If you're looking for the best military and war movies and shows on Netflix, we're here to help you stop the scrolling, move past the algorithm and find what you're looking for. Netflix has a massive catalog of movies and shows, and sometimes it's hard to find exactly what you want to watch. This list can help you cut through the war movie noise and get to the good stuff.
If you're looking for the best military and war movies and shows on Netflix, we're here to help you stop the scrolling, move past the algorithm and find what you're looking for. Netflix has a massive catalog of movies and shows, and sometimes it's hard to find exactly what you want to watch. This list can help you cut through the war movie noise and get to the good stuff.
While the movies on our list are all focused on wars from one era of human history or another, we also listed TV shows streaming on Netflix that include military documentaries and spy stories.
There's enough military viewing here on Netflix to last most of us a long, long time.
300
Frank Miller’s classic 1998 graphic novel was turned into this highly stylized and often-parodied feature length motion picture in 2006. It’s the classical story of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, “Law Abiding Citizen”), leader of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, who leads 300 warriors to meet the 300,000-strong invading Persian army under Xerxes at the Battle of Thermopylae.
The movie implies that the only thing standing between the Persians and the Hellenic world was Leonidas and his Spartans, which is not true; the movie admits its historical fiction. There were only 300 Spartans, but they were joined by Thespians, Thebans and others, but the truth is that the Greeks were massively outnumbered, numbering some 7,000. It’s also important to remember it’s just a movie and a pretty badass one at that. We didn’t see abs like that on the silver screen again until Deadpool met Wolverine.
1917
This 2019 classic war film from director Sam Mendes' ("Skyfall") was inspired by the stories Mendes heard from his grandfather, who fought in the British Army during World War I. Two young British troops have to cross a seemingly insurmountable length of the Western Front to warn a unit that their planned attack is a German trap.
Not only is "1917" a historically accurate and compelling depiction of the war's Western Front, it's also renowned for its choreography and cinematography. It was intricately planned to make the movie appear to have only two continuous shots. If you only watch one movie on this list, this would be a great choice.
Alexander: the Making of a God
Docudramas can seem absurdly over the top at times, and that has a way of making important history seem goofy. Netflix’s new series about Alexander the Great has all the university professors’ talking heads you come to expect from shows such as these, but historical reenactments that don’t make you want to gag yourself with a spoon.
It was the No. 2 TV show on Netflix after its release, which says a lot for the streamer running acclaimed series such as “Griselda” and “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” It follows Alexander from his days as a young boy to his conquest of Darius’ Persian Empire.
All Quiet on the Western Front
This 2022 movie is the first German-language movie version of the 1929 Erich Maria Remarque novel about the horrors of World War I. The 1930 version of the movie won an Oscar for Best Picture, and this new one was nominated for nine awards, winning four of them.
Director and screenwriter Edward Berger widened the focus of the story to include more background about WWI while maintaining the heart of the story about the brutal experiences of German soldiers in the trenches.
All the Light We Cannot See
Based on author Anthony Doerr’s award-winning 2014 book “All the Light We Cannot See,” this new Netflix limited series stars Mark Ruffalo (“The Avengers”) as an employee at France’s Museum of Natural History and Aria Mia Loberti (who is visually impaired in real life) as his blind daughter, Marie-Laure. The two flee Nazi-occupied Paris after the fall of France and make their way to the seaside town of Saint-Malo to live with their reclusive WWI veteran uncle Etienne (Hugh Laurie, “House”).
Once there, they realize Etienne is making radio reports to aid the resistance. It’s not long before Marie-Laure starts making them, too. The young blind girl eventually forms a genuine bond with a young German soldier who is assigned to find and kill her. Louis Hofmann (“Red Sparrow”) and Lars Eidinger (“White Noise”) also star.
