Best Military Movies and Shows on Netflix July 2026

If you’re looking for the best military movies and shows on Netflix this July, we’re here to help you stop the scrolling, move past the algorithm and find something worth putting on before your dinner gets cold.

Netflix has a big catalog, which sounds great until you’re 37 minutes into browsing and somehow considering a British baking show instead of the war movie you meant to watch. This list should help cut through the noise.

Some of these movies are new to Netflix in July. Others are already streaming and worth adding to the queue, whether you’re looking for World War II combat, Vietnam War fallout, military documentaries, political history, sci-fi satire or a NASA crisis that plays like a mission debrief with movie-star cheekbones.

There’s enough military entertainment viewing here to last most of us a while.

1917

This 2019 World War I film from director Sam Mendes (Skyfall) follows two young British soldiers ordered to cross enemy territory and deliver a message that could save hundreds of men from walking into a German trap.

The movie is famous for being built to look like one nearly continuous shot, but the trick works because it keeps the audience trapped with the soldiers. Every trench, farmhouse and open field feels like another bad decision they have no choice but to survive.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Netflix’s German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel is one of the bleakest World War I movies ever made for the streamer, which is saying something.

The movie follows a young German soldier who enters the war with patriotic excitement and quickly discovers that mud, artillery and command decisions have no interest in his ideals. The 2022 film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won four, including best international feature film.

Hacksaw Ridge

Andrew Garfield stars as Desmond Doss, the Army medic and conscientious objector who became a Medal of Honor recipient after saving wounded soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa without carrying a weapon.

Director Mel Gibson does not exactly whisper when he makes a war movie, and Hacksaw Ridge is no exception. It is violent, earnest and sometimes operatic, but the central story of a medic refusing to abandon wounded men still lands.

Beasts of No Nation

Idris Elba stars as the Commandant, a West African warlord who recruits a boy named Agu into a rebel battalion. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (No Time to Die), the film follows Agu as he is pulled deeper into the world of child soldiers and civil war.

It’s a hard watch, and it should be. Beasts of No Nation is less interested in battlefield glory than in what happens when war steals a child’s name, family and future.

Apollo 13

Apollo 13 isn’t a war movie, but it absolutely belongs in the rotation. Ron Howard’s 1995 film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton as astronauts trying to survive after an explosion cripples their spacecraft.

For military viewers, the appeal is easy to understand. It’s a movie about training, procedure, command decisions and calm voices trying to keep disaster from turning permanent.

Apollo 13: Survival

If the dramatized version isn’t enough, Netflix also has Apollo 13: Survival, a documentary that uses archival footage and interviews to revisit the real mission.

It’s a strong companion piece to the 1995 film, especially for viewers who want the mission-room details without Hollywood sanding down the edges.

Born on the Fourth of July

Tom Cruise stars as Ron Kovic, a Marine wounded in Vietnam who returns home paralyzed and eventually becomes an anti-war activist. Directed by Oliver Stone, himself a Vietnam veteran, the film is one of the defining movies about the long trip home from that war.

Cruise was nominated for an Oscar for the role, and it’s still one of his strongest performances. The film is angry, wounded and not especially subtle, but subtle was never really the point.

The Beguiled

Sofia Coppola’s Civil War drama stars Colin Farrell as a wounded Union soldier taken in by the women of a Southern girls’ school. The war mostly stays outside the house, but its presence is everywhere.

This is not a battlefield movie. It’s a pressure-cooker story about isolation, fear and desire, with the Civil War turning one injured soldier into a grenade in a very quiet room.

U-571

This World War II submarine thriller follows an American crew trying to capture an Enigma cipher machine from a German U-boat. Historians have been yelling at this movie since 2000, and they have their reasons.

Still, if you’re looking for a claustrophobic naval thriller with depth charges, flooding compartments and men whispering very urgently in metal tubes, U-571 knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be.

Snowden

Oliver Stone’s Snowden follows Edward Snowden from Army recruit to intelligence contractor to whistleblower. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Snowden, with Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo and Nicolas Cage rounding out the cast.

The military hook comes early, but the bigger subject is what happens when intelligence work, surveillance and personal conscience all collide. It’s Stone, so nobody should expect a dry government training video.

GIGN: Elite Force

Arriving July 22, GIGN: Elite Force follows a high-ranking officer who is preparing to leave field work when an attack on his unit pulls him into one more dangerous mission.

Netflix’s description keeps the plot close to the vest, but the setup is familiar: an officer with history, a unit hit hard and a mission that sounds like it will not be solved with a neat briefing slide.

War Machine

Alan Ritchson stars in Netflix’s War Machine as a combat engineer known only as 81, who is on one last brutal mission during Army Ranger training when his unit runs into something worse than any field problem: a giant otherworldly killing machine.

Yes, it is a military sci-fi action movie, which means nobody should come to this one expecting a sober command climate survey. But if you want Army Rangers, alien machinery, Dennis Quaid and Ritchson doing Ritchson things against something big enough to make everyone’s day worse, this is the Netflix war movie equivalent of somebody kicking open the barracks door with a flamethrower.

