The Best Military Movies and Shows Streaming Right Now on Amazon Prime Video

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If you're looking for the best war movies on Amazon's Prime Video service, we're here to help you beat the recommendation algorithm and get right to the movies you want to see. Prime Video has the most widely varied catalog of movies and shows, and sometimes it's hard to find what you want to watch. Our list can help you cut through the chaff and get to the action you crave.

The movies on our list are focused on wars from one era of human history or another, but we also list TV shows streaming on Prime Video that include a few spy stories.

There's enough military viewing here on Prime Video to justify that yearly subscription to Amazon Prime. You can also watch the latest war movies by trying out a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

In the aftermath of the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, many of Libya’s cities became dangerous places for foreign diplomats. Nowhere was that more evident than in Benghazi, when an enraged militia stormed an American compound, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens happened to be working that day. 

“13 Hours” is the story of former U.S. military special operators who were working as private contractors for the CIA less than a mile away. They volunteered to become the ambassador’s quick response force and tried to rescue the staff while repelling the violent crowd. Directed by Michael Bay (“Bad Boys”), it stars James Badge Dale (“The Pacific”), John Krasinski (“The Office”), Pablo Schreiber (“The Wire”), Max Martini (“Saving Private Ryan”), David Denman (“The Replacements”) and Dominic Fumusa (“Nurse Jackie”).

The Best Years of Our Lives

"The Best Years of Our Lives" was a surprisingly hard-nosed story about the struggles of veterans returning from World War II. WWII Army veteran Harold Russell, who lost both hands in a training accident, was awarded a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a Navy veteran who lost both arms in combat. The movie also won Best Picture, Best Director for WWII Army Air Corps veteran William Wyler ("Ben-Hur") and Best Screenplay for Robert E. Sherwood, the director of the overseas Office of War Information during WWII.

Three veterans return home to the small Midwestern town of Boone City: one Army sergeant, one Navy petty officer and one Army Air Forces bombardier captain. None of the men makes an easy transition back to civilian life, and "The Best Years of Our Lives" follows them as they experience varying degrees of success in sorting out their futures.

Catch-22

This 1970 adaptation of author Joseph Heller’s World War II classic may not have the visual wizardry of George Clooney’s 2019 miniseries remake, but it has all the satire and an equally star-studded cast. Alan Arkin (“Argo”) stars as Capt. John Yossarian, an Army Air Forces bombardier who becomes worried about his impending death and tries to escape flying the prerequisite 25 missions to get rotated out by claiming insanity -- but the Army’s logic won’t actually allow for it.

The film also features Martin Balsam (“12 Angry Men”), Art Garfunkel, Bob Newhart (“Newhart”), Anthony Perkins (“Psycho”), Jon Voight (“Anaconda”), Bob Balaban (“Space Force”), Martin Sheen (“The West Wing”), Charles Grodin (“Midnight Run”), Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and more.

City of Ghosts

As the Islamic State captured large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014, a secret group of citizen journalists called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently documented ISIL's war crimes and atrocities for the world to see.

"City of Ghosts" is a documentary about the then-anonymous efforts of the reporters and how they uncovered ISIL crimes while living under the tyranny of the terrorist state or in exile. It was widely considered the best documentary of 2017 and became the "definitive documentary about the tragedy of Syria."

Cold Mountain

When the Civil War broke out, the men of Cold Mountain, North Carolina, couldn’t wait to join the Confederate Army. One of them, Inman (Jude Law, “Enemy at the Gates”), left behind his wife Ada (Nicole Kidman, “Bombshell”) to take care of the family farm. As the war drags on and a Southern victory becomes less and less likely, her letters go unanswered. Inman, now wounded, deserts the army to reunite with his wife back home. 

Fallout 

Yes, “Fallout” is a series based on a video game. There are many of us old enough to remember when video-game movies and shows were just an awful cash grab designed to sell more merchandise to children, so we might be a little jaded. But Gen Xers and elder Millennials should take note: Today’s video games have more depth and better writing than most movies and TV shows -- and “Fallout” is considered one of the best of all time. 

Walton Goggins (“Justified”) and Ella Purnell (“Yellowjackets”) star in this post-apocalyptic, alt-history drama set in a world where a nuclear exchange irradiated the Earth and forced humans to take refuge in fallout shelters, called “vaults.” More than 200 years later, they start to emerge from the vaults for the first time. 

The Final Countdown

Before "Top Gun" was the catalyst for people to run to their Navy recruiter's office to join ROTC programs, the go-to movie for inspiring the future ranks of naval aviators was "The Final Countdown."

The USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier with 5,000 crewmembers and jet aircraft, mysteriously disappears in the Pacific Ocean, before it's discovered that it has traveled back in time to Dec. 6, 1941, off the coast of Hawaii. Knowing every detail of what's about to happen to the U.S., the ship's men ask themselves if they should change the course of history.

Generation War

"Generation War" is German television's attempt to make its own "Band of Brothers." Of course, that's a more complicated endeavor when your military was defeated in World War II and a racist ideology fueled your leader's rise to power and eagerness to start a conflict.

The show has been praised for its depiction of the unrelenting combat on the Eastern Front, but it's a bit too light depicting the ideologies of the Third Reich. Though its portrayal of the war is flawed, it's fascinating to see German filmmakers attempt to tell the story of the war for a mainstream audience.

The Great Escape

The star-studded cast of this 1963 film tells the real-life story of Stalag Luft III, a Nazi prisoner of war camp in World War II. In 1942, the German Air Force put all of its problem prisoners (read: escape-prone) into one specially made camp, designed to be escape-proof. It had the opposite effect: The prisoners made the largest mass escape ever conceived, 600 in all. Only 76 actually made it out before the escape was discovered, of which 50 were murdered by the Gestapo.  

“The Great Escape” stars Steve McQueen (“Bullitt”), James Garner (“The Rockford Files”), Richard Attenborough (“Jurassic Park”), Charles Bronson (“Death Wish”), Donald Pleasence (“Halloween”), James Coburn (“The Magnificent Seven”) and David McCallum (“NCIS”).

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant 

While deployed to Afghanistan with U.S. Army Special Forces, Master Sgt. John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets a new interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim, “A War”). When his unit is ambushed and everyone but Kinley and Ahmed are killed, Ahmed carries the wounded soldier 100 kilometers back to Bagram Air Base while evading Taliban patrols. 

Kinley goes home but can’t forget what Ahmed did to save his life. He resolves to return to Afghanistan on his own to take Ahmed and his family out of the country. Kinley is in a race against time to rescue all of them before the Taliban can find and kill them --  all without the support of U.S. forces.  

Hunters

"Hunters" follows a team on Nazi hunters in early 1970s America. It's just as weird as "The Man in the High Castle," and Al Pacino ("The Godfather") leads the crew as Meyer Offerman, philanthropist and concentration camp survivor who's writing the checks for their missions. Logan Lerman ("Fury") stars as Jonah Heidelbaum, a young man who becomes Offerman's protegé.

The alternate history in "Hunters" is just as outrageous as what we saw in "The Man in the High Castle," and the show might have been too off-the-beaten path for the Prime Video action audience. The show has ended after two full seasons, so it's not a huge commitment if you want to find out whether it works for you.

Inglourious Basterds

Before the Allied invasion of Europe during World War II, U.S. Army Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, “Fight Club”), is assigned to recruit a special operations force of Jewish Americans to parachute into Nazi-occupied France and terrorize the German forces there by any means necessary. While there, they get wind of an event that will be attended by all of the regime’s most powerful Nazis, and set out to ambush and kill them. 

Standing in their way is the notorious Nazi “Jew Hunter,” SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”), who is very good at his job. The Basterds make their way to Paris to carry out their plan. The film also features Michael Fassbender (“The Agency”), Eli Roth (“Grindhouse”) and Diane Kruger (“National Treasure”).

JAG Seasons 1-10

Do you love the show “NCIS”? According to television ratings, most of you likely said “yes,” and some of the rest of you are lying. “NCIS” is one of the most popular shows of all time, with no fewer than six spinoffs and headed into its 22nd season. 

Younger fans who can’t get enough of the CBS procedural drama will be delighted to know that it is itself a spinoff of an earlier show: “JAG.” The term JAG is military slang for Judge Advocate General, or lawyer, and -- spoiler alert -- “JAG” is a show about military lawyers. Starring David James Elliott (“Trumbo”) and Catherine Bell (“Army Wives”), “JAG” was a show about criminal cases in the military, but this show was set in Washington. So if 22 seasons of “NCIS” aren’t enough, you can now go back and get your fill with 10 seasons of “JAG.”

Kesari

If you don't love Bollywood war movies, it's either because you hate subtitles or you just haven't seen one yet. Kesari is one of the most epic, visually stunning war movies ever to come from India. There's no better backdrop for the over-the-top action that Indian films bring to the screen than the 1897 Battle of Saragarhi.

At Saragarhi, 21 Sikh soldiers of the British Army defended an outpost as it was attacked by about 24,000 Afghan tribesmen. As the battle raged, the Sikhs transmitted details of the fight as they happened, all of which are beautifully recreated in "Kesari."

