Best War Movies
by vrockmccarty | created - 12 Mar 2021 | updated - 1 week ago | PublicOur favorite military and war movies (Not including the Civil War and WW1/2).
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1. The Patriot (2000)
R | 165 min | Action, Drama, History
Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.
Director: Roland Emmerich | Stars: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs
Votes: 293,432 | Gross: $113.33M
2. The Last Samurai (2003)
R | 154 min | Action, Drama
Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, William Atherton
Votes: 470,951 | Gross: $111.11M
3. American Sniper (2014)
R | 133 min | Action, Biography, Drama
Navy S.E.A.L. sniper Chris Kyle's pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home with his family after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Kyle Gallner, Cole Konis
Votes: 529,133 | Gross: $350.13M
4. The Hurt Locker (2008)
R | 131 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce
Votes: 473,703 | Gross: $17.02M
5. M*A*S*H (1972–1983)
TV-PG | 25 min | Comedy, Drama, War
The staff of an Army hospital in the Korean War find that laughter is the best way to deal with their situation.
Stars: Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr
Votes: 63,773
6. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
R | 116 min | Drama, War
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin
Votes: 790,213 | Gross: $46.36M
7. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 710,004 | Gross: $83.47M
8. Platoon (1986)
R | 120 min | Drama, War
Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David
Votes: 439,401 | Gross: $138.53M
9. Black Hawk Down (2001)
R | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of 160 elite U.S. soldiers who dropped into Mogadishu in October 1993 to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord, but found themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily armed Somalis.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana
Votes: 423,486 | Gross: $108.64M
10. We Were Soldiers (2002)
R | 138 min | Action, Drama, History
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, and the soldiers on both sides that fought it, while their wives wait nervously and anxiously at home for the good news or the bad news.
Director: Randall Wallace | Stars: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe, Greg Kinnear, Sam Elliott
Votes: 151,230 | Gross: $78.12M
11. First Blood (1982)
R | 93 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A veteran Green Beret is forced by a cruel Sheriff and his deputies to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Director: Ted Kotcheff | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna, Bill McKinney
Votes: 275,493 | Gross: $47.21M
12. Guy Ritchie's the Covenant (I) (2023)
R | 123 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
During the war in Afghanistan, a local interpreter risks his own life to carry an injured sergeant across miles of grueling terrain.
Director: Guy Ritchie | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Sean Sagar, Jason Wong
Votes: 162,330
13. 13 Hours (2016)
R | 144 min | Action, Drama, History
During an attack on a U.S. compound in Libya, a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: John Krasinski, Pablo Schreiber, James Badge Dale, David Denman
Votes: 160,690 | Gross: $52.85M
14. Napoleon (2023)
R | 158 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
An epic that details the chequered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett
Votes: 138,606
15. Stripes (1981)
R | 106 min | Comedy, War
Two friends who are dissatisfied with their jobs decide to join the army for a bit of fun.
Director: Ivan Reitman | Stars: Bill Murray, John Candy, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates
Votes: 79,988 | Gross: $85.30M
16. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,139 | Gross: $0.28M
17. Tropic Thunder (2008)
R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War
Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.
Director: Ben Stiller | Stars: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Kahn
Votes: 447,925 | Gross: $110.52M
18. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
R | 121 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
In 1965, an unorthodox and irreverent DJ named Adrian Cronauer begins to shake up things when he is assigned to the U.S. Armed Services radio station in Vietnam.
Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker, Tom T. Tran, Chintara Sukapatana
Votes: 153,748 | Gross: $123.92M
19. Act of Valor (2012)
R | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
An elite team of Navy SEALs embark on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent.
Directors: Mike McCoy, Scott Waugh | Stars: Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano, Rorke Denver
Votes: 71,788 | Gross: $70.01M
20. A Few Good Men (1992)
R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller
Military lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder. They contend they were acting under orders.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon
Votes: 287,247 | Gross: $141.34M
21. 12 Strong (2018)
R | 130 min | Action, Drama, History
12 Strong tells the story of the first Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11; under the leadership of a new captain, the team must work with an Afghan warlord to take down the Taliban.
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig | Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Navid Negahban
Votes: 91,801 | Gross: $45.82M
22. The Expendables (2010)
R | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A CIA operative hires a team of mercenaries to eliminate a Latin dictator and a renegade CIA agent.
Director: Sylvester Stallone | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren
Votes: 364,649 | Gross: $103.07M
23. The Expendables 2 (2012)
R | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat.
Director: Simon West | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Liam Hemsworth, Randy Couture, Jean-Claude Van Damme
Votes: 322,259 | Gross: $85.02M
24. The Expendables 3 (2014)
PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
Barney augments his team with new blood for a personal battle: to take down Conrad Stonebanks, the Expendables co-founder and notorious arms trader who is hell bent on wiping out Barney and every single one of his associates.
Director: Patrick Hughes | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Antonio Banderas
Votes: 196,139 | Gross: $39.32M
25. Red Dawn (1990)
96 min | Drama, Thriller
A Claustrophobic experience which involves a Mexican middle class family into the atrocities made by wild and heartless army forces whose main objective seems to be students who do not permit the 1968's Olimpic games' to develop normally.
Director: Jorge Fons | Stars: Héctor Bonilla, María Rojo, Jorge Fegán, Ademar Arau
Votes: 2,035
26. Red Dawn (2012)
PG-13 | 93 min | Action, Drama, War
A group of teenagers look to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers.
Director: Dan Bradley | Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck
Votes: 80,552 | Gross: $44.81M
27. The A-Team (2010)
PG-13 | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
A group of Iraq War veterans look to clear their name with the U.S. Military, who suspect the four men of committing a crime for which they were framed.
Director: Joe Carnahan | Stars: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel
Votes: 268,921 | Gross: $77.22M
28. The Wall (II) (2017)
R | 88 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
Two American Soldiers are trapped by a lethal sniper, with only an unsteady wall between them.
Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith Nakli
Votes: 30,908 | Gross: $1.80M
29. The Marine (2006)
PG-13 | 92 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
A group of diamond thieves on the run kidnap the wife of a recently discharged marine who goes on a chase through the South Carolinian wilderness to retrieve her.
Director: John Bonito | Stars: John Cena, Kelly Carlson, Robert Patrick, Anthony Ray Parker
Votes: 35,821 | Gross: $18.84M
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