The Angel
As Egypt was forming a coalition of Arab countries to launch a surprise war to retake the Sinai Peninsula from Israel, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's son-in-law, Ashraf Marwan, was a close aide to Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat. What neither Nasser nor Sadat knew was that Marwan was an asset to Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad.
Obviously, this was a disaster for the Arab coalition, as was the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Netflix's "The Angel" is based on the nonfiction book "The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel" and stars Marwan Kenzari ("Ben-Hur") as Marwan.
Band of Brothers
Probably the best World War II miniseries ever created (if not the best miniseries ever, period), “Band of Brothers” is based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 nonfiction book of the same name. The series was brought to life by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg with the help of real World War II veterans to make sure every small detail on screen is accurate. It even features interviews with members of the storied unit, Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.
The men of Easy company, led by Dick Winters (Damian Lewis, “Homeland”) begin as green recruits training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. They parachute into Normandy on D-Day and fight their way through Europe, in Operation Market Garden, surrounded at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge and find themselves capturing Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest hideaway in Berchtesgaden, Germany. It’s a must-see, and if you’re reading this, I’d be legitimately surprised if you haven’t.
Beasts of No Nation
Idris Elba ("Thor," "The Suicide Squad") stars as a West African warlord known as The Commandant, leading a rebel battalion against government forces. As the rebels fight the falling government, The Commandant recruits Agu (Abraham Attah, "Spider-Man: Homecoming") as a child soldier.
Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga ("No Time to Die"), "Beasts of No Nation" portrays the brutal realities of battle, combat in sub-Saharan Africa, the recruitment of child soldiers and the true human cost of war.
Blood & Gold
At the end of World War II, the remaining Nazi SS troops aren't interested in defending Germany in Netflix's latest story about the Second World War. They want gold, but the gold they're after is not only hidden, it's defended by a Wehrmacht deserter who isn't a fan of the SS. He and a local milkmaid will race the evil Nazis to find the gold and return to his long-lost daughter -- alive.
Da 5 Bloods
Director Spike Lee offers a Vietnam War-era twist on the WWII heist story of "troops who hide Nazi gold and plan to go back," with a group of Black soldiers coming across a CIA plane loaded with gold earmarked to fight the Viet Cong.
The movie takes place in the present day with the group reuniting in Ho Chi Minh City to go on a mission to locate their horde. As they head out to search for the gold, the group is haunted by memories of their commanding officer (Chadwick Boseman), who was killed in a firefight back in the day. Delroy Lindo's character's son (played by a pre-fame Jonathan Majors) is also along for the trip.
The great thing is that "Da 5 Bloods" works both as a straight-up action picture with betrayals and gunfights while also telling a story about Black veterans of the Vietnam War.
Darkest Hour
Gary Oldman won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill in this drama about the early days of World War II. Churchill got a lot of blowback from his cabinet and the opposition when he refused to make a peace deal with Adolf Hitler, and the movie effectively dramatizes that crisis.
His administration survived a disastrous loss on the battlefields of France in 1939 and won over the people with the evacuation of troops from the beaches at Dunkirk. "Darkest Hour" ends with the prime minister's legendary "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to Parliament.
The Diplomat
When a British warship explodes in the Persian Gulf, the world's eyes look toward Iran as the likely culprit. As the death toll mounts, the president of the United States sends a new ambassador to the United Kingdom, one whose specialty is more focused on trouble spots and less on the pomp of such a posting. Keri Russell ("The Americans") stars as Ambassador Kate Wyler in Netflix's political thriller, now in its second season.
Fauda
If you don't watch shows with subtitles, you've been missing "Fauda," an Israeli series that focuses on the leader of the Israel Defense Forces' counterterrorism unit. Netflix has aired four seasons of the show, which has generated controversy for its unwillingness to offer sympathetic portrayals of people on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
The show's tempo is relentless, and there's plenty for fans of tactical action to enjoy over the 48 episodes (so far) of "Fauda."
