If you’re one of the lucky few who has an extended Labor Day weekend, Watch With Us has a few suggestions about how you should spend that extra time.
The war movie genre has been popular since the 1930s, and Hollywood continues to crank them out due to their almost universal appeal.
Netflix’s Operation Mincemeat, featuring Colin Firth and an all-star UK cast, takes a look at a little-known World War II event that helped the Allies eventually win the war.
HBO Max‘s Warfare features Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter and pretty much every twentysomething actor in an arresting true-life story about the Iraq War.
If you’re a Gladiator fan, you’ll surely like Centurion on Prime Video, a bloody war film starring Michael Fassbender that’s set during the height of the Roman Empire.
‘Operation Mincemeat’ (2022) — Netflix
It’s 1943, and the Allied forces are doing everything in their power to defeat the Axis powers. English Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) wants to invade Sicily, but he can’t do it without them knowing his troops are coming. One of his admirals, John Godfrey (Harry Potter‘s Jason Isaacs), suggests an elaborate plan to trick their enemies into believing they plan to invade Greece instead. All they need to do is find a fresh dead body, plant false documents detailing the proposed attack and have the right German authorities find it. But this plan has to be 100 percent convincing, and it’s going to take an entire operation of Britain’s best officers and spies to make sure it’s a success.
Operation Mincemeat’s plot sounds so far-fetched, it can only be based on a true story. While the movie embellishes some facts here and there, most of what it depicts actually happened, including some officers stealthily transporting the corpse onto a submarine, where i can be dumped in the right area so it could be discovered. Operation Mincemeat is a fascinating war movie because it depicts the hard work that occurred beyond the battlefield, where Britain’s best minds had to constantly outwit and outmaneuver their enemies. The ensemble cast, which includes Colin Firth and Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen, is terrific, and the immersive production design really puts you right into the heart of war.
‘Warfare’ (2024) — HBO Max
There are plenty of great World War II movies, but not a lot of good films set during the Iraq War. Warfare is one of them, and its atypical approach makes it stand out as a war film that’s unsettlingly immersive. Directed by Alex Garland, this intense 2025 movie chronicles a day in the life of a US Navy SEALs team as they seek cover at a local Iraqi house after the Battle of Ramadi in 2006. There’s no time to rest, though, as Iraqi soldiers surround the house, making it impossible for the soldiers inside to leave. With their ammo running low and no backup coming soon, these American soldiers don’t think they’ll make it out alive.
Warfare is brutal to watch, which is exactly how it should be. War isn’t pretty, and the film doesn’t make it easy to watch by providing conventional comforts like a main character to attach yourself to. Instead, the ensemble cast, which includes Beef’s Charles Melton and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor, all blend together – they’re all scared as s**t, and they don’t have time to bond or share stories about their loved ones like the troops in Saving Private Ryan. Anyone can die at any time, which provides most of the almost unbearable tension that runs throughout the film. Still, Warfare is an unforgettable watch and one of the few war films that makes you feel like you’re on the frontline dodging bullets. It’s that good.
‘Centurion’ (2010) — Prime Video
One of ancient history’s greatest mysteries is the disappearance of the Legio IX Hispana, otherwise known as the “9th Hispanian Legion,” around 120 AD during the Roman Empire. No one knows what happened to the elite fighting unit, which is fertile ground for a director like Neil Marshall to hypothesize why these elite Roman warriors suddenly disappeared from history.
When centurion Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) is captured by the murderous Pict tribe, Rome sends its finest general, Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West), and his Ninth Legion to save him. They’re aided by the mute tracker Etain (Olga Kurylenko), who is still recovering from a traumatic event in her past. When a betrayal compromises their mission, Virilus will have to figure out how to save what remains of his men while still completing his mission to free Dias.
There’s not a lot of war picture set during this period, which is one of the reasons why Centurion is special. Marshall is less concerned with concentrating on character development than he is with recreating a long-ago world where brutality ruled the day, and anyone could betray you when you least expect it. Fassbender is terrific as a veteran soldier who knows how to hold his own in battle, while Kurylenko is captivating as a woman who uses what she has to satisfy the one thing in the world she desires — revenge.
