The War Movie Every 18 Year-Old Should Watch

Required viewing for potential recruits.

(Still from “Warfare”. Image credit: A24)

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A few weeks ago, a friend and I attended an advance screening of “Warfare” — the latest film distributed by celebrated studio A24, known for their nuanced and provocative projects that feel like the closest thing to authenticity popular cinema has offered in recent years.

Jointly written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, it’s about a platoon of Navy SEALs who get bogged down during a mission in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006 and the fallout that results.

Mr. Mendoza was in that platoon on that mission. He served as the Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), the SOCOM operator who coordinates air support from the action on the ground.

He recently worked as a military supervisor for Mr. Garland’s “Civil War” (2024), released last spring to positive reviews and performing well at the box office, which is saying something since many of us were not in the mood for dystopian flicks during the election.

When the trailer dropped for “Warfare” early last month, there were a lot of skeptical folks on social media who wondered if the flick would be “war propaganda” in the vein of projects that are kinda anti-war but kinda not.

And honestly, I get that.

Two weeks before shipping out for basic training in 2005, I saw “Jarhead” in theaters, based on the memoir by U.S. Marine Corps veteran Anthony Swofford about his experiences as a Scout Sniper in the Persian Gulf War.

In the film, Mr. Swofford is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and he’s surrounded by an excellent supporting cast: Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, and Lucas Black, among others.

“Jarhead” is a great example of war flicks that are anti-war in thesis but ultimately not quite anti-war in spirit. That’s not to say it’s a bad movie. It’s actually a great flick—its strength is its authenticity about the culture of combat arms units—but it’s also quite a stretch to conclude it’s resolutely anti-war.

I would estimate that at least a solid third of the recruits in my basic training unit had also seen “Jarhead” before shipping out. It came up in countless conversations over the course of those several (tedious and exhausting) months, and the nature of those discussions were always about the camaraderie of combat units.

Guys in my basic training unit talked about the hilarious scenes and the training montages, but I can’t recall hearing so much as a fleeting observation about the consequences of war for the young men in the movie.

And that makes sense. I mean, if you’re in infantry basic training, there’s a whole “read the room” vibe that’s gonna encourage focusing on the fun stuff and discourage any talk on the depressing stuff.

This is a longstanding issue with American war movies, which tend to be treated like a buffet luncheon by young men who are considering joining the military: put on your plate what’s fun and interesting and exciting and ignore all the aspects of these films that warn about the many things that could go wrong.

Ironically, “Jarhead” directly makes this point with an infamous scene in which Marines are losing their shit during a screening of “Apocalypse Now.”

And that’s what makes it so frustrating when discussing whether or not a film is truly “anti-war” — it’s not so much the intent (many of these directors have great intent) but the result: young men selectively processing these flicks in a way that centers only the appealing aspects.

This dynamic has created an entire class of movies that are intended to be anti-war in the final result but wound up being only truly effective as a tool for military recruitment when targeting young men who wanna blow shit up and kill the bad guys with their friends and save the day.

To be clear: I’m not saying these films shouldn’t have been made or that they’re cynical or exploitative from the outset. I’m saying that when “anti-war” films include a lot of fun and romantic viewpoints on war, it’s not exactly surprising that the most important message will be lost on young men.

A24’s “Warfare” is not the least bit fun or romantic—exactly the opposite—and that’s what makes it not only the best war movie I’ve seen in many years but an early contender for one of the best films of 2025.

The friend who came with me to the screening is Andrea Goldstein, who served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy and deployed several times during her Active Duty career (she’s now a Reservist), one of those deployments with SOCOM/NSW (Special Operations Command, Naval Special Warfare Command), working with SEAL Teams and later as a troop commander.

When we got our seats, I looked at the runtime—a brisk 95 minutes—and remarked to Ms. Goldstein: “Damn, that’s pretty short for a drama.”

There’s a reason for that. Almost the entire film is shot as one long sequence reflecting the actual amount of time the mission took, which becomes increasingly harrowing as it unfolds, adding layers of compounding trauma packed into a relatively short window of time that seems, in moments, to be without any end in sight.