First They Killed My Father
If you enjoyed director Angelina Jolie’s style in “Unbroken,” you’ll probably love this historical thriller, based on the real-world story of Cambodian author and writer Loung Ung’s memoir about growing up under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.
Toward the end of the Vietnam War, fighting spills over into Cambodia, but the United States suddenly pulls out of Southeast Asia, giving the Khmer Rouge an advantage in the Cambodian Civil War. Young Loung Ung is just a girl, but is forced to evacuate the capital and work in the countryside. Eventually, regime soldiers kill her father for his ties to the former government, and Loung is trained as a child soldier. She soon finds herself fighting the invading Vietnamese.
Five Came Back
"Five Came Back" is a WWII documentary series based on the book by movie historian Mark Harris. Hollywood movie directors John Ford ("The Searchers"), William Wyler ("The Best Years of Our Lives"), John Huston ("The African Queen"), Frank Capra ("It Happened One Night") and George Stevens ("Shane") all volunteered for service and made some of the most compelling films about combat during the era.
The series is both a war documentary and a history of the movies. Most of these men put themselves in harm's way in an attempt to give a true picture of the struggles that American military personnel faced in the Pacific and European theaters of war.
The Forgotten Battle
Few European countries experienced World War II the way Holland did. This Dutch film is centered on the 1944 Battle of the Scheldt, as Canadian, Polish and British forces attempted to capture and open the Port of Antwerp as a vital source of supplies in Europe.
After the failure of Operation Market Garden, the Dutch Resistance turned up the pressure on the occupying Germans as Allied forces moved closer to the Netherlands. The Germans, in turn, cut off supplies to the Dutch people, causing a famine and widespread anguish.
Fury
Brad Pitt plays Don “Wardaddy” Collier, commander of Fury, a Sherman tank in the U.S. Second Armored Division in World War II Europe. When the tank’s bow gunner is killed in combat, he’s replaced on the fly by an Army typist, Pfc. Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman, “Hunters”). The young soldier gets a harsh lesson in real-world combat.
Written and directed by Navy veteran David Ayer (“The Beekeeper”), “Fury” is based on the story of Staff Sgt. Lafayette G. "War Daddy" Pool, who landed at Normandy and whose tank was knocked out of the war multiple times. The film also features Michael Peña (“A Million Miles Away”), Jon Bernthal (“The Bear”) and a mustachioed Shia LaBeouf (“Transformers”).
Historical Roasts
What better way could there be to learn about historical figures than by watching Roastmaster General Jeff Ross roast them -- with help from some of your favorite comedians portraying other historical figures?
If you enjoyed the roast of Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen or Justin Bieber, you might like the roast of Abraham Lincoln, Cleopatra or Anne Frank in this definitely not-safe-for-work comedy series.
How to Become a Tyrant
Dictators use a pretty consistent playbook to rise to power and hold on to it for decades. This fascinating docuseries describes each step in that playbook, using examples of real-life dictators like Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il and others while telling the stories of how they ascended to authoritarian power.
"How to Become a Tyrant" uses commentary from professors, officials and journalists who covered those stories. It illustrates them, using animated retellings of the most gruesome stories from the tyrants' rule, all narrated by actor Peter Dinklage ("Game of Thrones").
I Am Vanessa Guillen
Twenty-year-old soldier Spc. Vanessa Guillen disappeared from Fort Hood, Texas, in April 2020, leaving behind her car keys, ID card, bank card and barracks key at her workplace. Two months later, her dismembered remains were discovered near the Leon River.
In the course of the investigation, it was discovered that she had told her parents she was being sexually harassed by a noncommissioned officer. Unsatisfied with the Army's investigation, Guillen's family kept the pressure on Fort Hood, which eventually prompted the Texas Rangers and even Congress to get involved. "I Am Vanessa Guillen" documents that pressure and the fallout of the botched investigation.
