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.
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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