Top 10 Best War Documentaries
War... what is it good for? For this list, we’ll be ranking the most impactful, affecting, or otherwise enduring war docs that stood with us long after the credits stopped rolling.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 I'd never seen a dead man or anything of that kind, and I wondered if it came to my shooting
00:05 a man whether I would be able to do this."
00:08 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be counting down our picks for the top 10 war documentaries.
00:13 "Millions of Iraqis have lost access to drinking water, sewage treatment, and electricity since
00:18 the invasion."
00:19 For this list, we'll be ranking the most impactful, affecting, or otherwise enduring war docs
00:23 that stood with us long after the credits stopped rolling.
00:25 We won't be including Ken Burns' epic The Vietnam War, since that was a miniseries rather
00:29 than a feature film.
00:30 What's your favorite documentary from this list?
00:32 Let us know in the comments!
00:35 10.
00:36 In the Year of the Pig
00:37 "I met Ho Chi Minh for the first time in Hanoi at the end of '45."
00:44 The conflict in Vietnam has long been a subject of varying documentarian viewpoints from 1967's
00:49 Far From Vietnam to 1974's Hearts and Minds.
00:52 In the Year of the Pig from 1968 was controversial right from the start.
00:56 This was thanks to accusations that its director, Emile D'Antonio, possessed leftist sympathy,
01:00 an accusation that D'Antonio didn't attempt to deflect or avoid.
01:04 In the Year of the Pig brings up an important question that comes up again and again with
01:08 documentaries, and that is bias.
01:09 "Would Kennedy have done what Johnson has done?
01:12 There were two things that he very, very much wished to avoid.
01:17 One was making this an American war."
01:19 Even the most objective of documentarians, such as Frederick Wiseman, has been accused
01:23 of carrying certain messages within his films.
01:25 In the Year of the Pig feels both decidedly anti-war and critical of American policy within
01:29 that war, and it feels by design.
01:31 "There is not one square foot, I would say, a square thumb of the earth that has not been
01:37 built as it is by the peasantry in the past."
01:40 9.
01:41 For Sama
01:49 The movie viewing experience can be very different for a lot of people and can change depending
01:53 on where you happen to be in your life.
01:55 Parents, for example, will likely be deeply moved by 2019's For Sama, perhaps even more
02:00 than those without children.
02:02 This is due to how director Wad Al-Khatib frames For Sama as a harrowing true story
02:06 about her life amidst the 2011 Syrian revolution.
02:09 "Listen, I made this film for you.
02:13 I want you to understand why your father and I made the choice."
02:18 This documentary takes viewers on an emotional journey where Al-Khatib faces some truly heavy
02:23 questions, as she and her husband attempt to care for a young child in a very chaotic
02:27 atmosphere.
02:28 For Sama pulls at the heartstrings while also pulling no punches about how war is hell and
02:32 how it takes its hold upon families everywhere.
02:35 "We heard that there are bodies of people who were killed in the river."
02:45 8.
02:46 No End in Sight
02:47 "Baghdad has 10 bombings, 10, 15 bombings a day, and it's maybe 50 KIA.
02:54 But I suspect that's drastically underreported."
02:57 No End in Sight takes on another comparatively recent military conflict, the Iraq War.
03:02 Specifically, director Charles Ferguson places the administration of George W. Bush straight
03:06 within his documentary's crosshairs.
03:08 Remember what we said earlier regarding bias?
03:10 No End in Sight makes no bones about how it wants to expose all of the perceived wrongdoing
03:14 and blunders that went on during the American occupation of Iraq.
03:18 "George W. Bush's foreign policy inner circle, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, set the administration
03:25 on course for war with Iraq."
03:27 It does so with informative insight, along with engaging interviews that detail some
03:30 of the inner workings of the war's timeline, from beginning to end.
03:33 Be warned, however, because many of the accusations and revelations contained within No End in
03:37 Sight can feel positively infuriating.
03:39 "Some of them don't see an end to it.
03:41 They think they'll be back there for their fifth, sixth, and seventh tours of duty before
03:45 this ends."
03:46 7.
03:47 Waltz with Bashir
03:48 "I see from the window that their faces are evil, that they came to murder."
03:53 It's fairly commonplace today for even the fluffiest of Netflix documentaries to feature
03:57 some sort of animated section to help carry its visual aesthetic.
04:00 This doesn't always sit well with some, including documentary buffs who feel that the medium
04:04 can occasionally dilute the message at hand.
04:07 Thankfully, this is not the case with 2008's Waltz with Bashir, primarily because the end
04:11 result is so engaging.
04:12 "At 40-something, you're already a Mohammad Leibnod."
04:13 "At 20, I couldn't be anything anymore."
04:20 This is despite the film's controversial reputation within Lebanon and other Arab nations, where
04:24 it is often banned.
