Last Updated: September 7th
War films have long-captivated audiences, showcasing tales of both humanity’s cruelty and its nobility. There is no shortage of good military films on Netflix, ranging from Hollywood classics to modern, genre-bending pictures. Here are some of the best war movies on Netflix right now to stream.
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Defiance (2008)
Run Time: 137 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
Set during the Nazi occupation of Belarus, Defiance stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber as brothers Tuvia and Zus Bielski, who form a community, and later makeshift militia, with a group of Jews who are living out in the woods to avoid capture. Craig tries to lead his people to freedom while Schrieber is content with blowing Nazis up. Based on real events chronicled in Nechama Tec’s 1993 novel Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, the film was met with mixed reviews upon release, but it would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Score.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Run Time: 183 min | IMDb: 6.1/10
Pearl Harbor was a turning point in World War II and the attack marked a devastating blow of the U.S. military. It’s a battle pretty much everyone, history-lover or not, knows about, which means injecting something new and exciting into it is, for a filmmaker, difficult. This Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale-led rendition is mostly bogged down by a convoluted and unnecessary love triangle, but with Michael Bay at the helm, you can at the very least expect some exquisitely choreographed action sequences. And explosions. There are a ton of explosions.
Last Men in Aleppo (2017)
Run Time: 83 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
Technically, Last Men in Aleppo is a war documentary but it belongs on this list because frankly, it should be required viewing for everyone. The Syrian Civil War is an easily-forgotten mass tragedy since it takes place hundreds of thousands of miles away from most of us, but directors Feras Fayyad and Steen Johannessen make the conflict immediate and horrifyingly-real with this doc that follows three members of the White Helmets, a group of volunteer rescuers who are the first-responders when the bombs drop on innocent civilians in a way ravaging their native land.
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Run Time: 116 min | IMDb: 8.3/10
Stanley Kubrick returned to the topic of war and what it does to those who fight it with this bifurcated story of the war in Vietnam. As with his great 1958 film Paths of Glory, Kubrick opted to take the long view and look at war as an enterprise in all its dehumanizing absurdity. It’s a film less about a particular conflict than what it means to prepare for war — the first half of the movie — and what it means to fight it — the film’s second half. Both keep returning to the notion that to become a soldier is to surrender some essential part of one conscience, and that war at its heart makes us lesser beings than we might be without it. It’s a tough film filled with black comedy that captures the dark heart of what it means to take up arms against others.
Lincoln (2012)
Run Time: 150 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
Any historical drama with Daniel Day-Lewis starring is going to be worth a watch but Lincoln is Day-Lewis at his best. The actor’s eerily-accurate portrayal of one of the most famous presidents in the history of the United States is powerful and moving, even though everyone already knows the story of Lincoln’s terms in office and his eventual, tragic ending. The film touches on the Civil War, the fight for racial equality, the need to end slavery, and the president’s personal investment in the cause. Lincoln is a master-class in acting and an enthralling history lesson all in one.
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