20 best movies like Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Five Green Berets stationed in Vietnam in 1968 grudgingly undertake the mission of a lifetime -- to secretly transport an 8,000-pound elephant through 200 miles of rough jungle terrain. High jinks prevail when Capt. Sam Cahill promises the Montagnard villagers of Dak Nhe that he'll replace their prized elephant in time for an important ritual. But for Capt. T.C. Doyle, the mission becomes a jumbo-sized headache!

Disheartened by futile combat, appalled by the corruption of their South Vietnamese ally, and constantly endangered by the incompetence of their own company commander, the young men find a possible way out of the war. They are told that if they purposely lose a soccer game against a South Vietnamese team, they can spend the rest of their tour playing exhibition games behind the lines.

In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot, surviving monsoons, leeches, and machete-wielding villagers, he was rescued. Now, near 60, living on Mt. Tamalpais, Dengler tells his story: a German lad surviving Allied bombings in World War II, postwar poverty, apprenticed to a smith, beaten regularly. At 18, he emigrates and peels potatoes in the U.S. Air Force. He leaves for California and college, then enlistment in the Navy to learn to fly. A quiet man of sorrows tells his story: war, capture, harrowing conditions, escape, and miraculous rescue. Where did he find the strength; how does he now live with his memories?

In 2002, cable news producer Kim Barker decides to shake up her routine by taking a daring new assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dislodged from her comfortable American lifestyle, Barker finds herself in the middle of an out-of-control war zone. Luckily, she meets Tanya Vanderpoel, a fellow journalist who takes the shell-shocked reporter under her wing. Amid the militants, warlords and nighttime partying, Barker discovers the key to becoming a successful correspondent.

The film portrays MacArthur's (Gregory Peck) life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, the time after he had been removed from his Korean War command by President Truman (Ed Flanders) for insubordination, and is recounted in flashback as he visits West Point.

The film begins in 1857, when India was ruled by the British East India Company. Mangal Pandey is a sepoy, a soldier of Indian origin, in the army of the East India Company. Pandey is fighting in the Anglo-Afghan Wars and saves the life of his British commanding officer, William Gordon. Gordon is indebted to Pandey and a strong friendship develops between them, transcending both rank and race.

The story revolves around three soldiers — Colee, T.K. and Cheaver — who return from the Iraq War after suffering injuries and learn that life has moved on without them. They end up on an unexpected road trip across the U.S.

The son of a Vietnam War Veteran must deal with neighborhood bullies as well as his dad's post-traumatic stress disorder while growing up in the deep south in the 1970's.

Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher's efforts are threatened when the Korean "police action" breaks out in 1950.

Based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

Biographical account of America's President for the latter part of WWII. Shows Truman's rise from small-town nobody to leader of the USA, his decision to use the Atomic Bomb against Japan, and subsequent election as the US' post-war President.

"Hair" is a 1979 musical war comedy-drama film adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical "Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" about a Vietnam War draftee, Claude, who meets and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to the army induction center. Claude heads to New York upon receiving his draft notice, leaving the family ranch in Oklahoma. He arrives in New York where he is rapidly indoctrinated into the youth subculture before reporting in for boot camp.

In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.

After teenage ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway (Chris O'Donnell) takes shrapnel in the leg during World War I, he falls in love with Agnes von Kurowsky (Sandra Bullock), a beautiful older nurse at the hospital where he's sent to recover. Their affair slowly blossoms, until Hemingway boldly asks Agnes to be his wife and journey to America with him. Richard Attenborough directs this drama based on the real-life experiences of the famed novelist.

Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam war. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

This is a movie about the life of Israel's king David.

Four young recruits about to be sent to Vietnam confront their prejudicial feelings toward one another when it's learned one of them is homosexual.

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The historical recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi and SS leaders gathered in a Berlin suburb to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Lead by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, this group of high ranking German officials came to the historic and far reaching decision that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated in what would come to be known as the Holocaust.

As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.

Zamperini returns to California where he wound up marrying Cynthia Applewhite while wrestling with untreated PTSD, suffering constant nightmares, angry, bitter and deeply depressed, his wife convinces Zamperini to attend the 1949 Billy Graham Crusade.

Alvin York a hillbilly sharpshooter transforms himself from ruffian to religious pacifist. He is then called to serve his country and despite deep religious and moral objections to fighting becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI.

