Waging a war against insurgents and terrorists is hard. While America has tried to capture its struggles in movies like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “American Sniper,” filmmakers from other countries have made their own great films about fighting insurgencies.
Here are 9 foreign films that capture what happens when armies fight terrorists
1. The Battle of Algiers
“The Battle of Algiers” was screened at the Pentagon during lessons on counter-insurgency warfare. The film was originally released in 1966 but was banned for five years in France. It depicts the atrocities on each side of the actual Battle of the Algiers in the 1950s where French paratroopers eventually put down an Algerian nationalistic uprising.
2. Waltz with Bashir
This animated movie follows an Israeli veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War when Israel invaded. The vet can’t remember anything from the war, and so begins interviewing his former comrades and others who took part in the conflict.
3. A War
“A War” is a new film from Danish filmmakers. An infantry commander is put on trial after a questionable airstrike kills women and children. Back home in Denmark, he must explain to his family why he ordered the strikes while defending himself from prosecution. This is a instant classic about fighting with rules of engagement designed to win hearts and mind more than battles.
4. Timbuktu
“Timbuktu” is a city in Mali which was overtaken by by Islamic militants in 2012. The movie focuses on a community that lives in terror of the radical occupiers. Much like ISIS, the terrorists controlling the city use a perverted version of Sharia law and order executions for even minor offenses.
5. Kandahar
“Kandahar” was filmed and released before the Sept. 11 attacks and shows the horrible state that the Afghan people lived in beneath the Taliban. A Canadian-Afghan woman who escaped the country as a child has to return to try and prevent the suicide of her sister who is being crushed beneath the Taliban regime.
6. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
The Irish Republican Army’s struggle for independence from Britain turned into a civil war in 1921 when half of the resistance accepted a treaty with the United Kingdom that granted dominion but not full independence. “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” follows two brothers in the IRA from their years fighting together against Britain to the Irish Civil War where they wind up on opposite sides.
(“Michael Collins” is another good movie from this conflict.)
7. The Baader-Meinhof Complex
In post-war West Germany a group of students started the Red Army Faction, a terror group that sought to resist a government that they saw as falling back into the mold of Nazi Germany. “The Baader-Meinhof Complex” follows the rise and fall of these students in a thrilling, blood-soaked narrative.
8. Kilo Two Bravo
A group of British paratroopers in Afghanistan spend their days controlling a hilltop and conducting patrols until a fire team moving down the hill gets caught in the middle of a old Soviet minefield. “Kilo Two Bravo” does a great job of showing the dangers and complexities of operating in a land filled with mines and IEDs.
9. Waar
“Waar” is one of Pakistan’s top grossing films ever. It follows a former Pakistani Army officer who is roped back in for a counter-terrorism operation. It’s an interesting look at terrorism through the eyes of a country that lives with it in their backyard. (Heads up: some of the story and acting is over the top. Imagine a terror film set in Pakistan and directed by John Woo.)