Kingdom of Heaven

Director Ridley Scott’s 2005 Crusader-era epic is loosely based on real historical figures and events, but in reality, it is a more exaggerated version of what happened during and shortly after the reign of King Baldwin the IV of Jerusalem (played by Ed Norton, “Fight Club”). Most of the characters are real, including Balian of Ibelin (Orlando Bloom, “The Lord of the Rings”), Raynald of Châtillon (Brendan Gleeson, “In Bruges”) and Raymond III of Tripoli (Jeremy Irons, “Die Hard with a Vengeance”).

What’s also real is the disastrous Christian performance in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, which is depicted in the film. The Crusader Army marched too far away from water, and the Muslims under Saladin used the desert springs to lay a trap for the Christians, destroying or capturing the entire army and laying the groundwork for the surrender of Jerusalem later that year. What the film doesn’t show is that not only did Jerusalem fall after Hattin, but the entire Crusader Kingdom as well. 

Last Flag Flying

Steve Carrell ("The Office") plays "Doc" Shepard, a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam who tracks down two of his old buddies, Sal (Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad") and Richard (Laurence Fishburne, "The Matrix"), for an impromptu reunion. Doc soon reveals that he brought them together hoping they would come with him to take the body of his son, who recently died in Iraq, to his burial.

The movie was adapted from the book of the same name, written by ​​Darryl Ponicsan, who served in the Navy between 1962 and 1965. As one might imagine, the fun and jokes among old friends who chewed the same dirt in Vietnam provides some much-needed relief from the drama of what the movie is actually about.

The Lost Battalion

In 1918, just after an American attack in the Argonne Forest, more than 550 men of the 77th Division were cut off from the rest of their Allied forces for nearly a week. Low on food, water and ammunition and under fire from their own artillery, hundreds were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. These nine companies became known as "The Lost Battalion."

This A&E movie stars Rick Schroder ("Silver Spoons") as Maj. Charles White Whittlesey, a real officer who received the Medal of Honor for leading the Lost Battalion through the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and eventually, back to friendly lines.

The Man in the High Castle

Prime Video gave a big-budget order to "The Man in the High Castle," an alternate history tale of the resistance in North America after Japan and Germany won World War II. Based on the classic 1962 novel by sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick, the show expands the book's plot and resolves its ambiguous ending over the course of 40 episodes and four seasons.

The show is both ambitious and incredibly weird. The period details are outstanding, and the show's writers and directors never dumb down their ambitions to make the twisted story easier to follow. As the streaming universe looks for less-expensive stories to tell, we're not getting many more strange tales like this one.

Patriot

For the two seasons that it was on Amazon, “Patriot” was, low key, the best spy show on television. Sadly Amazon has not renewed it for a third season. It’s about John Tavner (Michael Dorman, “For All Mankind”), a wannabe folk singer whose father is a CIA officer and former congressman. 

The younger Tavner is deeply troubled, but that doesn’t stop his father Tom (Terry O'Quinn, “Lost”) from using him to rig an election in Iran. But before he can do the spycraft, he needs to secure a cover, which means getting a job at an industrial piping firm in Milwaukee. 

Reacher

Fans of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels didn't think Tom Cruise was right for the role, even though the 2012 movie "Jack Reacher" was one of the actor's best films. A sequel wasn't as good, and Cruise abandoned the character.

Enter Alan Ritchson, the huge and muscled actor who took on the role for Prime Video's 2022 series. Viewers went crazy for the new portrayal of the Army veteran who roams the backroads of the country and gets himself and the people he meets out of whatever trouble comes their way. "Reacher" just returned for Season 2 in December 2023.

Red Dawn (1984)

This movie is, without a doubt, the best movie featuring both Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. After a coalition of Warsaw Pact countries led by the Soviet Union and joined by Cuba and Latin American dictatorships invade and occupy parts of the U.S., local high schoolers take to the hills. 

Instead of cowering in fear, however, they become a guerrilla force behind the lines of World War III, showing the world just how bad an idea it would be to invade the continental United States. WOLVERINES!

The Report

I don’t know how many veterans reading this are Global War on Terror veterans, but the debate surrounding the torture of al-Qaida detainees during the Bush administration was a big one at my unit. Now imagine being the investigator who had to look into the initial allegations of torture by the CIA in the first place. 

Adam Driver (“BlacKkKlansman”) plays Daniel Jones, a real-life investigator for the U.S. Senate who was tasked with looking into those torture allegations in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks. His full 6,700-page report on the matter is still classified, but “The Report” shows how Jones managed to find the full truth. 

Send Me

Many veterans will be familiar with Nick Palmisciano, West Point graduate and Army infantry officer, as the founder of Ranger Up. In 2021, he and 12 veteran friends moved to rescue an Afghan interpreter from being left behind in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. They formed Save Our Allies, and went to Kabul.

