5 Best War Movies Set In Modern Times, Ranked

This article contains discussions of mental health and sexual assault.

War, if you ask some people, is inevitable; massive conflicts are always going to arise as long as humans have the world's steering wheel. Others would tell you that it's a pointless and violent endeavor that leads to ruin no matter what. No matter which side you fall on here, one thing is definitely true: war is cinematic.

There are, by a conservative estimate, one million movies about different events that occurred in World War II, the (obviously) major world conflict that took place from 1939 to 1945. There are also plenty of films about World War I earlier in the 20th century, war movies that take place in the 19th century, movies that take place during the Civil War, and films set during the American Revolution. So what about movies involving modern warfare?

Any film set in our contemporary world that centers around war is ... complicated. Not only are conflicts of this kind more political in nature these days but the technology has become quite advanced; gone are the muskets and trenches you see in movies about older wars. So which are the very best ones? We've tried to round up some acclaimed films about war set in our modern times 

Alex Garland's films are notoriously intense, and throughout his career, he's covered warfare in a number of creative ways, including the fantastical take presented in his dazzling and creepy film "Annihilation" and his imagined future conflict in "Civil War." (That's why "Civil War" doesn't appear on this list, incidentally; the war depicted it in it is, as of this writing, fictional.) Written alongside director and veteran Ray Mendoza, Garland's 2025 movie, simply titled "Warfare," is a starkly realistic depiction based on Mendoza's time serving as a United States Navy SEAL during the Iraq War.

"Warfare" stars "Reservation Dogs" standout D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Mendoza (like Woon-A-Tai, Mendoza is indigenous and is of Yaqui descent), who, along with other soldiers in Navy SEAL platoon Alpha One, finds himself in a house in Iraq after the devastating Battle of Ramadi. With the aid of sniper and corpsman Elliott Miller ("Shōgun" star Cosmo Jarvis), Mendoza and his fellow NAVY Seals — including his lieutenant Erik (Will Poulter), young gunner Tommy (Kit Connor), and leading petty officer Sam (Joseph Quinn) — Mendoza starts to plan the platoon's escape from the house even as enemy forces approach. 

After a grenade hits and either kills or seriously injures members of Alpha One, soldiers from Alpha Two tries to lend support to Alpha One but is stopped from doing so due to more enemy activity; as the carnage unfolds, Ray and Erik start experiencing severe mental trauma. "Warfare" is a totally unflinching look at Mendoza's experiences fighting in the Iraq War, and with a stacked cast (that also includes Charles Melton, Finn Bennett, and Noah Centineo in supporting roles as Alpha Two soldiers) that tells his story bravely and faithfully, "Warfare" isn't just one of the most realistic modern war movies. It's also one of the best.

Adapted by screenwriter William Broyles Jr. from a memoir of the same name by Marine veteran Anthony "Swoff" Swofford — who's played by Jake Gyllenhaal on screen — the 2005 Sam Mendes war drama "Jarhead" doesn't shy away from showing exactly how dangerous it was during the Persian Gulf War. (That conflict, just to jumpstart your memory, took place from 1990 to 1991.) "Jarhead" actually opens one year before the Persian Gulf War begins, and we first meet Gyllenhaal's Swoff while he's still training as a recruit as the son of a Vietnam War veteran. Swoff then heads to California's Camp Pendleton, where he struggles under the weight of his responsibilites but still gets noticed by Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), who recommends that Swoff train as a sniper.

After Iraq invades Kuwait and the war in the Persian Gulf begins, Swoff and the rest of his unit find themselves deployed to Saudia Arabia to participate in Operation Desert Shield (followed, of course, by Operation Desert Storm, which takes place on the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait). Throughout "Jarhead," Mendes never shies away from showing the toll that the fighting takes on Swoff, and his mental health deteriorates as he develops serious trust issues with his unit. Not only that, but thanks to directions from his commanding officers, trained sniper Swoff ends his time in the Persian Gulf War without ever firing a single shot.

"Jarhead" is a gutting depiction of what this short but extremely bloody conflict looked like in practice, and Gyllenhaal, who's joined by supporting players like his future brother-in-law Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper, John Krasinski, and Dennis Haybert, is excellent. The Persian Gulf War deserves to be remembered for better and for worse, and "Jarhead" proves that.