Netflix lists the film as a 2026 military action/sci-fi movie starring Ritchson, Dennis Quaid and Stephan James.

Unbroken

Angelina Jolie directed this adaptation of Louis Zamperini’s life story. Zamperini was an Olympic runner and World War II bombardier who survived a plane crash, weeks at sea and captivity as a prisoner of war.

The film does not get into every chapter of Zamperini’s life, but the survival story alone is enough for a full movie. It is built around endurance, punishment and the stubborn refusal to disappear.

Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods follows four Black Vietnam veterans who return to Vietnam decades later to recover the remains of their fallen squad leader and search for buried gold.

The movie works as a war story, a heist movie and a reckoning with how Black service members fought for a country still fighting them at home. Delroy Lindo’s performance alone makes it worth watching.

The Forgotten Battle

This Dutch World War II film centers on the 1944 Battle of the Scheldt, as Allied forces tried to open the Port of Antwerp and keep the advance through Europe supplied.

The film follows multiple perspectives, including a Dutch resistance member, a British glider pilot and a German soldier. It is the kind of World War II story that reminds viewers the war was not fought only on the beaches and in the battles Americans can name from memory.

Blood & Gold

At the end of World War II, a German deserter crosses paths with SS troops hunting for hidden gold. That is the basic setup, but Blood & Gold has more pulp in its bloodstream than a standard prestige war drama.

It’s violent, fast and built around the idea that, even with Germany collapsing, some Nazis still had time to be greedy little goblins. Sometimes a war movie just needs bad guys, stolen gold and someone with a reason to punch back.

First They Killed My Father

Directed by Angelina Jolie, First They Killed My Father adapts Loung Ung’s memoir about surviving childhood under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

The film follows Ung as war, evacuation, forced labor and political violence tear through her family. It is not an easy recommendation, but it is one of Netflix’s strongest films about how war reaches civilians long before they understand what any of it means.

Five Came Back

Five Came Back is a documentary series about five Hollywood directors who served during World War II: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens.

The series is catnip for military history fans and film nerds alike. It looks at what those men saw, what they filmed and how the war changed the movies they made after they came home.

World War II: From the Frontlines

This six-part documentary series uses restored and colorized archival footage to walk through World War II from multiple sides of the conflict.

There are plenty of World War II documentaries on streaming, but this one is made for viewers who want a broad, accessible overview without needing to commit to a 26-part historical expedition.

The Siege of Jadotville

Jamie Dornan stars in this true story about Irish soldiers serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Congo in 1961. Surrounded by a much larger force, the Irish company holds its position in a fight that did not get the recognition it deserved for decades.

It’s one of Netflix’s better original military films, especially because it focuses on a battle many American viewers may not know.

Medal of Honor

Netflix’s Medal of Honor series tells the stories of recipients of the nation’s highest military decoration through reenactments, interviews and archival material.

The series only ran for one season, which feels like a missed opportunity. There are enough Medal of Honor stories for Netflix to keep making these until the sun burns out or the password-sharing crackdown finally becomes sentient.

Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds

This documentary follows the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds through a high-stakes training season, with the pilots and support crews working inside one of the most visible units in the service.

For anyone who has ever worked around aircraft, the flying is only part of the draw. The better stuff is in the precision, maintenance tempo, trust and very expensive consequences of getting small things wrong.

Surviving Black Hawk Down

Netflix’s documentary series revisits the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, the fight later dramatized in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.

The feature film version is one of the most famous modern war movies, but a documentary has room to widen the frame. For viewers who know the movie lines by heart, this is a chance to sit with the actual people and decisions behind the chaos.

The Last Ship

The Last Ship is a military thriller series about the crew of a Navy destroyer trying to survive after a global pandemic wipes out much of the world’s population.

Yes, the premise sounds like something cooked up in a Pentagon fever dream, but the show has a clean hook: a ship, a crew, a mission and the world falling apart beyond the horizon.

Washington

This docudrama follows George Washington from soldier to Revolutionary War commander to founding figure. It gives viewers a broad look at Washington’s military life before the marble-statue version took over the national memory.

For anyone looking ahead to more American Revolution coverage after the country’s 250th anniversary, Washington is an easy place to start.

The American Experiment

Narrated by Martin Sheen, The American Experiment is a five-part documentary series about the founding ideals of the United States and the fights over who those ideals were meant to include.

The series is not strictly a military title, but war runs through the story from the beginning. The American Revolution is right there in the floorboards.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103

Arriving July 30, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 follows the investigation into the 1988 bombing of a transatlantic flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The series is not a military combat story, but it fits beside Netflix’s intelligence, terrorism and national security titles. It looks at an attack that drew in local police, federal investigators and governments trying to answer a horrifying question: who put a bomb on that plane?

Starship Troopers

Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers follows beautiful young people joining the infantry to fight giant alien bugs after Earth is attacked. On the surface, it is a sci-fi action movie full of rifles, uniforms, drop ships and exploding insects.

Underneath, it is one of the meanest military satires ever smuggled into a studio blockbuster. If you watched it as a kid and thought it was just cool bug violence, congratulations. The movie got you, too.