15 Best Military TV Shows Of All Time, Ranked

War can seem like an overwhelming topic. The victors rewrite conflicts, human lives are reduced to statistics, and conclusions are taken at face value.

So what happens when we zoom in? We start to see the inner workings of the military, a system comprising a group of individual humans doing their best to work as a unified front. We start to understand the way a soldier thinks. We start to understand why a nation's government might want to battle another nation's government. And we start to reckon with the moral grays of war, the blurring of boundaries leading to the blurring of ethics in ways both micro and macro, especially in our post-9/11 conflicts.

On television, these ideas have become prevalent in the 21st century through different sub-genres, attitudes, and levels of self-reflection. If all of this interests you as a viewer, then look no further as we discover the 15 best military TV shows of all time, ranked.

Running for just one season on NBC, "The Brave" follows the exploits of a Defense Intelligence Agency team led by the always essential Anne Heche as Deputy Director Patricia Campbell.

"The Brave" tends to paint its DIA agents as, well, quite brave, the best types of military agents who are willing to sacrifice everything and run headfirst into danger to ensure us American citizens sleep safely at night. In other words, even though the plot machinations trot around the globe through various terrorist cells and totalitarian extremists, the show's politics tend to be pretty simple, a point of view that leads show creator Dean Georgaris to explore meat-and-potatoes procedural conflicts rather than deep analysis.

This may sound like I'm damning "The Brave" with faint praise, but sometimes faint praise results in a fun time, and sometimes that's what we crave. Plus, it's interesting to view the inner workings of an institution not typically depicted on screen, like the DIA.

When we all watched Chris Pratt's breakthrough role on "Parks and Recreation," I'm sure we all watched his amiable slapstick charms and thought, "I can't wait for this actor to bulk up and get ultra-stern in a revenge thriller about what happens when the military industrial complex chews up and spits out its soldiers!" Right?

Um, no! That's a nutso thought to have based on his work! And yet, here we are, watching America's sweetheart check mooks off in "The Terminal List."

Pratt plays Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander James Reece, a guy who's having a really bad bunch of days. His entire platoon was killed in a mission gone wrong, his family was murdered, and the entirety of the world seems against him in a wide-varying conspiracy theory. Hence, the titular "Terminal List," ever-expanding as Reece gets revenge on those who wronged him.

While the show likes to think it's complicated, at its DNA, it's kind of silly, using interrogations of modern warfare as dressing rather than the salad itself — and the salad itself feels like someone stretched out and "prestige TV'd" a EuropaCorp programmer. Frankly, that's fine! It makes for a quite watchable show, one that offers thrills with just enough creative freedom for producer Antoine Fuqua to make it worth your while.

In a post-COVID world, the thrills offered by "The Last Ship," about a deadly global pandemic and the precarious attempt to restore order, may seem like the definition of "too soon". But for those willing to ride with a Jerry Bruckheimer-esque military thriller about an airborne virus, the five seasons of TNT's "The Last Ship" offer a boatload of fun.

Commander Tom Chandler, played by the eternally handsome Eric Dane, is aboard the USS Nathan James when a secret mission is horrifically revealed. The world, from which the ship has been isolated, has deteriorated from a horrifying virus, and paleomicrobiologist Dr. Rachel Scott, played by Rhona Mitra, just might have the cure. But that's only if the ship and its crew can survive the clashes and fissures that result from such a deadly event.

The resulting series, even when it veers from its central hook, delivers pleasingly hoo-rah drama in simple, broad strokes and borderline sappy displays of military and personal honor. Binge it with the best dad in your life.

Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" painted the efforts it took military intelligence to find and kill Osama bin Laden. At the head of that operation was the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly referred to as SEAL Team Six. If that film, or that particular subset of the military intrigues you, it's worth giving the History Channel's two-season show "Six" a try.

"Six" does, indeed, follow SEAL Team Six through the confusing and often horrifying world of counterterrorism operations. Familiar faces like "The White Lotus" star Walton Goggins populate the team, while Olivia Munn joins in Season 2 as a CIA Officer. Its episodes often place the viewer directly in the middle of disorienting missions while taking time to give the characters personal stakes along the way (even if they play a little trite).

The show was co-created by former Marine Corps Officer William Broyles Jr., and his experience adds an intriguing level of authenticity, especially when the show seems openly critical of the tactical or moral purpose of the team's operations.

Speaking of NBC everyman sitcom stars turning into frowning action-thriller hunks: John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, everybody!

Tom Clancy's ubiquitous CIA analyst Jack Ryan, adapted in previous films by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine, is dressed down and doured up by Krasinski in this Prime thriller. What he loses in movie star charisma, he makes up for in workmanlike commitment.

Every season of "Jack Ryan" focuses on a different geopolitical skirmish: a terrorist extremist here, a Cold War remnant there, a deep underbelly of corruption everywhere. Ryan's maneuvers in and out of his agency's authority and country's culpability all present welcome complications toward one's opinions of the fog of modern warfare and the United States' sometimes hypocritical roles in "keeping the global peace."