The first-ever Netflix original film (which was co-produced with Bleecker Street), 2015's "Beasts of No Nation" is a brutal watch, but a vital one ... especially if you're unfamilair with the conflict it depicts. Based on a 2005 novel by Uzodinma Iweala (who took the title from an album by Nigerian recording artist Fela Kuti) and adapted by director Cary Joji Fukunaga, "Beasts of No Nation" stars Idris Elba as a man simply named Commandant, who leads a battalion within the West African army known as the Native Defense Forces (or NDF). After a young boy named Agu (Abraham Attah) joins the lower ranks of the NDF — in the aftermath of his previously safe town being raided after the local government falls, during which Agu's father and brother are killed and his mother and other siblings escape — he's forced, by the Commandant, to perform an initiation task that's so brutal we can't describe it in full here. 

During his forced tenure as a fully-fledged child soldier in the NDF, Agu endures unbelievably cruel and violent acts ... especially from the Commandant himself, who sexually assaults Agu. To try and deal with the trauma, Agu takes drugs at the advice of one of the Commandant's other victims, Strika (Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye), becoming addicted to something known as "brown-brown." Through the acts he commits on behalf of the NDF and the violence directed at him from within the army, we watch as Agu falls apart, and it's utterly horrifying ... and incredibly important to witness. The brutalities suffered by child soldiers in Africa and across the world are, too often, overlooked — and with its stunningly bleak depictions of these acts, "Beasts of No Nation" brings attention to these horrors.

Based around true events in Rwanda, the 2004 film "Hotel Rwanda" centers around hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, who, alongside his wife Tatiana, worked tirelessly and constantly risked his own life to protect over 1,500 besieged refugees during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. As the proprietor of the Hôtel des Mille Collines, Rusesbagina, portrayed by Don Cheadle in a film directed by Terry George (that George co-wrote with Keir Pearson), managed to hide a number of Tutsis, who found themselves targeted by the controlling faction of Rwanda's government, the Hutus.

When we first mean Cheadle's Paul, he and his wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) are simply trying to keep their heads down amidst the conflict, which is particularly difficult when you consider that Tatiana is of Tutsi descent. Even though Paul trusts the ongoing efforts of the United Nations and hopes the conflict won't get worse, his world is thrown into disarray after Tutsi rebels are blamed for the assassination of the Hutu president. From there, the Rwandan army — led by Paul's dubious ally General Augustin Bizimungu (Fana Mokoena), who's firmly on the side of the Hutus — start indiscriminately attacking Tutsis, and Paul, stuck in Rwanda with his wife and family with no help from his hotel's Belgian owner, decides he's duty-bound to help. 

"Hotel Rwanda" shows just how frightening and difficult it was for Paul and Tatiana to actively put themselves in danger to protect Tutsi refugees, and it's a stunning, difficult, and strangely uplifting portrait of one man's mission to make a difference during wartime. If you watch the movie and want to learn more, Rusesabagina released his memoir, "An Ordinary Man," in 2006.

At the 82nd Academy Awards in early 2010, Kathryn Bigelow made history when she became the first female director to win a statue for directing. (As a nice little treat, she also beat out her ex-husband, James Cameron, who was nominated for the same category for "Avatar.") The reason Bigelow became the Academy's first female winner for best director (which is a crying shame, by the way) is "The Hurt Locker," her portrait of bomb disposal experts working during the Iraq War which also beat "Avatar" to take home the award for best picture of the year.

"The Hurt Locker" stars Jeremy Renner as Sergeant First Class William James, who works with the Bravo Company to identify and dismantle bombs from enemy forces and replaces Staff Sergeant Matthew Thompson (Guy Pearce), the team's former leader who's killed during an IED explosion right at the beginning of the film. Thanks to a screenplay by Mark Boal, who worked as a war journalist in Iraq, "The Hurt Locker" is doggedly realistic in its depiction of the Bravo Company's mental deterioration as they attempt to eliminate as many explosive threats as possible while constantly risking their own lives. Bigelow's movie may have made history, but it also depicts a vital part of American military history.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).