From Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s previous collaboration to other gripping cinematic portrayals of modern war, there are plenty of great movies to check out before A24’s new war movie Warfare. Mendoza is a former U.S. Navy SEAL who served in the Iraq War. After he worked as the military supervisor on Garland’s dystopian thriller Civil War, the two got to work on a movie that would bring Mendoza’s real warzone experiences to the screen. Warfare chronicles a mission carried out by a platoon of Navy SEALs in real time.
Garland and Mendoza co-directed the film, which allowed Garland to focus on the technical stuff behind the camera while Mendoza handled the actors in front of the camera. By all accounts, Warfare captures the chaos of battle with intense accuracy. It currently holds a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%, indicating that we could be looking at a new war movie classic. Before Warfare is released on April 11 in the U.S. and April 18 in the UK, there are plenty of similar war movies and previous Garland productions to watch.
5
Annihilation (2018)
Directed By Alex Garland
Annihilation
7/10
- Release Date
-
February 23, 2018
- Runtime
-
115 Minutes
It might belong to a very different genre, but Garland’s sci-fi horror epic Annihilation seems to have a very similar tone and narrative to Warfare. They’re both about a tightknit group of gun-toting heroes venturing into hostile territory with no one but each other to rely on. In Warfare, that group is a platoon of Navy SEALs fighting in Iraq. In Annihilation, they’re a bunch of scientists wandering into “The Shimmer,” a strange quarantined zone where alien intervention is mutating the plants and animals.
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Annihilation might not have Warfare’s realism, but it does have its intensity. The scene in which a mutated bear torments the scientists by mimicking the voice of their dead friend is as terrifying as any battle scene. The nail-biting tension of Annihilation proves that Garland will nail the horrors of Warfare.
4
The Hurt Locker (2008)
Directed By Kathryn Bigelow
The Hurt Locker
9/10
- Release Date
-
July 31, 2009
- Runtime
-
131 minutes
- Director
-
Kathryn Bigelow
- Writers
-
Mark Boal
While there are plenty of war movies about World War II and the Vietnam War, not many filmmakers are daring enough to tackle modern war in the way Garland and Mendoza have in Warfare. The gold standard for movies about modern warfare is Kathryn Bigelow’s Best Picture-winning gem The Hurt Locker.
The Hurt Locker revolves around a bomb disposal unit being targeted by insurgents in the second year of the Iraq War. The Hurt Locker’s depiction of combat might not be 100% accurate, but its portrayal of the devastating psychological effects of the horrors of war is spot-on.
3
Ex Machina (2014)
Directed By Alex Garland
Ex Machina
9/10
- Release Date
-
April 10, 2015
- Runtime
-
108 minutes
Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, doesn’t have a lot in common with Warfare, but it was an instant indication of what a great filmmaker he was. Ex Machina is a tense three-hander about the ever-evolving relationship between a low-level computer programmer, his eccentric boss, and the seductive android playing them both against each other. Ex Machina established Garland’s razor-sharp command of cinematic suspense, which would serve him well as co-director of Warfare.
2
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Directed By Ridley Scott
Black Hawk Down
- Release Date
-
January 18, 2002
- Runtime
-
144 minutes
- Writers
-
Ken Nolan
With Warfare, Garland and Mendoza have set out to create one of the most intense viewing experiences in war movie history. Playing out in real time, it won’t have any superfluous plot points or character arcs; it’s just a 95-minute descent into the hell of war.
Once that helicopter goes down and the troops are stranded in enemy territory, Black Hawk Down becomes a non-stop harrowing account of the mayhem of ground-level combat.
Very few movies have been able to pull this off in the past, but one of the most effective efforts is Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. Once that helicopter goes down and the troops are stranded in enemy territory, Black Hawk Down becomes a non-stop harrowing account of the mayhem of ground-level combat.
1
Civil War (2024)
Directed By Alex Garland
Civil War
7/10
- Release Date
-
April 12, 2024
- Runtime
-
109 Minutes
The best movie to watch before Warfare would be Garland’s last directorial effort, Civil War. Civil War takes place in a dystopian alternate America that has erupted into an unexplained civil war. The film portrays a nightmarish vision of firefights and bombings on the streets of the United States. It doesn’t explain the political specifics of the war; it portrays the consequences of deep political divisions in the abstract. Not only is it another war movie with a similarly intense style; in many ways, Warfare is a companion piece to Civil War.
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When Garland was directing the movie, he brought real-life veteran Mendoza on board to make sure its portrayal of warfare was as accurate as possible (even if the war itself was fictional). After forging a strong working relationship on Civil War, the two reunited to take their hauntingly realistic cinematic depiction of the heat of battle to the next level with a movie based on Mendoza’s real experiences in a real war. Warfare is promising to be even more intense than Civil War — and Civil War was already pretty intense.
Warfare
7/10
- Release Date
-
April 11, 2025