Jarhead
Many of us reading this can relate to the idea of joining the military because we got lost on the way to college, which was real-life Marine Anthony Swofford's answer to why he joined the Marine Corps. "Jarhead" was adapted from Swofford's 2003 memoir and recounts his life story and service in the 1990-91 Gulf War.
The movie was a box-office flop, but it captured the hearts of many veterans for its realistic depiction of life while deployed, even in a so-called "combat zone." It turns out real wars are full of readiness drills, boredom and a consistent stream of "Dear John" letters from unfaithful wives and girlfriends, all before the war even starts. It doesn't make for the sexy action of "Black Hawk Down," but that's the reality of modern war.
The King
“The King” stars Timothée Chalamet (“Dune”) as Prince Hal, who has no interest in ruling. After his father dies, he reluctantly takes on the title of King Henry V of England. Instead of continuing to war with his father’s enemies, the new king makes peace with them until he’s sent an insulting gift by the Dauphin (Crown Prince) of France (Robert Pattinson, “The Batman”). Henry sails with his army to fight the French, in a war culminating in the Battle of Agincourt.
This historical epic draws not only from history, but also from William Shakespeare’s plays about Henry. Don’t expect a lot of historical accuracy, though. It’s a great movie with great fight scenes, but the producers of “The King” weren’t trying to make a movie that was true to Shakespeare’s plays, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Land of Bad
After an anti-Islamist special operations mission in the Philippines goes bad, U.S Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) Kinney (Liam Hemsworth, "The Hunger Games") must escape the scene with his life. His lifeline to the outside world and the only one who knows the way to his extraction point is a voice he only knows as “Reaper” (Russell Crowe, “Gladiator”). The only problem with that connection is that Reaper is a drone operator, piloting the drone monitoring his situation.
It’s kind of like the Vietnam War movie “BAT*21” updated for the Global War on Terror. The name of the movie isn’t great, and the trailer doesn’t really do this movie the justice it deserves. It’s a really good film, and it’s Russell Crowe at his finest. It also features a glimpse at modern-day Air Force work culture that is shockingly accurate.
The Liberator
In 2012, English journalist Alex Kershaw wrote "The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau," the true story of American Army officer Felix Sparks. Netflix's "The Liberator" is an adult animated adaptation of Kershaw's book.
Sparks and the 157th Infantry Regiment, made up of cowboys, Native Americans and Latinos, made four amphibious landings during World War II, fighting just as the book's name says, from Sicily to Germany over the course of 500 days.
Major
In November 2008, terrorists from the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a series of coordinated attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai, killing 175 and wounding 300. Toward the end of the attacks, only the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel had not been secured, and hostages were being held all over its grounds.
"Major" is the Bollywood-produced story of Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan, commander of the 51 Special Action Group, who led the assault to rescue those hostages. He and his team evacuated hostages and killed terrorists for 15 hours. In the end, many of his men were wounded, and Unnikrishnan would give his life to protect the civilian hostages.
Medal of Honor
"Medal of Honor" should've been a long-running series for Netflix, but the streaming service made only one season with eight episodes, released in 2018. It's a great idea, telling the individual stories of Medal of Honor recipients in a compact form.
The series includes profiles of World War II heroes Sylvester Antolak (played by Joseph Cross, "Devotion"), Edward A. Carter Jr. (Aldis Hodge, "Black Adam") and Vito R. Bertoldo (Ben Schwartz, "Space Force"). We also get the Afghanistan War stories of Clint Romesha (Paul Wesley, "The Vampire Diaries") and Ty Carter (Jonny Weston, "Divergent"). We also get the Vietnam War story of Richard Etchberger (Oliver Hudson, "Nashville") and the Korean War stories of Hiroshi H. Miyamura (Derek Mio, "The Terror") and Joseph Vittori (Steven R. McQueen, "The Vampire Diaries").