Lt. Col. Iceal "Ham" Hambleton is a weapons countermeasures expert and when his aircraft is shot over enemy territory the Air Force very much wants to get him back. Hambleton knows the area he's in is going to be carpet-bombed but a temporary shortage of helicopters causes a delay. Working with an Air Force reconnaissance pilot, Capt. Bartholomew Clark, he maps out an escape route.

U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle takes his sole mission—protect his comrades—to heart and becomes one of the most lethal snipers in American history. His pinpoint accuracy not only saves countless lives but also makes him a prime target of insurgents. Despite grave danger and his struggle to be a good husband and father to his family back in the States, Kyle serves four tours of duty in Iraq. However, when he finally returns home, he finds that he cannot leave the war behind.

True story of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling and their enduring friendship.

Paul Raymond builds a porn, entertainment and real estate empire that makes him the wealthiest man in Britain, but drugs doom his beloved daughter, Debbie.

After a confrontation with one of his idols dashes his dreams of studying public speaking in college, Richard Pimentel joins the Army and ships off to Vietnam. During his service, Richard loses nearly all of his hearing. Joining a new circle of friends, including a man with cerebral palsy and an alcoholic war veteran, Richard discovers his gift for motivational speaking and becomes an advocate for people with disabilities.

Waldemar Nods, a young man from Suriname, meets the older Dutch woman Rika van der Lans and they fall in love. In pre-WWII Netherlands they could not be more different. The one black, the other white, 17 years between them and on top of that Rika already has four children with another man. They love each other, but then Rika appears to be pregnant...

The wife of a Marine serving in Vietnam, Sally Hyde decides to volunteer at a local veterans hospital to occupy her time. There she meets Luke Martin, a frustrated wheelchair-bound vet who has become disillusioned with the war. Sally and Luke develop a friendship that soon turns into a romance.

This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.

In the fall of 1963, Eddie Birdlace is an 18-year-old Marine Corps volunteer who is about to ship out with three of his buddies for a tour of duty in Vietnam. Planning a massive blowout for their last night in San Francisco, Eddie, his buddies, and a number of other Marines set up a contest they call a "dogfight."

When a devastating attack shatters Mark Hogancamp and wipes away all memories, no one expected recovery. Putting together pieces from his old and new life, Mark meticulously creates a wondrous town named Marwen where he can heal and be heroic. As he builds an astonishing art installation — a testament to the most powerful women he knows — through his fantasy world, he draws strength to triumph in the real one.

Thirty years after serving together in the Vietnam War, Larry "Doc" Shepherd, Sal Nealon and the Rev. Richard Mueller reunite for a different type of mission: to bury Doc's son, a young Marine killed in Iraq. Forgoing burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Doc and his old buddies take the casket on a bittersweet trip up the coast to New Hampshire. Along the way, the three men find themselves reminiscing and coming to terms with the shared memories of a war that continues to shape their lives.

A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese...

The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it chews up soldiers like chopped meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse. Hamburger Hill tells it the way it was, the way it really was. It's a raw, gritty and totally unrelenting dramatic depiction of one of the fiercest battles of America's bloodiest war. This happened. Hamburger Hill - war at its worst, men at their best.

Knut Hamsun is Norway's most famous and admired author. Ever since he was young he has hated the English for the starvation they caused Norway during WWI. When the Germans occupy Norway 9 April 1940 he welcomes them and the protection they can give from Great Britain. He supports the national socialist ideals, but opposes the way these ideals are turned into action - that Norwegians are jailed and executed. His wife Marie travels in Germany during the war as a sign of support from Knut and herself.

The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for his parents' run-down motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, New York, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life–and American culture–forever.

Three U.S. journalists (Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy, Gene Hackman) get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.

After being freed from a Vietnamese war prison, French Lt. Col. Pierre Raspeguy is sent to help quell resistance forces in Algeria. With the help of the Capt. Esclavier, who has grown weary of war, and Capt. Boisfeuras, who lives for it, Raspeguy attempts to convert a rugged band of soldiers into a formidable fighting unit, with the promise of marrying a beautiful countess if he's made a general.

Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.

Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.

A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.

In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.

Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, THE FOG OF WAR depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the American Vietnam War, as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.

A cinematic adaption of Arlo Guthrie's classic song story.

When Colonel James Braddock is told that his Asian wife and 12-year-old son are still alive in Communist Vietnam, he mounts a one-man assault to free them. Armed with the latest high-tech firepower, Braddock fights his way into the heart of the country and ends up battling his way out with several dozen abused Amerasian children in tow! Struggling to keep them alive while outmaneuvering a sadistic Vietnamese officer, Braddock ignites the jungle in a blazing cross-country race for freedom.