"Send Me" is a 2022 documentary about how the mission to save that one interpreter ballooned into one of the largest civilian rescue operations ever, bringing 12,000 people out of danger.

Sobibor

In 1941, a Soviet soldier of Jewish descent was captured by the Nazis and sent to the Sobibor extermination camp in occupied Poland. Despite the brutal oppression of his Nazi captors, Lt. Alexander "Sasha" Pechersky incites and leads an uprising against the camp guards just three weeks after his arrival. 

The film was made in Lithuania by Russian director Konstantin Khabenskiy, who also plays the part of Sasha Pechersky. It was submitted to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film but did not receive a nomination. Its depiction of Pechersky's successful uprising and mass escape of hundreds of Jews is not entirely accurate, but it's still good viewing. 

Strategic Air Command

There were a lot of Hollywood folk whose World War II military service involved performing shows for other military personnel or sitting behind a desk. James Stewart enlisted in the Army in February 1941 and went on to fly bombing missions over Germany. He continued to serve in the Air Force Reserves after the war and stayed active until 1968.

That made Stewart uniquely qualified to play the lead in the 1955 movie "Strategic Air Command," the story of a professional baseball player and WWII pilot recalled to active duty to fly the Convair B-36. The Cold War drama mainly exists to celebrate the further evolution of American air power after WWII, but there's a big question about how Stewart will sort out the conflict between his two great loves, flying and baseball.

The Terminal List

Former Navy SEAL Jack Carr's series of thriller novels about fictional former Navy SEAL James Reece has spawned a new franchise. "The Terminal List" sets up the epic tale, as Reece seeks revenge on the forces that killed his family. Chris Pratt ("Parks and Recreation") stars as Reece, and Pratt looks to be set up to play the role for years to come.

The Reeceverse has already locked in Season 2 of the tale, which will be based on Carr's novel "True Believer." There's also a prequel series in the works that will explore the complicated backstory of Reece's former SEAL teammate Ben Edwards, played by Taylor Kitsch.

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

Prime Video has carved out a niche as the home of military-themed action shows, and the streaming service's reimagining of Tom Clancy's beloved CIA operative, Jack Ryan, paved the way for all the shows that came after.

John Krasinski ("13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi") plays a version of the character that may be the closest to the one who appears in Clancy's novels, but the contemporary plots of the series have nothing to do with the stories that the author wrote in his books. The fourth and final season of Prime Video’s “Jack Ryan” series started streaming in June 2023.

Tom Clancy's Without Remorse

Michael B. Jordan ("Creed") stars in this military thriller that gives the backstory for one of Tom Clancy's greatest characters, former Navy SEAL John Clark. In the movie, we meet SEAL John Kelly, who goes to prison for taking revenge on the Russian diplomat responsible for the murder of his wife and unborn child. He's sprung from his cell with an opportunity to hunt down the surviving operative who carried out the murder mission.

That's a heavily redacted version of a complicated plot, which was written for the screen by Taylor Sheridan, the man who writes and produces the television series "Yellowstone." "Tom Clancy's Without Remorse" was intended for a theatrical release, but Paramount Pictures sold it to Amazon in the depths of the pandemic, and it went straight to streaming. The good news is that Jordan has been booked for a sequel intended for theatrical release.

Vice

How did the United States military go from attacking al-Qaida and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan to attacking Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, despite Iraq’s lack of involvement with the 9/11 attacks? If you ask Adam McKay, the writer, director and producer of the 2018 film “Vice,” it was masterminded by then-Vice President Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) with a lot of legal gymnastics from the Bush-era Department of Justice (which used the same legal hoopla to approve the use of torture). 

“Vice” is a movie in the vein of 2015’s “The Big Short,” in that it uses a relatively short film (run time: 2 hours, 12 minutes) to explain a big topic. Also like “The Big Short,” it reunites Bale with Steve Carell (who plays Donald Rumsfeld in “Vice”). The film is narrated by a fictional veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, portrayed by Jesse Plemons (“Civil War”) and also stars Amy Adams (“Zach Snyder’s Justice League”) and Sam Rockwell (“Seven Psychopaths”). 

We Were Soldiers

For very different reasons, both the Americans and North Vietnamese claimed victory for the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965. The U.S. believed they won because they'd held their ground at landing zone X-Ray and killed 16 times more of the enemy. The North Vietnamese claimed victory because they pushed the Americans away and developed a new tactic that might neutralize the U.S. firepower advantage. 

That tactic was fighting so close to the Americans that they couldn't call in artillery or airstrikes. For five days, Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson, "Braveheart") led the men of 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment at Ia Drang, documented by reporter Joe Galloway (Barry Pepper, "Saving Private Ryan"). After the war, the two would co-write "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young," the book on which this 2002 movie is based. 

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