Movies like Jacknife (1989)

Birdy (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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Bat★21 (1988)

Lt. Col. Iceal "Ham" Hambleton is a weapons countermeasures expert and when his aircraft is shot over enemy territory the Air Force very much wants to get him back. Hambleton knows the area he's in is going to be carpet-bombed but a temporary shortage of helicopters causes a delay. Working with an Air Force reconnaissance pilot, Capt. Bartholomew Clark, he maps out an escape route.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

Danger 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

Behold a Pale Horse (1964)

Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his mother is dying he considers visiting her secretly in his Spanish home town. But his biggest enemy, the Spanish police officer Vinolas, prepared a trap at the hospital as a chance to finally catch Artiguez.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Field of Lost Shoes (2015)

A group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

The Yellow Birds (2018)

Two young soldiers, Bartle and Murph, navigate the terrors of the Iraq war under the command of the older, troubled Sergeant Sterling. All the while, Bartle is tortured by a promise he made to Murph's mother before their deployment.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

The Last Full Measure (2020)

The incredible true story of Vietnam War hero William H. Pitsenbarger, a U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen medic who personally saved over sixty men. Thirty-two years later, Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman investigates a Congressional Medal of Honor request for Pitsenbarger and uncovers a high-level conspiracy behind the decades-long denial of the medal, prompting Huffman to put his own career on the line to seek justice for the fallen airman.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Casualties 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

King Rat (1965)

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Heaven & 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

The Kill Team (2019)

When Andrew Briggman — a young soldier in the US Army during the invasion of Afghanistan — witnesses the murderous behavior of fellow soldiers, under the direction of a malevolent Sergeant, he faces a moral dilemma. His increasingly-violent platoon becomes suspicious that someone in their ranks has turned on them, and Andrew begins to fear for his safety. A fictionalized dramatization based on a true story.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Men in War (1957)

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

Platoon (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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Thank 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Stop-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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & war

Seal Team Eight: Behind Enemy Lines (2014)

Seal Team Eight must fight their way deep into Africa's Congo, decommission a secret uranium mine, and stop our most dangerous enemy from smuggling weapon's grade yellow-cake out of the country.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

Gardens 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & drama

Boudica (2023)

Inspired by events in A.D. 60, Boudica follows the eponymous Celtic warrior who rules the Iceni people alongside her husband Prasutagus. When he dies at the hands of Roman soldiers, Boudica’s kingdom is left without a male heir and the Romans seize her land and property. Driven to the edge of madness and determined to avenge her husband’s death, Boudica rallies the various tribes from the region and wages an epic war against the mighty Roman empire.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war

Go Tell the Spartans (1978)

A unit of American military advisors in Vietnam prior to the major U.S. involvement finds similarities between their helpless struggle against the Viet Cong and the doomed actions of a French unit at the same site a decade before.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war

Même les anges ont le coeur brûlé (2024)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war

Missing 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: Similar story and style · both war & drama

The Quiet American (2002)

Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & war

Wild Field (1979)

In Dong Thap Muoi during the days of the Vietnam War, Ba Do, Sau Xoa and their little child live in a small shack in the middle of an abandoned wetland zone. They are entrusted with the mission of maintaining Viet Minh's lines of communication in the area. Daily life goes on as the small family looks out for death from above.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & drama

Faith of My Fathers (2005)

Faith of My Fathers is based on the story of Lieutenant Commander John McCain's experiences as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years during the Vietnam War, interleaved with his memories of growing up in a heritage rich with military service.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & drama

Apocalypse 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: Similar story and style · both drama & war

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

The Holdovers (2023)

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Viet Flakes (1967)

Viet Flakes was composed from an obsessive collection of Vietnam atrocity images, compiled over five years, from foreign magazines and newspapers. Schneemann uses the 8mm camera to “travel” within the photographs, producing a volatile animation.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war

Running on Empty (1988)

The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind. Their survival is threatened when their eldest son falls in love with a girl, and announces his wish to live his life on his own terms.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama