventures of the heroic American pilots who flew some of the first missions against Nazi Germany.
[Stream Twelve O’Clock High]Photo: Everett Collection
The very first Academy Award winner for Best Picture is also a gorgeous love story, thrilling adventure, and fitting tribute to the men and women who served in World War I. (It’s also a must-see for cinephiles.)
[Stream Wings]Photo: Everett Collection
Cold Mountain is a mammoth of a movie. It’s a tragic tale set during the Civil War, an American take on The Odyssey, and that movie that Jack White was in.
[Stream Cold Mountain]Photo: Everett Collection
Celebrated foreign indie Zero Motivation is not your typical kind of “war movie.” It’s about the ennui and frustration that follows a group of female soldiers in Israel - a country where military service is mandatory for both sexes.
[Stream Zero Motivation]Photo: Everett Collection
Windtalkers is one of the few films that shines a light on the unique role that Native Americans played in winning World War II. While the war was arguably won and lost based on code-breaking, the Allied forces had only one code that Germany couldn’t crack: the Navajo language.
[Stream Windtalkers]Photo: Everett Collection
It might not be all that historically accurate, but Mel Gibson’s Braveheart certainly set the standard for what audiences expect out of the battle sequences in historical dramas. Hint: they expect them to be big, bloody, and unrelenting.
[Stream Braveheart]Photo: Everett Collection
It’s all well and good to honor the troops by watching movies based on their lives, but Restrepo is a documentary about the Second Platoon’s time in Afghanistan. Toast the real heroes tonight.
[Stream Restrepo]Photo: National Geographic Entertainment
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