13 Best War-Thriller Movies, Ranked (original) (raw)
Image via A24
Published May 4, 2024, 4:15 PM EDT
Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas.
Sign in to your Collider account
There’s always a risk involved with making a war movie thrilling, given that many great war movies aim to show the tedium, horror, and uselessness of conflict by making things grim and oftentimes not very entertaining. The thriller genre, on the other hand, is one that tends to succeed by providing excitement and suspense, with thrillers generally – though not always – being fun films, to some extent.
The following war movies can also be categorized as thrillers, with many being the darker sorts of thrillers that can be suspenseful, sure, but might not necessarily be entertaining. Tonally, however, some of these movies do lean toward having a bit more fun, all the while not shying away from the death and destruction present in all wars. These war/thriller hybrid movies are ranked below, starting with the good and ending with the great.
13 'Where Eagles Dare' (1968)
Directed by Brian G. Hutton
Image via MGM
Where Eagles Dare stars late classic Hollywood legend Richard Burton opposite a then-38-year-old Clint Eastwood. The film centers on a Special Operations Executive team trying to save an American general from the fictional Schloß Adler fortress, only to discover there's more to their mission than they previously thought.
A favorite of Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, Where Eagles Dare remains a seminal entry in the war genre. The film is narratively challenging to the point of being slightly confusing, which only adds to its enthralling quality, yet it never forgets to be entertaining, thanks to a perfect cast and assured direction. Unlike other war movies, Where Eagles Dare is more about the courage of men in war than war itself, giving it a timeless and inspiring tone that contributes to its legacy.
Release Date
March 12, 1969
Cast
Richard Burton
Maj. Smith
Patrick Wymark
Col. Wyatt Turner DSO MC
Where Eagles Dare: During World War II, an elite team of Allied soldiers embarks on a daring mission to rescue an American general held captive in the impregnable Schloss Adler, a remote Bavarian fortress. As they navigate treacherous terrain and formidable adversaries, the team must employ cunning strategies to achieve their objective.
12 'Das Boot' (1981)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
A sailor leans his elbow on machinery in the U-Boat in Das Boot.
Image via Neue Constantin Film
The West German war thriller Das Boot is among the most thrilling and claustrophobic depictions of wartime in cinema. Set during World War II, the plot follows the crew of the German submarine U-96 during their patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Das Boot presents a nuanced view of these men, acknowledging their allegiance without subscribing to traditional good-versus-evil tropes. Instead, it focuses on the human aspect of warfare, depicting the crew's sentiments of excitement, anticipation, anxiety, fear, and disappointment. Nominated for six Oscars, Das Boot is one of the best World War II movies, presenting another side to a conflict that shaped world history and adding layers to what is already a complex situation.
Das Boot
Release Date
September 17, 1981
Cast
Jurgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge, Bernd Tauber, Erwin Leder, Martin May
Runtime
149 Minutes
Writers
Wolfgang Petersen, Lothar G. Buchheim
11 'Dunkirk' (2017)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Fionn Whitehead as Tommy, crawling on a beach surrounded by smoke and other soldiers in Dunkirk
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Oscar-winner Christopher Nolan is behind some of the best thrillers in the 21st century. 2017's Dunkirk centers on the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II, following several characters and showing perspectives of the event from land, sea, and air.
Like every Nolan movie, Dunkirk is thrilling, tense, action-packed, and technically dazzling. The film throws the audience into the middle of the grueling action, and Nolan's camera expertly captures every detail. Dunkirk is the perfect mix of jaw-dropping spectacle and emotionally resonant storytelling; it's chaotic and harrowing, never shying away from the horrors of war, yet still moving and cathartic, a true modern masterpiece in the war and thriller genres.
Dunkirk
Release Date
July 21, 2017
Cast
Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, Damien Bonnard, Lee Armstrong, James Bloor, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Luke Thompson, Michel Biel, Constantin Balsan, Billy Howle, Mikey Collins, Callum Blake, Dean Ridge, Bobby Lockwood, Will Attenborough, Tom Nolan, James D'Arcy, Matthew Marsh
Runtime
106 minutes
Writers
10 'Eye in the Sky' (2015)
Director: Gavin Hood
Image via Bleecker Street Media
More of a political thriller than a traditional war movie, Eye in the Sky does, nevertheless, revolve around warfare, and a particularly contemporary version of it at that. It’s all about the complicated nature of combat that involves the use of drones, showing the various people waging war from afar and exploring what happens when civilian casualties become a possibility, dividing individuals and causing debate.
It's a fairly bleak movie, but does succeed in being suspenseful and even quite nail-biting in parts, which is what ultimately makes Eye in the Sky feel partly like a thriller and partly like a war movie. It’s a somewhat overlooked movie overall, exploring its complex themes with a straightforward story well, and boasting very good performances from a talented cast that includes Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, and Alan Rickman.