The result is a slow-motion, unrelenting nightmare that feels more like it’s in the neighborhood of three hours, a flood of stress and anxiety that leaves no room for any other conclusion: war is fucking hell.

I’m reluctant to go into details about the plot because I’m concerned it would somehow lessen the impact and maybe I’m skeptical that I could even adequately capture the intensity of viewing it for the first time.

The film has an introductory title card pointing out that it’s “based on memories,” which is substantially different from the usual “based on a true story” or “based on true events.”

During the after-screening Q&A, Mr. Mendoza explained that the members of his platoon were interviewed on what they remember about that day, all of it spliced together as a gift for one of their teammates, Elliot Miller, who was severely wounded early in the mission and has no memories of what happened.

The overall vibe of that construct feels unusually thoughtful—and quite authentic—because, as Mr. Mendoza explains, if it didn’t happen that day, it’s not in the movie, and also: all these guys are human beings with fallible memories and the way each experienced that day will not be the singularly defining narrative.

Ms. Goldstein, who was one of a handful of people in the packed screening who could speak with authority on the subject matter, was impressed with this framework:

“The point of the film was showing a single op on a single day. It was basically a continuous 90 min sequence from when things are quiet—and, you know, will they will blow up—to them actually blowing up. It’s really powerful in showing how every person reacts differently, ranging from the SEALs in shock… to the enablers, the two Marines, springing to action and doing what needs to be done even if it’s slightly less perfectly done because their training is to do a different job… My main concern was that we would get a chest thumping SEAL movie that was fairly egocentric and it wasn’t, you had the enablers right there, plus the Army and Air Force are out there doing work as well. Ultimately, [Mr. Mendoza] didn’t see the story he wanted to see told out there, so he told it.”

She also added a pretty damn important point:

“On a separate note, at the talkback, Mr. Mendoza talked about feeling invisible as a veteran. A lot of veterans have this experience and it’s something that should be acknowledged and validated. I personally bristled at this, because oftentimes it has been other male veterans who have invalidated my experience as a woman veteran, including SEALs I served with who openly questioned women’s presence on the teams while we were on an op (“but we don’t mean you…”) Society lionizes SEALs! So I had a pretty visceral reaction to this. But his sense of invisibility was about losing community in brotherhood. I never had that community while serving because the brotherhood was very clear that no matter how competent I was, I was an outsider who should feel lucky to be included.”

Fair play and well said.

We both agreed that it’s an exceptional war movie (Ms. Goldstein summed it up as “brilliant”), and judging by the standing ovation received by Mr. Mendoza following the credits, that appears to be the consensus view.

The cast is damn good. Mr. Mendoza is played by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who deftly anchors the chaos of that day. The always fun Will Poulter offers impressive range here as the sobering mission commander, and Charles Melton similarly surprised me with his gravitas when he entered the screen halfway through.

I found it especially interesting that one of the best American war movies in recent memory features a heavily international cast. Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, and Alex Brockdorff all hail from England, Mr. Woon-A-Tai is a Canadian of Oji-Cree descent, and Henry Zaga is Brazilian.

This is, indeed, not remotely the “chest thumping” war movie the average civilian might expect from a flick centering Navy SEALs. It’s a sobering and haunting and respectful and complicated snapshot of a war many Americans would soon rather forget, but it also doesn’t hide behind that complexity, either.

Instead, it has the guts to place that complexity and horror right up in your face.

Mr. Mendoza and Mr. Garland have rendered a great public service with this film, honoring those who risked their lives for each other whilst also telling the young men and women who’d like to follow in their footsteps someday:

Understand what it actually means to sign up for war, and know that you’ll never grasp the consequences of that service until you’re confronted with them. And maybe not even then.

I wish every young person were made to watch this film before signing the dotted line.

“Warfare” will enter wide release in the United States this Friday, April 11th.

Definitely go see it.

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