The 14 Greatest War Movies Of The 21st Century

Featuring a veritable who's who of the young actors of the day, Ridley Scott's film about a real operation in 1993 Mogadishu that went badly wrong is a high-octane, tense thriller. "Black Hawk Down" features (deep breath) Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Hardy, Ron Eldard, Orlando Bloom, and many more in a huge ensemble cast. 

An operation to capture two Somali lieutenants results in two black hawk helicopters being downed and the survivors left as sitting ducks. The initial mission escalates into a two-day long stand-off on the ground, with soldiers desperately having to call on their training to defend the crash sites, while one of the pilots — Michael Durant (Eldard) — is captured.

While the film has been understandably criticized for not using Somali actors and for historical and cultural inaccuracies, it also isn't exactly glorifying war or the American military presence in the region. It shows things going wrong, the US military making mistakes, and ordinary soldiers being left high and dry due to underestimating the enemy and the breakdown of communications. 

Scott does well to make a film with so many moving parts comprehensible, and although we don't really get backstories or character development for anyone involved, we are given enough reason to care because the men care about each other. It's very well shot and edited, making for an intense experience.

What should have been the first movie of a potential franchise, Peter Weir's adaptation of the first in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin book series is a wonderful sea-based epic set during the Napoleonic Wars, but unfortunately did not do well enough at the box office to justify sequels. 

Russell Crowe stars as Captain Jack Aubrey, and the film centers around his close friendship with the ship's surgeon, Doctor Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany). Captain Jack becomes obsessed with pursuing a French vessel around South America, even though it is much faster and has more fire-power than his ship, the HMS Surprise. Meanwhile, Maturin's obsession is with conducting research on the Galapagos Islands because of its unique flora and fauna. 

One of the best (and most realistic) details in "Master and Commander" is that the Surprise has a large number of children onboard, some fairly high up in the ranks. Some of the highlights include the aforementioned Galapagos scenes (shot in the real location), a sequence in which the ship is becalmed and the sailors become superstitious about a "Jonah" onboard, and the trickery involved in both the French and British trying to outsmart one another. The detail of the ship and seeing what life was like onboard is incredible, and you get a real sense of a tight-knit community, cut off from the rest of the world. A fantastic historical blockbuster.

Adolf Hitler is usually a shadowy figure in the background of most WWII films, with the man himself rarely appearing (unless it's a comedy, of course). Therefore, Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall" really stands out as a highly unusual dramatic film that has Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) as the central character — and yet it's still been memefied. 

The film is based on a book by Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), so it is through her eyes that we see the events. "Downfall" is set mostly in the "Fuhrerbunker" during Hitler's last days, when the Russians are closing in on Berlin and Hitler's generals, including Himmler and Goring, try to persuade Hitler to hand over power. However, Hitler believes in the scorched earth policy, and is quite willing to self-destruct Berlin before he will surrender or admit defeat. We see various sweating and shifty-eyed generals come and go, obviously terrified of delivering bad news to Hitler, with him exploding in rage as his ever more unhinged orders go ignored. 

"Downfall" offers insight into the last days of a dictator, and shows us just how many people were required to enact his monstrous policies, only for him to call them cowards and traitors at the end anyway. The acting and direction are phenomenal; it's a great German WWII film.

It's surprising that the Bosnian War of the early '90s has not had much presence in film or TV, considering it was the deadliest European war since WWII. Jasmila Žbanić writes and directs "Quo Vadis, Aida?," a film about a UN translator who desperately tries to use her position to prevent her husband and two sons from being taken away and executed during the Srebrenica massacre. She is met with unbearably frustrating bureaucracy and members of the UN who very much have a "our hands are tied" response. 

Jasna Đuričić gives a phenomenal performance as Aida, a woman determined to protect her family by any means necessary. She is torn between friends and neighbors who trust her but are in terrible danger, and being in a relatively privileged position, having the blue lanyard of protection around her neck. She tries to aid negotiations that could save thousands, while being terrified for the three people closest to her. The colonel and major from the UN hide behind the chain of command, remaining at a distance from the people they eventually condemn to death.

While the genocide obviously forms a heartbreaking climax to the film, Žbanić does provide an epilogue that takes place years later and sees Aida searching for photographs of her family. It is through witnessing the small actions of individuals that we can start to comprehend the wider tragedy.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland visited WWII in her Oscar-nominated film "Europa Europa" about a Jewish teenager who joins the Hitler Youth. She returned to the subject matter with the also Oscar-nominated "In Darkness," which is about Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), a Polish sewer-worker who hides a group of Jews in the tunnels. He clashes with the leader of the group, Mundek (Benno Furmann). 

Socha is a complicated character — he is an anti-Semite and initially is only interested in making money from them, while also being under pressure from the Nazis to turn in any Jews he finds for a fee. However, Socha grows to care for the group (even after they run out of money), which includes children and a pregnant woman. Maria Schrader, the director of "I'm Your Man," plays one of the mothers. 

Holland shows the group living in close proximity for months on end and how it inevitably leads to petty squabbles, as well as certain people trying to find ways of having sex with one another, even within these extreme circumstances. Every time they see a flashlight or hear footsteps, they don't know if they have been discovered. An unbearably tense, but very human, story of survival.

Before taking on the "Black Widow" solo film, Australian director Cate Shortland directed this unusual war story. Set in the direct aftermath of Hitler's suicide, a Nazi officer and his wife realize that the walls are closing in and flee. They leave their five children to fend for themselves, telling eldest daughter Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) that she should try to make it to their grandmother's house in Hamburg. This was perhaps considered a better fate than Mrs. Goebbels poisoning her six children, as seen in "Downfall."

The children's path collides with that of a Jewish man, Thomas (Kai-Peter Malina), who ends up helping the family on their journey. Obviously, the relationship between Lore and Thomas is a complicated one — there is both attraction and revulsion. Rosendahl gives an extraordinary performance as a teenager who is dealing with normal things like hormones on top of the fraught situation she is in.

The biggest strength of "Lore" is the cinematography by Adam Arkapaw ("True Detective") — there is a surreal beauty in the obstacles that the family must overcome, which includes fields of mud and abandoned buildings. The writing does well to not manipulate the audience or tell us what to feel, whether it's sympathy or judgement for the characters. An almost unbelievable moment comes when (former) Nazis see photographs from the camps and refuse to believe they're real — the phrase "paid actors" is bone-chilling. A complex film about the consequences of war.

Sam Claflin kept his WWII mustache from "Their Finest" and seamlessly transitioned into WWI with this adaptation of the play by RC Sherriff. "Journey's End" stars Paul Bettany, Tom Sturridge, Stephen Graham, and Asa Butterfield ("Sex Education") as a group of officers in a dugout. The relationship between Captain Stanhope (Claflin) and Osborne (Bettany) is not entirely unlike the one Aubrey and Maturin share in "Master and Commander." 

Stanhope has become an alcoholic to cope with the horrible conditions in the trenches, coupled with the constant tension of not knowing when the next order will lead to certain death. Fresh recruit Raleigh (Butterfield) arrives, having specifically requested to be placed under Stanhope because they knew each other at school and Stanhope was close with Raleigh's sister. Stanhope cannot bear the shame of Raleigh seeing what he has become. Claflin delivers by far the best performance of his career in this microcosm of the wider war.

While movies about WWII are dime-and-dozen (as can be seen from how many are on this list), films about WWI are rarer. If you studied WWI poetry in school, you will know how wretched the soldiers felt about the futility of this absurd war that led to massive loss of life for very little gain. There is plenty of amazing WWI literature out there, and we need more movies to reflect this.