9 'Civil War' (2024)
Director: Alex Garland
Kirsten Dunst as Lee Smith, staring out a car window, in Civil War.
Image via A24
Though there’s fear the events depicted in Civil War could come true, at least for now, this 2024 release is about a fictional conflict. Effectively, it shows what a modern-day civil war in the U.S. may look like, depicting it through the eyes of a group of journalists who undertake a risky mission over hundreds of miles to cover the inevitable overthrow of the President in Washington D.C.
Civil War is a slow-burn movie, but builds in intensity well and has some genuinely intense action/suspense sequences as it progresses. Cashing in on what feels like a particularly divided time in history (and coming out in an election year, no less), Civil War has proven quite successful financially and critically, and is up there with the most gripping war movies in recent memory.
Release Date
April 12, 2024
Director
Alex Garland
8 'Joint Security Area' (2000)
Director: Park Chan-wook
Joint Security Area is a movie that explores how, even though the Korean War has officially ended, North Korea and South Korea are still engaged in a tense conflict of sorts. It takes place in and around the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, with the narrative principally being about a South Korean soldier being accused of murdering two North Korean soldiers.
There’s an element of mystery to Joint Security Area that drives much of the story, with an inventive structure that also works to build suspense, intrigue, and emotion. It’s a unique spin on the war genre and a very engaging movie all around, being another winner found within the varied and surprisingly consistent filmography of Park Chan-wook (and being released several years before his most acclaimed film, Oldboy).
7 'The Train' (1964)
Director: John Frankenheimer
A still from The Train.
Image via United Artists
A classic 1960s war movie, The Train takes place during World War II, and revolves around a German Colonel’s plans to steal valuable artwork from France and transport it back to Germany. Naturally, a group of French resistance fighters aren’t too thrilled by that idea, setting in motion a conflict that feels like a microcosm of the war as a whole, and succeeds in being generally entertaining and exciting.
The Train has aged remarkably well for a movie that’s now 60 years old, standing as something that’s likely to prove engaging for contemporary viewers in much the same way it would’ve been for audiences decades ago. It’s a movie that understands how surprisingly cinematic trains are (particularly when it comes to action), and it’s an overall undeniably gripping World War II film.
The Train
Release Date
September 24, 1964
Director
John Frankenheimer
Actors
Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau
Run Time
133 Minutes
Language
English
Rating
Not Rated
6 'Bullet in the Head' (1990)
Director: John Woo
John Woo is well known for his action/thriller/crime movies, with Bullet in the Head being something of a change of pace for the filmmaker, released at a time when Woo was one of the best filmmakers working in Hong Kong. It does contain action and the main characters are wrapped up in a life of crime, but Bullet in the Head also crosses over into becoming a prisoner of war movie, owing to the story involving the Vietnam War.
It's an unpredictable ride of a film, and though it’s very engaging and memorable, it’s also quite grim and shocking in parts. John Woo pulled no punches in showing some of the most unpleasant parts of the conflict fought in Vietnam during the 1960s and ‘70s, with Bullet in the Head ultimately being underrated, not to mention admirably ambitious when it comes to its willingness to blend genres.
5 '1917' (2019)
Director: Sam Mendes
British soldier running through battlefield in 1917
Image via Universal Pictures
Alongside 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front and the 2018 documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, 1917 is a movie that’s part of a resurgence of sorts for World War I films. That could well have something to do with the 2010s marking 100 years since the conflict commenced and ended, with the title of 1917 making it obvious that it’s set just over a century before the film’s year of release.
The premise of 1917 is simple, with the film following two young soldiers tasked with carrying out a dangerous and time-sensitive mission that involves crossing no man’s land, with the filmmaking and technical aspects of 1917 providing complexity and spectacle. It’s intended to look like it was filmed in a single take, and therefore mostly feels like it takes place in real-time, which naturally makes the entire thing (and especially the combat scenes) exceedingly tense.
Release Date
January 10, 2020
Runtime
119 minutes
Director
4 'Army of Shadows' (1969)
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
A man tied to a chair sits and a man sitting a desk in 'Army of Shadows'
Image via Valoria Films
Jean-Pierre Melville’s sensibilities as a filmmaker were perfectly suited to heist/crime movies, with Army of Shadows being something of a change of pace, at least compared to some of his other acclaimed works. It’s a film that’s just as intense as his very best crime movies, but deals with World War II and the plight of a French resistance fighter who escapes a prison camp and continues his desperate battle against Nazi forces.
Army of Shadows is as dark and unnerving as the title suggests it would be, and stands as a World War II movie that manages to feel realistic while also being visually bold and stylish. It’s sometimes regarded as one of the very best movies of the 1960s, and rightly so, blending war and thriller genres more seamlessly than most other films that attempt to do the same.
Release Date
September 10, 1969
Runtime
145 minutes
Director
Jean-Pierre Melville