It also brings the thrills, often with handsomely lensed and well-cut action set pieces that feel immediate but legible, less like executive producer Michael Bay and more like executive producer Morten Tyldum.

Another show about the "SEAL Team" has entered the chat! But this one goes even deeper into the organization, following the elite sub-unit known as Bravo Team. 

David Boreanaz, who headed to the series after his time on the hit show "Bones," plays Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes. "SEAL Team" gives Boreanaz room to interrogate his well-practiced image, as Hayes undergoes calamity and tragedy from the start. The show explores the psychological and personal lives of its soldiers with an uncommon willingness to root around discomfort. While the conclusions drawn may still lean predictable, it's a welcome sight to see it ask these questions with punch and panache.

As for the boots-on-the-ground depictions of military operations, well, it is fundamentally a CBS show (even when it moves to Paramount+), which means you get familiar-feeling electronic thriller scores and shaky camera covering up low-budget seams. But if you can get onboard with those stylistic familiarities, you'll find some incisive drama you won't get anywhere else on the eyeball network.

Scroll elsewhere on Paramount+ and you'll find "68 Whiskey," a series much more forward-facing in its provocations and satirizing of the military-industrial complex.

Named after the group of medics that offer battlefield care for the United States Army, "68 Whiskey" follows a dysfunctional crew hanging out on a base, screwing, fighting, gambling, stealing, and occasionally "fighting for the honor of their country." It's fundamentally a comedy, though pitched in the bleakest of registers, which makes sense, given it comes from notable dark comedy TV writer Roberto Benabib ("Weeds," "Kidding").

The show itches at the inherent absurdities that come with the paradoxical boredom of being at war, especially when human desires, needs, and vices come face-to-face with the chance of death after stretches of nothing. It feels like Sam Mendes' "Jarhead" crossed paths with every season of "Shameless," and if that sounds like your cup of tea, you will drink the entire season in one sitting.

Hailing from Great Britain but airing in the US on Cinemax, "Strike Back" adapts the exploits of former Special Air Services Sergeant and author Chris Ryan over eight seasons and 10 years.

At least, it starts as an ostensible adaptation of Ryan's memoirs and works of fiction. But if you dive throughout the show's deep run, you'll find it plays more like an English "Mission: Impossible." And that... rules.

"Strike Back" is likely the most explicitly action-packed show on this list, and the sequences and set pieces bruise and bully the viewer. Narratively speaking, it goes through all kinds of twists and turns and casting changes (with familiar faces like "The Walking Dead" leading man Andrew Lincoln showing up and bouncing) that depict all kinds of subterfuge, counterterrorism, and spy shenanigans. Every season has a new subtitle and a new focus while keeping a consistent thrust of striking the heck back, both on a national and personal level.

But like the "M:I" franchise, the action stuff is what will get you hooked first. If you want a long thrill ride, buckle up and enjoy these seasons, and thank the TV gods it didn't follow the typical British TV model of, like, four episodes and that's it.

I love just about all of Tony Scott's movies, but especially his 1995 submarine thriller "Crimson Tide." And when "Last Resort" debuted on ABC in 2012, it felt very much like "Crimson Tide: The Show."

Like "Crimson Tide," "Last Resort" gets incited by questioning the authority of an order, a decision of individualism at existential odds with the regimented hierarchy demanded by the military. The late, great Andre Braugher plays the captain of the USS Colorado, who refuses to fire nuclear missiles upon Pakistan due to some key questions with the communication method. What results is a series of mutinies and double crosses through each level of the naval apparatus, with each uncovering of "truth" uncovering deeper conspiracies.

The show moves beyond this puncture wound of chamber drama by sprawling bigger and wider through its one-season run, pitting the USS Colorado members in a global maelstrom of conflict. It can start to feel a little pulpy, but it all springs from this simple, tasty question: What happens when following orders isn't the right thing to do?

Here's another one-season wonder: "Enlisted" aired on Fox in 2014, and Fox did them dirty. They aired its 13 episodes out of production order, nullifying story arcs and confusing character motivations. As a result, the charming and authentic military comedy series never hit with a general audience despite racking up a cult following.

Thankfully, in the era of streaming, no show is truly KIA, and you can now watch "Enlisted" in its correct order, thanks to executive producer Mike Royce giving us all the skinny. What you'll find feels a little like if the often weird "Scrubs" was set at a military base (which makes sense, as its creator Kevin Biegel wrote on "Scrubs" and co-created "Cougar Town" with "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence).

It's chock-full of character-driven, lighthearted jokes performed with committed verve by a wonderful cast of TV vets, including the eternally masterful Keith David. But it also finds layers of complexity and drama beneath the goofiness, examining the difficulties of military life coinciding with one's personal life.

Created by the always impassioned David Mamet, "The Unit" follows a fictionalized version of the US Army special operations Delta Force as they engage in classified, undercover missions full of counterterrorist intrigue and high-stakes ramifications. Dennis Haysbert plays Sergeant Major Jonas Blane, and other familiar faces in his unit include Scott Foley and Robert Patrick.

