With Veterans Day, it’s important to muster up the strength to understand its meaning. This is more than a day on the calendar; it’s a moment in time when we get to salute.
Hollywood has been producing movies about the spoils of war for decades. Many of them have been mesmerizing and full of nationalistic pride. It says something about a crew to create a movie that makes people want to look at the American flag a little differently.
If you don’t believe that, watch Platoon or Apocalypse Now, and then you won’t want to thank a person who has defended this brave new world with passion and purpose. That’s the definitive reason for Veterans Day—to understand what every soldier, seaman, airman, Coastie and Marine sacrificed to offer that sacrifice in the first place.
We say “Thank you for your service” when prompted, but this isn’t AI. When asked to applaud all veterans in the room, you clap. When you see a veteran in a grocery store by themselves, what do you do then? That is the result of what we should do on Veterans Day.
This day is about the people. War movies are about the drama, vistas and results. But what movies are about veterans? What films make us all understand what it meant to them to be a defender of their nation? What moments on the big screen make you want to return to the produce section and find that guy wearing “Vietnam Veteran” on his hat so that you can introduce yourself?
The cracked crew at No Script Needed put our heads together to give you the Top 10 motivations to remind you on Veterans Day.
10. The Messenger (2009)
The sobering truth about this film is that not all veterans get to come home. During Veterans Day, we should consider all the jobs these brave men and women have to fulfill. Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson portray two soldiers whose job it is to notify the families of the fallen that their loved one gave the ultimate sacrifice.
No one wants this job, but someone must deliver the news before the news, the world, and fate greet the family first. It’s grueling to watch in many scenes, as two soldiers show up in other people’s lives uninvited and unwelcomed. And while these soldiers are suppressing their own fears and pains, they must be the only source of semblance for others forced to do the same.
The Messenger is an important movie to watch, not just because of Veterans Day, but because there are people who sacrifice in times of war —people who are largely forgotten—the families. The goal of this Oren Moverman film is to ensure no one forgets them, too.
9. First Blood (1982)
The spoils of war have passed John Rambo by. This is a story about a man just trying to get back to a sense of normalcy. What’s harrowing about the movie starring Sylvester Stallone is that, if it weren’t for the misguided prejudice of a small police force, Rambo would have made it across the bridge.
What follows a chance encounter with the town sheriff becomes a personal war—one that John Rambo had no intention of losing. John Rambo is a Special Forces vet, but also a drifter. When approached by a bitter sheriff (Brian Dennehy) who thinks Rambo is just another bum traipsing through town, Rambo’s haunted memories of war return. Turns out that Sheriff Will Teasle personified America and closed every door to opportunity Rambo tried to open.
Coming back from the Viet Cong as a decorated green beret should be a reason to celebrate during Veterans Day. The problem this movie shows is that not all returning soldiers are celebrated, welcomed or even thanked.
8. American Sniper (2014)
Few people can name a veteran who is outside of their family. It’s easy to say, “My dad” or “My niece.” But all things have their legends. In the military, there are many: Patton, Eisenhower, Schwarzkopf, Grant, and Chris Kyle.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, American Sniper features Bradley Cooper in a sobering exploration of war trauma. On Veterans Day, it’s important to know that the sacrifices these brave men and women make are not always met with respect. In the life of Chris Kyle, USN and Navy SEAL, his confirmed 160 kills didn’t greet him with a heroes’ celebration until after he left this mortal coil.
Cooper’s vision of the feared Navy SEAL sniper is grim and convincing, conveying the lives these brave souls lead in the throes of war, and then the battles they face on the home front when they return. American Sniper is the send-off Chris Kyle deserved, although his life was taken way too soon.
7. Taxi Driver (1976)
As with most movies starring Robert De Niro, this story is a somber one. He plays Travis Bickle, who struggles to acclimate back to life. He takes a job as a taxi driver and ends up watching real-life theater devolve before his eyes. He can’t stand where the world is heading. He hates even more the world at war from which he came.
On any Veterans Day, we think of movies that evoke warm feelings of pride, not ones of a delusional man with a homicidal bent. Taxi Driver is totally the latter, as we watch De Niro put on a masterclass of being lonely, reaching out to others, only to discover no one cares if he dies alone.
Martin Scorsese ends up directing one of cinema’s most influential characters because he wants us to understand the human experience. De Niro shows us that loathing about the world around us begins within. When he famously looks in the mirror and says, “You talkin’ to me,” Taxi Driver shows us that people should have listened.
6. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
No homecoming drama has ever surpassed William Wyler’s depiction of three soldiers returning from the Second World War. At its emotional center is Harold Russell, an Army veteran who lost both hands in a 1944 training accident with bilateral hand amputations whose performance laid bare the awkward, painful realities facing disabled soldiers in an uncertain nation.
Premiering in 1946, when psychological trauma was still colloquially dubbed “combat fatigue,” the picture anticipated modern understandings of PTSD, which VA says about 7% of veterans will experience in their lifetimes, with striking clinical foresight. The film’s enduring power lies in its restraint: it favors unspoken grief over sentimentality, trading triumphant fanfare for an honest, vulnerable wedding that works precisely because the characters finally stop masking their pain.
