Movies like The Deer Hunter (1978)
The best movies like The Deer Hunter (1978) are Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979). If The Deer Hunter hooked you with its drama and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedApocalypse Now (1979)8.3/10 from 9,547 votes
- NewestDa 5 Bloods (2020)Released 2020
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFull Metal Jacket (1987)
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisApocalypse Now (1979)
At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisCasualties of War (1989)
During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPlatoon (1986)
As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHamburger Hill (1987)
The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it chews up soldiers like chopped meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse. Hamburger Hill tells it the way it was, the way it really was. It's a raw, gritty and totally unrelenting dramatic depiction of one of the fiercest battles of America's bloodiest war. This happened. Hamburger Hill - war at its worst, men at their best.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisComing Home (1978)
In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGardens of Stone (1987)
At Arlington National Cemetery during the Vietnam era, veteran sergeant Clell Hazard trains young soldiers while mourning those lost in combat. Unable to return to war himself, he mentors Jackie Willow—the idealistic son of a fallen comrade—hoping to prepare him for the realities of Vietnam and the cost of duty.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRescue Dawn (2007)
A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBirdy (1984)
Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDa 5 Bloods (2020)
Four African-American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam. They are in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. These heroes battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUncommon Valor (1983)
A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJohnny Got His Gun (1971)
A young American soldier, rendered in pseudocoma from an artillery shell from WWI, recalls his life leading up to that point.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Thin Red Line (1998)
The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJarhead (2005)
Jarhead is a film about a US Marine Anthony Swofford’s experience in the Gulf War. After putting up with an arduous boot camp, Swofford and his unit are sent to the Persian Gulf where they are eager to fight, but are forced to stay back from the action. Swofford struggles with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him, and as his mental state deteriorates, his desire to kill increases.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Killing Fields (1984)
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPaths of Glory (1957)
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGood Morning, Vietnam (1987)
A disk jockey goes to Vietnam to work for the Armed Forces Radio Service. While he becomes popular among the troops, his superiors disapprove of his humor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThank You for Your Service (2017)
A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they've left the battlefield.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Green Berets (1968)
Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for two missions in South Vietnam. The first is to strengthen a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy. The second is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisTigerland (2000)
A group of recruits go through Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana's infamous Tigerland, last stop before Vietnam for tens of thousands of young men in 1971.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boys in Company C (1978)
Disheartened by futile combat, appalled by the corruption of their South Vietnamese ally, and constantly endangered by the incompetence of their own company commander, the young men find a possible way out of the war. They are told that if they purposely lose a soccer game against a South Vietnamese team, they can spend the rest of their tour playing exhibition games behind the lines.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHeaven & Earth (1993)
In a small Vietnamese village torn apart by war, a young woman faces unimaginable horrors before deciding to escape to the city. There, she encounters a compassionate Marine who offers her hope and a chance at a new life, igniting the possibility of a future together.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUnder Fire (1983)
Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDanger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (2019)
Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisM*A*S*H (1970)
One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, M*A*S*H focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sand Pebbles (1966)
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMissing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985)
Prequel to the first Missing In Action, set in the early 1980s it shows the capture of Colonel Braddock during the Vietnam war in the 1970s, and his captivity with other American POWs in a brutal prison camp, and his plans to escape.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisStop-Loss (2008)
A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like this84 Charlie Mopic (1989)
An Army cameraman is embedded with a reconnaissance patrol and charts their mission across territory controlled by the North Vietnamese.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Deer Hunter?
The closest matches to The Deer Hunter are Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Deer Hunter?
People who watched The Deer Hunter most often go on to Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Deer Hunter?
Apocalypse Now (1979), rated 8.3/10 by 9,547 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Deer Hunter?
Da 5 Bloods (2020) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Deer Hunter?
Yes: Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979).
How are movies similar to The Deer Hunter chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Deer Hunter, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.