04:26 Waltz with Bashir tells the story of writer/director Ari Fulman's time as a soldier during the
04:30 Lebanon War, also known as the invasion from the Lebanese perspective, and does so in a
04:34 fashion that felt groundbreaking, both in 2008 and now.
04:38 "Tabakh?
04:39 How do you say that?
04:40 Tabakh is not in my system.
04:41 Voila."
04:42 "Journalism and this free situation for media is really new in Afghanistan."
04:54 Not every war documentary necessarily follows soldiers on the battlefield.
04:57 Others, such as 2015's Frame by Frame, document photojournalism in war-torn countries.
05:02 This film focuses specifically on Afghanistan, where a new generation of homegrown photojournalists
05:07 are attempting to navigate a new world after the Taliban fell out of power in 2001.
05:12 "This is a big possibility that the world, I mean, forget us again."
05:16 Frame by Frame utilizes archival footage that paints a picture of an Afghanistan where photography
05:21 was outlawed under Taliban law.
05:23 It then juxtaposes this against Ford Photo journalists who aren't only exploring a newly
05:27 free press in their country, but balancing that freedom against their status as women
05:31 as well.
05:32 It's sincerely fascinating and captivating stuff.
05:34 "This is the main time for Afghan photographers to really stand up and to still keep Afghanistan
05:41 on the news and not let it forget."
05:45 Number 5.
05:46 The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
05:56 There is a lot to emotionally unpack with regard to Japanese culture in the aftermath
06:00 of World War II.
06:01 From the analogy of 1954's Godzilla and the horrors of nuclear war to the other violent
06:06 atrocities committed within the Pacific theater of that war.
06:16 The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On takes this very large conceptual umbrella and attempts
06:21 to make it personal, following the journey of one Kenzo Akuzaki, a former Japanese soldier
06:25 who is seeking answers to the wartime deaths of his comrades.
06:28 The film is charged with pathos and anger and drives home the point that even the biggest
06:32 of wars were macrocosms consisting of smaller, yet no less powerful stories.
06:45 Number 4.
06:46 The Rock For Sale – The War Profiteers
06:58 The Rock For Sale – The War Profiteers makes a perfect "feel bad" sort of double feature
07:02 with the aforementioned no end in sight.
07:04 This isn't only due to the crossover of their content, but also how both films can evoke
07:08 some righteous anger and indignation within the viewer.
07:11 This doc from 2006 really narrows its focus upon four private companies and criticizes
07:15 their policies and actions during the Iraq War.
07:18 Blackwater, Titan, Halliburton, and CACI are all set within this film's crosshairs, and
07:23 are presented as companies that put profits over human life at every step of the way.
07:27 Iraq For Sale also hypothesizes how some very high profile and important political dots
07:32 could be connected to better illustrate the map of those at the very top.
07:43 Number 3.
07:44 Night and Fog
07:45 Graphic, often disturbing content can often accompany even the most venerable of war documentaries.
08:00 Night and Fog from 1956 may be over 50 years old, but the severity of its content is arguably
08:05 unparalleled, even by modern standards.
08:07 This French film facilitates back and forth between contemporary footage of German concentration
08:12 camps and some of the most disturbing images of the Holocaust ever put to celluloid.
08:27 Night and Fog isn't even an hour long, yet it still possesses enough power and shock
08:31 value to leave viewers reeling from its nightmarish imagery.
08:34 This film is not for the faint of heart, yet remains essential viewing to underline one
08:38 very important sentiment with regards to World War II - never again.
08:54 Number 2.
08:55 They Shall Not Grow Old
09:08 The stories of those who served in World War I received a new lease on life from director
09:11 Peter Jackson in his 2018 documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old.
09:15 Jackson was able to enhance and colorize centennial footage from the Great War and combine it
09:19 with audio interviews adapted from BBC archives.
09:34 The end result is both revelatory and immensely powerful, as They Shall Not Grow Old places
09:39 viewers directly within these soldiers' military experiences, from basic training and camp
09:43 life to the absolute horror that was going over the top.
09:46 Seeing these soldiers as they ensure some of the most traumatic situations ever experienced
09:50 doesn't get any easier, even 100 years later.
10:17 Number 1.
10:18 The Sorrow and the Pity
10:23 The Sorrow and the Pity is over four hours long, but make no mistake - this film is absolutely
10:27 worth your time.
10:29 Investing in The Sorrow and the Pity is to stare straight into the abyss of one of humanity's
10:32 darkest periods.
10:39 Director Marcel Ofels examines how France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany
10:43 during World War II, and does so with a balanced and measured look into the human psyche.
10:48 The Sorrow and the Pity shines a light upon the Venn diagram of issues that brought France
10:51 and Germany together during the war, and does so in a manner that has rarely been equaled,
10:56 then or now.
11:09 Number 2.
11:18 The Sorrow and the Pity