A challenge this Veterans Day: think about that when you salute. Your back will become a bit taller and stronger.
5. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
This Andrew Garfield-led film is still one of the best war stories you never knew. It is stirring and unforgettable, showing the depths of humanity and how far the human spirit can take a person toward their destiny.
Garfield triumphantly plays Desmond Doss, a country boy born in Virginia with a steel rod for a backbone. He stood up to his leaders, haters and enemies, foreign and domestic. He served in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II, but refused to kill anyone. He never drew a single weapon. Mel Gibson, the film’s director who knows something about Christian movies and war movies alike, didn’t hold back with this visceral script.
Imagine fighting in a war where you don’t want to fight, evading enemies you don’t want to kill, and never raising a loaded gun in protest. This World War II unarmed combat medic became the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. On Veterans Day, those are the guys you want to salute and thank.
4. Coming Home (1978)
Directed by Hal Ashby, who leads an all-star cast of Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern, Coming Home isn’t what you would think. It’s an anti-war movie, one resonant in tone and defiant in cinema. People are confronted with their mortality immediately in the film.
Sally Hyde (Fonda) sends off her husband (Dern) to the Vietnam War. As part of the war effort, she gets a job at a local VA hospital, and there, she is confronted with reality. She meets Luke Martin, her high school crush (Voight). He wasn’t rocking the star quarterback’s jersey, but a wheelchair, finding himself paralyzed following the same war where her husband is fighting and defending.
As they get closer, she is saddled with being the only person Luke can trust. She takes responsibility for helping him navigate his way back into the real world, both physically and emotionally. At the 51st Academy Awards, the film received 8 nominations and won 3 Oscars, including Best Actor for Jon Voight, Best Actress for Jane Fonda, and Best Original Screenplay. And trust that this movie is worth watching every second.
3. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
A profound side note about this is to consider the penance of the splendid storyteller and filmmaker Oliver Stone. A Vietnam veteran himself, he has made three movies about war—all revered and celebrated —two of which are mentioned in this post: Platoon, Heaven & Earth, and Born on the Fourth of July. The last is the most prominent about a veteran, in this case, Ron Kovic.
Kovic, a real-life combat veteran, is exactly the guy we should thank on Veterans Day. He was paralyzed in the war, but gained his voice once he returned home. He fought the bottom of a bottle and enough lasciviousness to make Caligula; he was having an off-day. But when he woke up, he knew the world needed to change and wanted to be at its center.
The world hated him for no reason. Kovic believed he fought in a war for no reason. But Tom Cruise‘s portrayal was for a specific reason, and, if anything, it was a reminder of all the reasons we should thank veterans, regardless of the circumstances.
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
This Oscar-winning movie, which won in five categories, including Best Director for Steven Spielberg, will rock someone to their core. The first 20 minutes alone are considered among the most brutal and raw depictions of war ever to appear on screen.
After moviegoers get past the storming beaches of Normandy (and some still haven’t), this movie is about two men in particular, a paratrooper missing behind enemy lines (Matt Damon) and the man tasked with finding him on the battlefield.
If you can get past Omaha Beach, you will find a beautiful story of service and sacrifice, persistence and passion. There are few movies in the human vernacular that summarize what Saving Private Ryan does to anyone’s psyche. Regardless, we should all be forced to find that word personally.
Seeing the war effort through the eyes of Capt. John Miller (Hanks) raises a single question: Is risking the lives of an entire squad of men justified to save a single soldier whose brothers were killed in action? Many lives to rescue one? Yes, but that’s what makes veterans’ stories different. They don’t ask that question when commanded to take a task. They report for duty, and this gripping film shows us why we should be thankful, regardless of whose eyes we see it through.
1. The Deer Hunter (1978)
Michael Cimino’s three-hour epic isn’t really about Vietnam, even though that’s what people remember. And for Veterans Day, it’s not the touchy-feely movie you would typically want. It’s about a Pennsylvania steel town and the shattering reality when three friends walk off as a unit and return as fragments. Clairton is defined by blast furnaces, ethnic rituals, and deer hunts, which makes the war’s aftermath hit with brutal force. Cimino builds that domestic world in deep detail so the audience feels every fracture. It is a portrait of a working-class town trying to absorb wounds it cannot comprehend.
The film’s devastating centerpiece is its use of Russian roulette, wielded not as combat history but as a stark metaphor for the terrifying randomness of survival. Escaping the river cage breaks the men, reducing life to an indifferent pull of the trigger. Christopher Walken‘s hollowed-out Nick never finishes coming home, instead remaining psychologically trapped in Saigon’s fatalistic gaming dens. Long before clinical terms like PTSD entered common vocabulary, Walken showed how deeply combat trauma could sever a soldier from civilian life.
It is an intentionally difficult situation that refuses to offer easy closure. There are no hero’s welcomes awaiting Mike, only alienation and the impossible task of bridging the gap between who he was and who he became. The final sequence, where the survivors gather after a funeral to quietly mumble “God Bless America,” strips away all chest-thumping patriotism in favor of raw grief. Cimino’s point is that homecoming is an ordeal that some veterans never complete, leaving those left behind to live with the empty chairs.
Add us as a preferred source on Google.