Movies like Cuba (1979)
The best movies like Cuba (1979) are The Dogs of War (1980), Che! (1969) and McBain (1991). If Cuba hooked you with its action and drama, 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 9,537 votes
- NewestPanama (2022)Released 2022
The Dogs of War (1980)
Mercenary soldiers Jamie and Drew are hired by a large corporation to liberate Zangaro, a small African nation, from an despot. Havoc ensues.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisChe! (1969)
Biography of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro in his struggle against the corrupt Batista regime, eventually resulting in the overthrow of that government and Castro's taking over of Cuba. The film covers Guevara's life from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in an ambush by government troops in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & adventure
McBain (1991)
Santos attempts to lead a people's revolt in Colombia to overthrow the Presidente. When his revolt fails and he is killed, his sister Christina goes to New York to find McBain, a lieutenant Santos rescued during the Vietnam War. McBain agrees to help, recruits his old war buddies, raises some cash by killing a few drug dealers, then leads an attack to topple the Colombian government.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisPanama (2022)
An ex-marine is hired by a defense contractor to travel to Panama to complete an arms deal. In the process he becomes involved with the U.S. invasion of Panama, and learns an important lesson about the true nature of political power.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisHavana (1990)
During the revolution, a high-stakes gambler arrives in Cuba seeking to win big in poker games. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with the wife of a Communist revolutionary.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisChe: Part One (2008)
Ernesto Guevara, known as 'Che', leads a group of Cuban exiles under Fidel Castro in a revolution to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, the dictator of Cuba.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark of the Sun (1968)
A band of mercenaries led by Captain Curry travel through war-torn Congo across deadly terrain, battling rival armies, to steal $50 million in uncut diamonds. But infighting, sadistic rebels and a time lock jeopardize everything.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSalvador (1986)
In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLet's Go with Pancho Villa! (1936)
The 1910 Mexican Revolution is on its way when six brave peasants, known as "Los Leones de San Pablo", decide to join Pancho Villa's army and help end the suffering in their community by assisting in the struggle. Together, they will endure the tragedies and hardships of a civil war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & adventure
Under 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 thisThe Wild Geese (1978)
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood Diamond (2006)
An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOld Gringo (1989)
A writer forms a triangle with a schoolmarm and a Mexican general on the run.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisFidel (2002)
Centered on the six years before the fall of Batista's dictatorship and the subsequent 40 years of the Cuban Revolution.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
100 Rifles (1969)
When half-breed Indian Yaqui Joe robs an Arizona bank, he is pursued by dogged lawman Lyedecker. Fleeing to Mexico, Joe is imprisoned by General Verdugo, who is waging a war against the Yaqui Indians. When Lyedecker attempts to intervene, he is thrown into prison as well. Working together, the two escape and take refuge in the hills, where Lyedecker meets beautiful Yaqui freedom fighter Sarita and begins to question his allegiances.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & war
SnoozefestMovies like thisWe Were Strangers (1949)
China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with American expatriate Tony Fenner. Tony develops a plan to tunnel under the city's cemetery to a plot owned by a high official, assassinate him, and blow up the whole Cuban hierarchy at the ensuing state funeral. Together with a band of dedicated revolutionaries, they begin digging.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Rambo III (1988)
Combat has taken its toll on Rambo, but he's finally begun to find inner peace in a monastery. When Rambo's friend and mentor Col. Trautman asks for his help on a top secret mission to Afghanistan, Rambo declines but must reconsider when Trautman is captured.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe White Sun of the Desert (1969)
The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (today's Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. After being hospitalised and then demobbed, he sets off home to join his wife, only to be caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rahimov, "convinces" Sukhov to help, temporarily, with the protection of abandoned women of the Basmachi guerrilla leader Abdullah's harem. Leaving a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, Rahimov and his cavalry unit set out to pursue fleeing Abdullah.Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore town. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same town...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhite Hunter, Black Heart (1990)
Renowned filmmaker John Wilson travels to Africa to direct a new movie, but constantly leaves to hunt elephants and other game, to the dismay of his cast and crew. He eventually becomes obsessed with hunting down and killing one specific elephant.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisBurn! (1969)
The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTo Have and Have Not (1945)
A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFor Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisViva Zapata! (1952)
The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTaras Bulba (1962)
Ukraine, 16th century. While the Poles dominate the Cossack steppes, Andrei, son of Taras Bulba, a Cossack leader, must choose between his love for his family and his folk and his passion for a Polish woman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisxXx (2002)
Xander Cage is your standard adrenaline junkie with no fear and a lousy attitude. When the US Government "recruits" him to go on a mission, he's not exactly thrilled. His mission: to gather information on an organization that may just be planning the destruction of the world, led by the nihilistic Yorgi.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEl Cid (1961)
Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Guns of Navarone (1961)
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Four Feathers (1939)
A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cuba?
The closest matches to Cuba are The Dogs of War (1980), Che! (1969) and McBain (1991). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cuba?
People who watched Cuba most often go on to The Dogs of War (1980), Che! (1969) and McBain (1991).
What is the highest-rated movie like Cuba?
Apocalypse Now (1979), rated 8.3/10 by 9,537 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cuba?
Panama (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Cuba?
Yes: The Dogs of War (1980), Che! (1969) and McBain (1991).
How are movies similar to Cuba chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cuba, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.