Film
War Machine
Other titles called War Machine: the 2017 film.
- Action
- Alien contact
- Relentless
War Machine is a propulsive creature-feature wrapped in military SF clothing. A squad of Rangers faces something vast and hostile in the training grounds, and the film never lets tension ease. It's built for people who want spectacle with stakes, monsters that feel genuinely dangerous, and characters who bleed. Smart enough not to talk down to you, visceral enough to make you flinch.
If you liked this
Starship Troopers1997
Military SF that plays both as rollicking action and sharp social satire. The bug fights are visceral and clever, the squad dynamics feel earned, and it knows exactly what it's doing with its propaganda.
But Verhoeven's satirical register is very '90s. Some of the humour lands differently now, and the political reading isn't subtle.

Aliens1986
The template for everything that follows: soldiers vs something that outmatches them tactically. Character-driven, brutally tense, Cameron's direction turns claustrophobia into kinetic art. Every beat earns its place.
But Two hours plus change, and it moves slowly at first. The special effects are practical and occasionally dated, which some find charming and others find distracting.

Edge of Tomorrow2014
Tom Cruise doing his most interesting work in a film that treats time-loop mechanics as a weapon of war. Kinetic, clever, and genuinely funny without becoming cute. Doug Liman's action direction is immaculate.
But The loop structure can feel gimmicky if you're not in the mood for time-travel logic puzzles layered under explosions.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from War Machine
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Arrival2016
Both thrust ordinary people against the alien and unknowable mid-mission. But where War Machine is kinetic, Arrival is contemplative—the same pressure applied to the mind instead of the body. Opposite textures, same existential weight.
A linguist confronts an alien intelligence, and the film quietly asks what it means to understand something that doesn't think like you do. Tense as War Machine, but the threat is incomprehension, not teeth. Finds terror in geometry and time.
But Extremely slow-paced. The climax is internal. If you came for monsters, you'll wait through philosophy.

More like this (7)
The Platform2019
Spanish SF thriller that uses a single, terrifying premise—a vertical prison where food descends one floor at a time—to examine hierarchy and desperation. Conceptually strong, visually striking, genuinely unsettling.
But It's bleak in a way that doesn't resolve satisfyingly. The metaphor is the point, not comfort.

Prospect2018
Scrappy, precise space western about survival and betrayal. Shot on a budget but feels expensive. Tense in ways that come from character, not explosions. Deeply weird and entirely its own thing.
But Low profile and low-volume. You have to lean in. The pacing is deliberate and the world-building is minimal.

Oblivion2013
Tom Cruise again, this time in a quiet, melancholy SF film about memory and purpose. Visually gorgeous, structurally clever, and surprisingly thoughtful beneath the action. Tron: Legacy's visual DNA applied to existential questions.
But The plot twists are visible from orbit. The film's beauty sometimes outweighs dramatic momentum.

Extraction2020
One-shot action sequence that lasts 90 minutes. Chris Hemsworth leading a tactical team through Mumbai. If you want to watch professional soldiers move through space with absolute purpose, this is masterclass.
But The emotional stakes are thin. This is kinetics and geography, not character. Some find that liberating, others find it hollow.

Annihilation2018
An expedition into something that defies comprehension, where every rule bends. Tense, visually singular, built on dread rather than bombast. Smart SF that trusts the audience to sit with weirdness.
But The ending is deliberately ambiguous and the third act pivots sharply. Some people feel cheated by refusal to explain everything.

Brannigan1975
Both films quietly interrogate obsolescence—what happens when a soldier's training doesn't match the problem. Wayne's fish-out-of-water moment echoes Ritchson's squad realising conventional tactics fail. But where War Machine stays modern, Brannigan embraces its time-displaced oddness as the whole point.
John Wayne as a modern cop out of his depth in London, playing it straight. A relic trying to function in a world that's moved on. Rough, funny, and genuinely strange as a Wayne film. He's brilliant in his bewilderment.
But It's a cop film that treats 1975 as the future. The action is dated. Most people watching now are doing it for the curiosity, not the thrills.

Tenebre1982
Both are films about people forced into situations where their training—whether military protocols or narrative instinct—becomes useless. But Tenebre locates horror in design and pattern rather than survival. It's the same engine (competent people facing something that doesn't follow rules) running a completely different temperature.
Dario Argento's most controlled giallo: a writer returns to Rome as a series of brutal murders echo his own crime novel. Pure visual storytelling. The suspense is architectural, the violence is balletic, the colour palette is intentional as a horror film's mood.
But It's a slasher whose killer is secondary to atmosphere and mechanics. The violence is stylised, which some find beautiful and others find alienating. Italian cinema syntax from 1982.

People
Cast



Dennis QuaidSheridan
Esai MoralesTorres
Jai CourtneySquad Leader

Jack Patten109

Directing
- Patrick HughesDirector
- Nick SatrianoFirst Assistant Director
Writing
- James BeaufortScreenplay
- Patrick HughesScreenplay
- Patrick HughesStory
Production
- Amanda MitchellCasting
- Andrea BunkerCasting
- Deanna BrigidiCasting
- Angeline NavarroCasting Assistant
- Erika FeltonCasting Associate
- Mia WhippCasting Associate
- Nick SatrianoCo-Producer
- Valerie Bleth SharpExecutive Producer
- Andrew GrunbergPost Production Coordinator
- Alexander YoungProducer
- Greg McLeanProducer
- Patrick HughesProducer
- Rich CookProducer
- Todd LiebermanProducer
- Jessica CheungProduction Manager
- Lindsay GoughProduction Manager
- Jade van der LeiProduction Supervisor
- Jane McCurdyProduction Supervisor
- Valerie Bleth SharpUnit Production Manager