Film

A War

A Danish commander in Afghanistan makes a split-second call under fire that saves his soldiers but costs him everything. This is a war film that refuses easy answers, splitting its time between combat chaos and the grinding civilian toll—a wife holding three kids together while her husband faces courts-martial at home. Brutal, intelligent, and morally ambiguous.

TMDb rating3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to morally knotty war stories that refuse easy verdicts, where a soldier's split-second choice ripples out to the family waiting at home, shot with raw, unshowy intimacy.

Skip it if you want rousing battle set-pieces or a tidy arc, since the film lingers in talk and unease, and its handheld camera can feel wearying across nearly two hours.

What it asks of you: It moves between a dusty patrol and a quiet kitchen in Denmark, so expect patience, long silences and a steady, unhurried weight rather than neat answers.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Hunt2012

Thomas Vinterberg's masterpiece about accusation and community fracture. Like A War, it's fascinated by how quickly certainty collapses when examined closely. The performances are devastating.

But It's relentlessly bleak and the accused man has no real victory. If you need hope or resolution, this will exhaust you.

The Hunt poster

The Hurt Locker2008

Kathryn Bigelow's immaculate study of addiction to combat. Both films understand that soldiers aren't simple—they're shaped by impossible choices and the neurochemistry of danger.

But Slower than you'd expect for an action film. The tension is psychological, which demands patience.

The Hurt Locker poster

Come and See1985

Elem Klimov's apocalyptic vision of a boy in WWII. A War and this share a refusal to separate combat morality from human consequence. Both ask what wars actually cost.

But This is genuinely traumatic cinema. It's a masterpiece but watching it feels like an ordeal by design.

Come and See poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from A War

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both films refuse the comfort of simple guilt. A War shows a soldier who may have committed a war crime; this shows men who definitely did and don't regret it. Both ask: how do we judge?

Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary asks perpetrators to reenact their own atrocities. Like A War, it forces you to sit with moral complexity that refuses to resolve. It understands that people who do terrible things often don't see themselves as villains.

But It's nearly three hours of sustained philosophical horror. The casual approach to mass murder is deliberately unsettling.

The Act of Killing poster
More like this (8)

In the Fade2017

Fatih Akin's portrait of a mother after terrorism takes her family. Like A War, it tracks grief through systems and asks whether justice actually heals anything.

But Long stretches are quiet and observational. The payoff is emotional rather than narrative, which frustrates some viewers.

In the Fade poster

The Nightingale2018

Jennifer Kent's WWII nightmare—Australian soldiers, moral collapse, survival at any cost. Both films understand that combat decisions haunt you longer than the actual combat.

But Graphic violence including sexual assault. It's necessary to the film's argument but it's brutal to watch.

The Nightingale poster

Thelma & Louise1991

Joachim Trier's psychological thriller about a young woman discovering something dangerous in herself. Like A War, it's fascinated by how we judge split-second choices under pressure.

But It's deliberately ambiguous and the genre shifts midway. Some viewers find it frustrating rather than clever.

Thelma & Louise poster

Sicario2015

Denis Villeneuve's moral maze about the costs of security work. Both films understand that good intentions and good outcomes rarely align, especially under pressure.

But The protagonist is largely reactive. If you need a strong central character driving events, you'll find her passive.

Sicario poster

A Ghost Story2017

David Lowery's haunting meditation on time, loss, and what we leave behind. Like A War, it's interested in how individual acts ripple outward in ways we can't control.

But Sparse, slow, and deliberately strange. It's a poem more than a plot, which baffles viewers expecting narrative.

A Ghost Story poster

Under the Shadow2016

Babak Anvari's Iranian ghost story set during the Iraq-Iran War. Both films show how war intrudes into private life, making the personal political whether you want it to be or not.

But The genre elements feel low-budget. If you're expecting supernatural spectacle, you'll be disappointed.

Under the Shadow poster

Gomorrah2008

Both examine how power structures deform individual choice. In A War, it's the military; here it's organized crime. Both argue the system, not the person, is the real subject.

Matteo Garrone's Naples crime epic structured around interlocking stories and systemic decay. Like A War, it's about how institutions—military, criminal, both—make ordinary men complicit in extraordinary harm. Visually stunning and morally suffocating.

But Subtitled, elliptical, and the plot is deliberately hard to follow. You're expected to drift through it, not follow a clear narrative.

Gomorrah poster

Stalker1979

Both are structured around a single decision and its aftermath. Both believe that the real drama happens in the space between action and consequence, in the moral reckoning no one can escape.

Andrei Tarkovsky's science-fiction meditation on desire, faith, and the weight of choice. It moves at the speed of thought. Like A War, it's obsessed with what happens when someone has to decide something irreversible under impossible pressure.

But Nearly three hours, Soviet science fiction, almost no plot. If you need movement or conventional narrative, this will test your patience severely.

Stalker poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Land of Mine, The 317th Platoon, Burial, The Outpost, T-34, Sirius