Movies Like Red Dawn That You Need To Check Out

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The year 1984 offered a bumper crop of cult classics that haven't aged well, yet thrive in our hearts. "Red Dawn," starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, is a deep-fried mozzarella stick of action joy, a thriller that pits a mob of high schoolers against an enemy invasion. The specter of the Cold War and '80s Communist alarmism fuels the film's deadly Russian threat that seeks to take over America by force. A 2012 remake lost what was special about "Red Dawn," up to and including Swayze's dark gold baby mullet.

"Red Dawn" works not because it's beautifully stupid (it is), or because of its vague geopolitics, but because it successfully pulls from some great, classic tropes. There's the allure of the Western standoff, the drama of youth forced into mortal combat, and let's not forget the rugged individualism, that core of the American survival movie. There's not much out there that's like "Red Dawn," but there are plenty of movies that touch on part of why it works. We have 14 movies for you that will scratch a little of that itch, flicks that are either just as fun as "Red Dawn" or showcase the grim reality behind its guerrilla war scenario.

There's a crusty, bearded king of the survival movie, and his name is "Jeremiah Johnson." Robert Redford is capable of carrying whole movies by his lonesome, as he did in 2013's "All Is Lost," but his skills were honed by starring in this vaguely-true tale of mountain men doing manly things in the unspoiled West. The allure and loneliness of Johnson's life is pockmarked by encounters with a fellow mountain man (who teaches him how to navigate the cruelties of a wild life), a woman and her son, and the local Indigenous tribe. It's a forlorn, often stirring movie co-penned by "Red Dawn" filmmaker John Milius, and bear in mind that it does rely on the misunderstandings and racism of the Old West.

The truth of Jeremiah's tale is mixed. Once there was a man called Liver-Eating Johnson, and he built a life for himself in the wilds of 1880s Montana. The rest is folklore, and the Crow tribe Johnson famously beefed with has vague records of a fella that came around sometimes. The Raymond Thorpe and Robert Bunker book "Crow-Killer" will flesh out the Redford film for fans, but get a new edition, with prefaces that add better context to Jeremiah's legend.

It's both a little iffy and completely awesome that a movie exists where Liam Neeson is going to have to punch up some wolves during his last stand. That actual rock-em sock-em goes mostly unseen, as this melancholy survival drama is invested in the value of faith when the last hope begins to gutter out. "The Grey" sets up some surprisingly intricate groundwork for discussion, but if you also just want to watch some roughnecks fight nature itself, this flick is for you.

Liam Neeson makes the film work beyond the wildest dreams of its script, but for a heartbreaking reason. One of a number of films Neeson threw himself into after the loss of his wife, "The Grey" is arguably his best. It validates his anger as his pain comes through the screen in ragged, vivid bursts. It's up to you if the movie is about faith, depression, or something else, but the trudge through this beautiful, frozen landscape is worth figuring it out.

The best way to adapt the gleeful absurdity of "Red Dawn" is to amp the premise into something so improbable that it gains a paradoxical legitimacy. The result is Robert Rodriguez's "The Faculty," the best movie to pit a pack of high schoolers against an alien invasion, bar none. It's also a terrific metaphor for kids struggling to retain their individuality against the uniformity of the American school experience. As a bonus, it has Jon Stewart in one of his rare acting gigs, obviously having the time of his life.

The movie has the nerve to make the school's drug lord into its version of Kurt Russell's MacReady from "The Thing," and it pays off. The emotionally distant, too cool for school Zeke (Josh Hartnett) ensures the movie's most obvious lift from John Carpenter's horror classic — take this test to prove you're human — comes off as tone-perfect homage, not a ripoff. Overall, "The Faculty" remains one of the best of its kind.

At some point, someone might watch "Red Dawn" and ask themselves what a realistic version of that might look like. Emotionally damaging war movies have our answer! "Full Metal Jacket" is the cynical gold standard of what it's like to prepare to send young people off to war, notably a war we had no business being involved with.

Stanley Kubrick's film is set up like a two-part novel, and the transition can be jarring for first-time viewers. Part one, at boot camp, is a vicious look at the use of conformity and abuse to prepare these kids for the horror of war. Part two sees the recruits in the streets of Vietnam, where that dehumanization pays off in the blank, hateful stares of men like Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin). The soldiers of this movie would have few problems fending off an attack on their home streets of the United States. The problem is how they'd treat their neighbors after the shooting was done.

Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" is a fine companion piece to "Full Metal Jacket." The events of Operation Dynamo were a kind of reverse-Normandy, and another large-scale horror that shapes our memories of World War II. Trapped Allied troops had to be evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk before Hitler annihilated them, and the odds were terrible. Yet perseverance and luck brought forth a miracle, and Nolan's film is one of the finest ground-level recollections of the struggle ... If you can understand what anyone is saying without subtitles on.

Fortunately, "Dunkirk" is light on critical dialogue during the noisiest sequences. Visual empathy and an ensemble of key characters guide us through the film effectively enough. Our first protagonist, Tommy Jensen, is another potent reminder that the sights of war first scar our young. The film flows neatly between the tripod of war (land, sea, and air), culminating in a dazzling mix of hope and despair. I may have my issues with Nolan, but as war movies go, this one is top shelf.

Not every survivalist story is a hopeful one, as "The Grey" already proved, but sometimes reality is harsher than anyone was prepared for. "Alive" is the dramatization of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash, and what it took for 16 passengers to ultimately survive. Ethan Hawke plays the real-life rugby player Nando Parrado, one of two young men to hike deep enough into Chile to find rescue.

The movie errs on the side of caution about one of the secret keys that helped these people survive, and while that choice weakens the movie, it's understandable. Like a handful of other grim survivalist tales, these stranded victims eventually resort to one of the most taboo acts we have as a species, cannibalism. The movie doesn't focus long on the actual consumption, but it does highlight the torment the survivors go through. It's a weight the real-life survivors carried with them, and at no point does the film treat the issue as a joke.

There's an underrated competitor in the field of "teens having an extremely weird time of it," and it's the British indie "Attack the Block." Best known for introducing future Star Wars-er John Boyega to the handful of Americans who actually saw this clever wisp of whimsy, Joe Cornish's flick pits a teenage street gang against an alien invasion. It's also the film that predicted the rise of Jodie Whitaker, almost a decade before she took her turn as The Doctor. Nick Frost, best known from Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, is also here to help introduce American audiences to the social intricacies of England's version of public housing. Hint: It's as much a mess there as it is across the pond.

The alien designs are especially neat, blending primate physiology with plain 'ol unnerving critters. It's all cheekily knowing, as the fictional Wyndham Tower where much of the action takes place is an homage to John Wyndham, the writer who gave us "The Day of the Triffids" and "The Midwich Cuckoos." Like Wyndham's works, "Attack the Block" hides apt social commentary inside a romp that's just plain fun.