15 Movies Like American Sniper That War Drama Fans Need To See

The most recent film on this list, 2020's "The Outpost" is a visceral account of the War in Afghanistan's  Battle of Kamdesh. The film is set in Combat Outpost Keating, an army camp built at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by trees, boulders, and mountains up to 12,000 feet high. First Lieutenant Brad Larson, who served at the camp, described it as "like being in a fishbowl or fighting from the bottom of a paper cup."

On October 3, 2009, the vulnerable camp was attacked by some 300 Taliban fighters, killing eight American soldiers and wounding a further 22. Almost one hour of the film's 123-minute running time is used to depict the battle, which produced Medals of Honor for Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha and Specialist Ty Carter, who are played by Scott Eastwood and Caleb Landry Jones, respectively.

"The Outpost" also depicts the day-to-day life of the camp, especially the power struggles that dogged Keating, which saw numerous leaders during its fraught existence. The performances are uniformly excellent: Each actor is both passionately real and supremely understated. In short, if you're looking for a post-9/11 war film about the reality of soldiering, then "The Outpost" should be at the top of your list.

Anyone who likes war dramas should watch 1998's "Saving Private Ryan." Some criticize it as sentimental, while others, including military historian Antony Beevor, decry it for fulfilling "every war cliché imaginable." However, very few people deny that as a technical display, "Saving Private Ryan" is staggering.

Steven Spielberg's World War II opus reinvented the war movie aesthetic, bringing a harsh, handheld style that emphasizes the chaos and brutality of battle. This is especially true of the opening scene on Omaha Beach, where dozens of troops die as soon as the landing crafts lower their ramps. Relentless MG42 fire tears through the men's bodies, forcing some to throw themselves overboard into the water, where they drown because of their heavy equipment. Until "Saving Private Ryan," few films had ever captured war's merciless waste of human life with such ferocity. 

This new vision of conflict comes from Spielberg's direction and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's bleak, desaturated images. A 2018 article in the Los Angeles Times cites the style of "Saving Private Ryan" as an influence on  everything from "Dunkirk" and "Hacksaw Ridge" to "Gladiator" and "all of the high-action superhero films." A war film this influential is required viewing for any cinephile.

Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" is not only an excellent war movie, it's one of the greatest films ever made. This 1981 feature concerns the Battle of the Atlantic, which was the longest battle of World War II, lasting from September 3, 1939 until May 8, 1945. As the title suggests, "Das Boot" is told from the German perspective, focusing on the submarine crew of U-96 as they patrol the North Atlantic for Allied shipping.

Led by Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock (Jürgen Prochnow), the men of U-96 live cramped, sweaty, and extremely dangerous lives. The German U-boats may have inflicted big losses on the Allies, but they received much pain in return, losing some 28,000 sailors during the war. In the words of the film's foreboding tagline, "Hitler sent out 40,000 men aboard German U-Boats during World War 2. Less than 10,000 returned."

This desperate struggle for survival unfolds over an excruciating two and half hours, full of depth charge attacks from British destroyers that are sure to make your heart race. It truly has to be seen to be believed.

2005's "Jarhead" is a subtler affair than "American Sniper." Set during the Gulf War of 1991, Sam Mendes' film depicts elements of war that are rarely considered — specifically, boredom and loneliness. These men have been processed by the military machine to kill other human beings. Yet when they reach their post in the desert, they're confronted with an aimless existence. This sentiment isn't confined to the Gulf War: Even history's worst conflicts have been described in such terms. One New York Times article from 1915 describes World War I as "months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror." Few movies portray this experience, however, let alone so vividly.  

Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) is our principal character, joined by comrades such as Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx), Chris Kruger (Lucas Black) and Alan Troy (Peter Sarsgaard). Their most rousing moment is not a skirmish, but a screening of "Apocalypse Now," especially the iconic "Ride of the Valkyries" scene. This is in keeping with French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's famous declaration that "the Gulf War did not take place": The conflict, though deadly, was a media spectacle before anything else, as he saw it. "Jarhead" presents this point of view beautifully thanks to Roger Deakins, the revered cinematographer. Especially striking are the oil field scenes, which evoke the haunting photography of Steve McCurry.

Hollywood has paid little attention to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 to 1989. One rare exception is 1988's "The Beast," an underrated war drama from director Kevin Reynolds, who would go on to helm "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "Waterworld." Based on the stage play "Nanawatai" by William Mastrosimone, "The Beast" follows a Russian tank crew as they battle the Mujahideen deep in the rugged Afghan countryside. However, much of the danger comes from Daskal (George Dzundza), the crew's brutish commander. This leads to deadly in-fighting, reminiscent of 1987's "Platoon."

Despite being a solid war drama, "The Beast" quickly faded into obscurity after performing poorly at the box office. Warm appraisals of the film have arrived since then, but it remains a criminally underrated tale of battle. Cinephiles of all stripes would do well to track "The Beast" down and give it its due.

A landmark film of the New Hollywood period, 1978's "The Deer Hunter" is a defining account of men, community, and warfare. It follows a small group of mill workers including Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage) as they're drafted into the Vietnam War. The film's three-hour runtime explores their lives before, during, and after the conflict.

The men's central trauma occurs when they're caught by Viet Cong revolutionaries who force them to play Russian roulette. Some criticize the scene as biased, while others decry it as an utter falsehood. As Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Peter Arnett wrote in The Los Angeles Times, "There was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette ... The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie."

According to director Michael Cimino, however, "Russian roulette is a metaphor for what America was doing with its young people, sending them to a war in a foreign place, when there was no justification for it." Critics like Roger Ebert agreed: He hailed the scene as "the organizing symbol of the film: Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole." Whatever one thinks of the Russian roulette scene, it's only one part of an epic film full of tremendous performances, sweeping photography, and acute dramatic intensity. 

2016's "Hacksaw Ridge" tells the remarkable  story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a conscientious objector who refused to carry a gun, yet saved 75 men during the Battle of Okinawa. Director Mel Gibson has become known for focusing on the potential violence of an era over the actual facts, a trait apparent in "Braveheart," "Apocalypto," and "The Passion of the Christ." This is also somewhat true of "Hacksaw Ridge," which features some of the goriest battle scenes since "Saving Private Ryan." Writing for The New Yorker, critic Richard Brody described the "mutilations and agonies, sprays and spurts of blood and cascades of human meat" that fill the screen as Doss runs into the line of fire, saving life after life.

However, while Gibson displays his trademark instinct for violence in this film, he does not indulge his tendency for historical mistruth. History vs. Hollywood found that "Hacksaw Ridge" stays true to the record in most cases, with Gibson even omitting a scene of Doss getting shot by a sniper because he thought the audience wouldn't believe it.

Stanley Kubrick's classic 1957 war drama is considerably less violent than other films on this list. Yet it retains its gut-punch power more than 60 years after its release. Based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb, "Paths of Glory" stars Kirk Douglas as a French colonel who battles his superiors to prevent the execution of his troops, who have been accused of cowardice in the midst of World War I.

Even the most cursory glance at viewers' and critics' responses to "Paths of Glory" reveals praise of the highest sort. The Radio Times refers to Kirk Douglas' performance as "outstanding," while Total Film describes depictions of trench warfare as "frighteningly vivid." The Guardian makes the biggest claim, celebrating the drama as "arguably the best film about the First World War, [which] still has a reasonable claim to being Stanley Kubrick's best film." Perhaps the greatest testament to the film's power, however, is the fact that France did not show it until 1975, owing to its negative depiction of the French army's generalship.