Midway
“Midway” is the true story of Lt. Cmdr. Edwin T. Layton (Patrick Wilson, “Insidious”), who warned Washington that a Japanese attack was imminent a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, Layton stayed on as intelligence officer for Adm. Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson), warning him that the Japanese would attack Midway after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Based on the intelligence, the Americans set a trap for the Japanese at Midway Island in June 1942. The film depicts real naval aviators Wade McClusky (Luke Evans, “Fast & Furious 6”), Dick Best (Ed Skrein, “Deadpool”) and Clarence Dickinson (Luke Kleintank, “The Man in the High Castle”), as well as real gunners Bruno Gaido (Nick Jonas) and James Murray (Keean Johnson, “Euphoria”). Other historical figures include Rear Adm. Raymond Spruance, Vice Adm. William “Bull” Halsey and filmmaker Cmdr. John Ford.
Mosul
The Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq's most populous city, in 2014 with an estimated 1,500 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters. There, the terrorists' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the ISIL caliphate. In 2016, Iraqi government forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga and a strange confederation of American, European and Iranian forces supported its liberation.
The 2019 film "Mosul" is set against the background of the 2016 operation to liberate the city, as a police SWAT team helps take down thousands of ISIL militants who are targeting the unit. Adam Bessa ("Extraction") stars as a Kurdish SWAT officer in this Arabic language film produced by the Russo brothers ("Avengers: Endgame") and based on the book "The Desperate Battle to Destroy ISIS" by Luke Mogelson.
Narcos
"Narcos" is the drug war-era series about how the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Colombian military managed to finally bring down the narco empire of Pablo Escobar, Medellin's notorious cocaine kingpin.
Wagner Moura ("The Gray Man") gives a stunning performance as Escobar while Pedro Pascal ("The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent") delivers as DEA agent Javier Peña. Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't seen this yet.
Operation Mincemeat
The disinformation effort to confuse Nazi Germany about where the Allies would land in France was wide-ranging, multifaceted and complex. Among the most ingenious and risky plans was depositing the body of a dead man who appeared to be carrying the secret invasion strategy in a way the Nazis would surely find it -- and make it convincing.
Actor Colin Firth ("1917") headlines a cast retelling the story of how the operation, codenamed "Mincemeat," came to be planned and carried out, despite extreme doubts about its ability to fool anyone, let alone German intelligence.
Ordinary Men
The Second World War turned droves of ordinary men in Germany into soldiers, and even ordinary men know soldiers are expected to kill one another in the heat of battle. The German Army and security forces of World War II, however, are better known for the killing they did outside of combat. This documentary looks at the prewar lives of Germany’s ordinary men, and how they became capable of carrying out Hitler’s wartime atrocities as members of Nazi death squads.
The Pacific
This HBO miniseries is the Pacific War’s answer to “Band of Brothers,” but instead of being drawn from a historian like Stephen Ambrose, the source material for this series was written by the Marines who fought against the Japanese. Its primary sources are “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa” and “China Marine” by Eugene Sledge and “Helmet for My Pillow” by Robert Leckie, and the authors are featured characters in the series. It also draws from “Red Blood, Black Sand” by Chuck Tatum, to get a full story about Marine John Basilone.
“The Pacific” was also produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, and stars James Badge Dale (“The Departed”) as Leckie, Joseph Mazzello (“Jurassic Park”) as Sledge and Rami Malek (“Mr. Robot”) as Merriell “Snafu” Shelton.
Rebel Ridge
A Marine Corps veteran named Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre, "Old") gets a call to bail out his cousin in the small town of Shelby Springs, and when he arrives, he’s also accosted by the local police, who steal his life savings. In the grand tradition of John Rambo in “First Blood,” the cops soon discover they’re getting more than they bargained for. Richmond busts out his Marine Corps training to take down the entire corrupt system the “law” has built.
