It seems that every decade, there are more and more war movies, because every decade, there are more and more wars to base them on. Throughout the 2010s, there was a substantial mix of movies about historical wars, like the World Wars and the Cold War, and contemporary wars, like the Iraq War and the Libyan Civil War.
As always, some of these movies turned out to be masterpieces that will be rewatched for years to come, while others turned out to be unwatchable slogs that disappeared from audiences’ brains as the end credits rolled. So, here are the five best and five worst war movies from the 2010s.
Best: Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
After Zero Dark Thirty hit theaters, the CIA launched a rigorous investigation into who exactly had given director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal so much classified information.
Following up from their Iraq War masterpiece The Hurt Locker, Bigelow and Boal told the story of the search for Osama bin Laden, culminating in a breathtaking sequence depicting his covert assassination.
Worst: Red Dawn (2012)
John Milius’ original Red Dawn movie from the ‘80s focused on an alarming hypothetical scenario of a Soviet invasion of America — which, at the time, was a very real fear — but the 2012 remake tells the wildly unbelievable story of a North Korean attack.
Milius is a fiercely political filmmaker, and his ‘80s original reflected that ion, but Dan Bradley’s remake is just a generic, by-the-numbers actioner.
Best: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi (2016)
After fetishizing the U.S. military in the Transformers movies, Michael Bay finally offered up a gritty, uncompromising portrayal of war with 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, a dramatization of the 2012 Benghazi attack.
Worst: The Catcher Was A Spy (2018)
The true story that formed the basis of The Catcher Was a Spy — a veteran baseball player spying on the Nazis during World War II as the U.S. government tries to build an atomic bomb — had so much potential for a great movie.
Sadly, director Ben Lewin’s film did not live up to that potential, focusing on the boring parts of the story and skipping over what made it fascinating. With better direction, Paul Rudd could’ve given a fantastic performance as Moe Berg.
Best: Lone Survivor (2013)
Although the title pretty brazenly gives away the ending, visceral, engaging, and emotionally affecting war movies in recent memory. Mark Wahlberg is compelling in the lead role, playing real-life Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell with a genuine respect.
Universal forced director Peter Berg to make Battleship before they’d let him make Lone Survivor. Thankfully, the latter turned out great enough to make up for the former.
Worst: Green Zone (2010)
On paper, Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass bringing the visceral thrills of their Bourne movies to a story set during the Iraq War sounds like the recipe for a modern war movie classic.
Unfortunately, with a cliché-ridden script and well-worn character types viewers have seen in a million other movies, Green Zone fails to capture the gripping intensity of the Bourne franchise.
Best: Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
War movies are usually about soldiers fighting for their country and working toward a glorious third-act victory. But Mel Gibson went the other way with his fifth directorial effort, Hacksaw Ridge, which teaches the audience that you don’t have to kill anyone to be a war hero.
Andrew Garfield stars as Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who swore off violence after accidentally killing his brother as a child, who saved a bunch of his comrades’ lives on the battlefield.
Worst: Machine Gun Preacher (2011)
Sam Childers has an incredible life story. He left a biker gang and moved to a war zone in South Sudan in order to save children’s lives. He has won a ton of humanitarian awards, including the Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice.
But Marc Forster’s biopic is so muddled and unfocused that it totally botches that story. Gerard Butler gives a committed turn as Childers, but it’s not enough to save the movie.
Best: Dunkirk (2017)
When Christopher Nolan takes on a project, he goes all in. So, it was no surprise when his first war movie turned out to be one of the greatest war movies ever made. The Dunkirk evacuation was a fascinating story to tell in a Hollywood war movie, as it didn’t involve U.S. forces and it was a defeat for the Allies.
Nolan uses the downer ending to capture the spirit of soldiers. As they return home, expecting to be pariahs, the British troops are met with cheers and applause by well-wishers who are just glad they made it back alive.
Worst: USS Indianapolis: Men Of Courage (2016)
It’s a sad state of affairs when Mario Van Peebles can’t tell a story with $40 million Quint recounts being on the ship as it went down and stranded in shark-infested waters.
The true story is so incredible that the fact that this movie squandered is mind-boggling. The CGI sharks in Sharknado pose more of a threat than the ones here, while the one-dimensional characters give the audience no reason to care about them.