But "The Unit" isn't just focused on the military unit. It spends a good amount of time psychologically unpacking the family lives, especially the wives, of its soldiers, keenly classifying that element as its own kind of unit. Conflicts constantly arise because of the undercover nature of the Unit's work and the family's desire for their patriarch to stay home and enjoy the life they claim to fight for.

All of this makes "The Unit" a fascinating sociological and historical watch. It premiered in 2006, right in the middle of President George W. Bush's War on Terror and a general mainstream cultural sense of "Imperialism, Yay!" For "The Unit" to poke the bear so thoroughly, and to bombard any potentially jingoistic viewers with feminist counterpoints to an admittedly masculine sub-genre, makes it quite the enduring snapshot.

"JAG" is for dads, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Standing for Judge Advocate General, "JAG" follows the military justice branch of the US Navy (while quietly launching the "NCIS" universe), centering on David James Elliott as Lieutenant Harmon Rabb, Jr. He and his various crewmates (and in one case, eventual lover!) serve as lawyers throughout the procedural's 10-season run, prosecuting and defending wide-varying cases while learning more about each other's personal lives. It's "Law & Order" meets "A Few Good Men," and again, that's the highest compliment I can muster.

Like all great procedurals of that era, and like all great Dad Content, "JAG" offers comfort and familiarity not by avoiding complications or darkness but by explicitly folding them into the creative DNA, making them accessible for as wide an audience as possible. The show's cases can paint the US Navy, and thereby the entire military apparatus, in quite a negative light, and that's an interesting texture to offer a mass, CBS-watching audience (but for the record, the first season aired on NBC). However, every resolution tends to put things back into a nice, self-contained bow, giving the show a perfect "have its cake and eat it, too" vibe (again, highest compliment).

"JAG" rules, through and through, giving its viewer the warm nostalgia of a bygone era not just of television but of patriotism — both of which, at their peak, interrogate the very forms themselves. Dads, we salute you.

Like many Showtime dramas before and after, "Homeland" veers into cuckoo bananas town in its later years. But in its beginning seasons, "Homeland" was about as perfect as television got.

Damian Lewis plays a Marine Corps sniper who has suddenly returned home after years spent in an al-Qaeda prison, presumed missing or worse by his country, family, and friends. He's seen by most as a miracle and a hero, but troubled, bipolar CIA officer Claire Danes is convinced he was brainwashed during captivity and has plans to engage in terrorist attacks.

Beyond the twisted, gripping pleasures of this "is he or isn't he?" premise, "Homeland" provides a thorough survey of post-war life for our contemporary military members. Lewis' character is wracked with PTSD, feelings of assimilation insecurity, and the ill-defined ambiguities of our "War on Terror". One season 1 scene features Lewis' former company-mates confronting all of these feelings head-on at a backyard barbecue, and it is harrowing, revealing drama.

"Whiskey 68" offers vulgarity. "Enlisted" offers gentility. But for our last military comedy on the list, we head back across the pond for a wholly different style.

"Bluestone 42" (pronounced "four two") follows a British bomb disposal unit during the real-life Operation Herrick in Afghanistan. Captain Nick Medhurst (Oliver Chris, whom you might recognize from the original "The Office") leads his crew of absolute misfits, all of whom regularly let their foibles and dysfunctions get in the way of what is obviously intense and oft-deadly work. Take the IED-detecting sequences from "The Hurt Locker," one of Kathryn Bigelow's best films, and cross them with the awkward character-driven comedy of "Peep Show," and you'll find the peculiar cocktail poured by "Bluestone 42."

The show is often laugh-out-loud funny, but beyond bleak in what it finds funny. In this way, I find it to be courageous, a piece of satirical bravery that goes deeper and harder into the human condition than many "serious" military shows. By presenting the soldiers warts and all, and then placing them into the most serious situations imaginable, I don't think it dehumanizes members of the military. I think it honors them in its own puzzlingly authentic way.

Be warned: "D.P." is a stone-cold bummer.

Granted, it's not like the other shows on this list are a walk in the park. But the South Korean Netflix drama, which stands for "Deserter Pursuit," lays bare the base human motivations at the core of our sometimes exalted military structures. Some may find its conclusions morose, cynical, or even melodramatically "grimdark." But for those who hop on its wavelength, there just isn't another show like "D.P."

The show focuses on the titular pursuit of deserters from the military, led by a special unit of the Republic of Korea Military Police. In psychologically examining not just the soldiers who have gone AWOL but those in charge of the systems that need soldiers, writers Kim Bo-tong and Han Jun-hee find a shocking, reverberating core of abuse at every turn.

The military is fundamentally about exerting power in every circumstance, argues "D.P." It shows, in unflinching detail, what happens when humans are sanctioned by the state to discriminate, to bully, and to traumatize. It suggests, in graphic detail, that hurt people hurt people. More than any other show on this list, it turns the page past any jingoistic idealism of the military into a more revealing truth.