The Red Sea Diving Resort
In the mid-1980s, a mass migration of Ethiopians fled the widespread famine in their home country for refugee camps in Sudan. Among them were thousands of persecuted Ethiopian Jews. Israel, long known for its foreign policy of protecting persecuted Jews anywhere in the world, covertly evacuated these refugees to safety in Israel.
“The Red Sea Diving Resort” stars Chris Evans (“Captain America: The First Avenger”) and Michael K. Williams (“The Wire”), in a story based on this evacuation. To facilitate the rescue, Mossad sets up a cover business, a resort that gives evacuees access to the Red Sea.
The Siege of Jadotville
A force of 155 Irish soldiers was serving with the United Nations Operation in the Congo during a civil uprising in 1961. Rather than limit their attacks to the government forces, Congolese rebels from the breakaway State of Katanga attacked the Irish troops in a mining town known as Jadotville.
The Irishmen had to hold off a force of thousands of rebel troops while they waited to be rescued by Irish, Indian and Swedish troops from the U.N. mission. An Irish Army veteran, Declan Power, wrote the 2005 book, "The Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army's Forgotten Battle" on which the movie is based.
The Six Triple Eight (Dec. 20)
The first and only Women's Army Corps unit composed entirely of women of color that deployed overseas during World War II was 855 Black women from the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Their job was to sort through a three-year backlog of mail -- some 17 million letters -- and deliver them to the men fighting on the front lines to boost morale. Not only did they accomplish the feat, they did it way ahead of schedule while confronted with the racism and sexism one can only imagine during the time period. “The Six Triple Eight” is the true story of these women, led by Maj. Charity Adams (Kerry Washington, “Scandal”).
The Spy
Sacha Baron Cohen stars as real-life Mossad agent Eli Cohen, who worked undercover in Syria with the secret identity of Kamel Amin Thaabet and worked his way up to become the Arab country's deputy defense minister in the years leading to the 1967 Six-Day War.
If you've seen Cohen only in comic roles like Borat, Ali G or Brüno, you may well be surprised at how good he is in this dramatic role. The series is in English, so those allergic to subtitles have nothing to worry about.
Spy Ops
If espionage thrillers are your favorite kind of movie or TV show, it won’t get more thrilling than Netflix’s new documentary series “Spy Ops.” Real-world CIA and M16 operatives who served from the Cold War to the War on Terror share stories from seven real covert operations and a plot to kill Pope John Paul II.
These covert ops include Jawbreaker, the CIA’s 2002 effort in Afghanistan; Pimlico, the CIA’s rescue of a KGB informant; Wrath of God, the Mossad effort to hunt and kill the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Massacre; and the overthrow of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. You might already know the outcome, but operations are thrilling all the same.
Thank You for Your Service
Miles Teller leads the cast of “Thank You for Your Service,” based on the book of the same name. Washington Post reporter David Finkel wrote “Thank You for Your Service” about the return of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, which returned to Fort Riley, Kansas, in 2007 after a 15-month deployment to Iraq.
After their return, the men of the 16th Infantry Regiment begin to suffer from the signature unseen wounds of Global War on Terror, including post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide. The movie depicts veterans’ issues with the Department of Veterans Affairs that were pervasive at the time -- some of which still linger today.
Traitors
At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were global superpowers in what seemed like a new world order. But there were some paradigms that survived the radical changes of the global conflict, among the most notable of which was the influence and growth of global communism. Indeed, the war had done nothing to change the USSR’s desire to infiltrate governments around the world. This world is the background to Netflix’s “Traitors,” where the U.S. government hires a British civil servant (Emma Appleton) to spy on her co-workers, looking for potential Russian spies.
Treason
When the limited series "Treason" premiered on Netflix just after Christmas 2022, it proved an immediate success around the world. Charlie Cox, best known for playing Daredevil in Marvel movies and shows, stars as Adam Lawrence, a British agent who's elevated to the top job at MI6 when his boss is poisoned.
He learns that an ex-lover is actually a Russian operative who's been pulling strings to advance his career. He's also being investigated by the British government and the CIA, who both have questions about his loyalty.
Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
America’s Cold War veterans seldom get the attention they deserve. For some five decades, most United States service members patiently waited for a war that could have ended human civilization. These veterans knew if their shooting war ever started, they would likely be killed in action. When it ended, there was no official Cold War Victory Medal waiting for those who bravely served under the constant threat of total nuclear annihilation.
What “The Bomb and the Cold War” depicts well is just how close to nuclear annihilation the world came to during the simmering conflict. The nine-part series not only serves as a reminder of the power of nuclear weapons, but is also a detailed history of communism, its faults and its inherent flaws. Like so many Cold War documentaries, it looks at the conflict from the leadership’s perspective. Yet, in describing how communism fell, the focus is on how people living under communism helped hasten that fall. It also introduces Vladimir Putin’s regime as a continuation of the Cold War, and Ukraine as the new, hot front.
Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror
If you enjoyed the incredibly detailed dive into the history of communism and the Cold War from “Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War,” then this history of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is for you. Director Brian Knappenberger recounts the events that led to 9/11, and how the world -- especially the United States -- changed in the aftermath.
U-571
Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton and Jon Bon Jovi headline a fictional account of how American submariners boarded a German U-boat during World War II to steal its Enigma-coded messaging system. It was co-written by Navy vet David Ayer (“Fury”), who served as a sonar tech aboard nuclear subs.
This is the movie that pissed off the entire Royal Navy because sailors from the HMS Bulldog did exactly what “U-571” depicts in 1941, a year before the movie takes place and three years before the Americans did the same thing. It’s a great movie, though. A movie that got a mention in Parliament has got to be worth a watch, right?
Unbroken
Director and producer Angelina Jolie made headlines in 2014 with this autobiographical depiction of Louis "Louie" Zamperini. The movie sparked controversy in Japan before it was even released, based on Zamperini’s assertion of war crimes he witnessed as a prisoner of war.
Zamperini was an Olympic athlete before World War II, competing in the Summer Olympics in Berlin. He was shot down over the Pacific Ocean while flying in a B-24 Liberator bomber as a member of the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943. Captured by the Japanese, he endured life (and near death) in a prison camp until the end of the war.
War Machine
Brad Pitt ("Inglourious Basterds") stars as four-star Gen. Glen McMahon in this satirical comedy based on the nonfiction book "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan" by Michael Hastings. McMahon, a character based on the real Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is tasked with winding down the war in Afghanistan any way he sees fit.
But McMahon believes the war can be won, and does the one thing he was absolutely not supposed to do: Ask for more troops.
World War II: From the Frontlines
We’ve all probably seen dozens of World War II documentaries, and by now, there’s one from nearly every point of view. What’s really unique about Netflix’s “From the Frontlines” is that the talking heads aren’t professors or people who read history books; they are the voices of people who were there. This series describes what it was like to be a German civilian at the firebombing of Dresden, a Londoner during the Blitz or a sailor aboard a ship struck by a kamikaze. This all-encompassing documentary uses archival footage and archival voices to bring new life and poignancy to the war’s most critical moments.
Zero Dark Thirty
“Zero Dark Thirty” is a dramatic retelling of the yearslong hunt to track down the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, culminating with a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In the film, the effort is led by Maya (Jessica Chastain, “Molly’s Game”), a CIA analyst who spends most of her career tracking Bin Laden. The film is a political thriller that depicts important milestones in the Global War on Terrorism, including so-called “enhanced interrogations,” the Camp Chapman attack and, of course, the Navy SEALs’ raid on the Bin Laden compound.
The film, which was nominated in five Academy Awards categories, features appearances by Jason Clarke (“Mudbound”), Joel Edgerton (“The King”), Reda Kateb (“Lost River”), Mark Strong (“1917”), James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”), Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights”), Stephen Dillane (“Game of Thrones”), Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) and more.
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