20 best movies like The Quiet American (2002)

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager. Based on the actual events of an incident on Hill 192 in November, 1966.

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.

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party's contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for two missions in South Vietnam. The first is to strengthen a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy. The second is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.

An American journalist and his cameraman are caught in the combat zone during the first Russian airstrikes against Georgia. Rescuing Tatia, a young Georgian schoolteacher separated from her family during the attack, the two reporters agree to help reunite her with her family in exchange for serving as their interpreter. As the three attempt to escape to safety, they witness--and document--the devastation from the full-scale crossfire and cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians.

A British college professor, working in Russia, investigates certain mysteries surrounding the life and death of Joseph Stalin.

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.

In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. But the 11 bullets found in the bodies, together with the 5 remaining bullets in the assassin's magazine clip, amount to 16 bullets for a gun that should normally hold 15 bullets. The investigating Swiss/Swedish team from the neutral countries overseeing the DMZ suspects that another, unknown party was involved - all of which points to some sort of cover up. The truth is much simpler and much more tragic.

In the shadowy world of drone warfare, combat unfolds like a video game–only with real lives at stake. After six tours of duty, Air Force pilot Tom Egan now fights the Taliban from an air-conditioned bunker in the Nevada desert. But as he yearns to get back in the cockpit of a real plane and becomes increasingly troubled by the collateral damage he causes each time he pushes a button, Egan’s nerves—and his relationship with his wife—begin to unravel.

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 fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

West Point graduate lieutenant Jeff Knight meets cynicism when taking command of sergeant Michael McNamara's tour veterans platoon in a Vietnamese trench camp. Unlike his predecessor, who hid till the end of his tour, Jeff takes charge, experiences the manual doesn't allow coping with all realities and gets wounded. He returns, now fully respect by men and superiors. Besides the Vietcong, the platoon wrestles with the inscrutable villagers, which the G.I.'s officially protect, but also fear as some collaborate with them, other covertly with the Cong, either way subject to bloody reprisals.

A dozen foreigners are kidnapped by a terrorist group in the Philippines.

Eliane Devries is the seemingly repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina, circa 1930. Her steely exterior, however, is only a mask intended to hide her torrid love affairs from upper class society

In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

A young soldier who was thought to be killed in the line of duty in Vietnam returns home shortly thereafter, much to the confusion of his family. Upon his return, he exhibits strange, withdrawn behavior and begins wandering the streets at night.

A motley group of Chinese prisoners held in the US is sent on a covert mission with the promise of a pardon: to go deep into Vietnam and destroy a secret depot of missiles that the US left behind during the pull-out.

Mike Anderson, a tough American reporter on a dangerous foreign assignment, finds his own life in jeopardy when he uncovers a deadly labyrinth of political intrigue that threatens the lives of thousands. Dispatched to investigate a mysterious and fatal attack on an overseas US naval base, Anderson, a leading investigative journalist and ex-US marine, finds himself back on familiar ground. Instinct makes him question the official CIA explanation that cites an unknown terrorist group called Black October. Alone, and armed only with his combat training and determination to uncover the truth, he sets out to expose a complex and dangerous political web.

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?

A tense drama that revolves around a platoon of Spanish soldiers, following the innocent young men as they step from the training field into a hell for which nothing could have prepared them.

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?

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

Nick Condon, an American journalist in 1945 Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Go Tell the Spartans is a 1978 American war film based on Daniel Ford's 1967 novel "Incident at Muc Wa." It tells the story about U.S. Army military advisers during the early part of the Vietnam War. Led my Major Asa Barker, these advisers and their South Vietnamese counterparts defend the village of Muc Wa against multiple attacks by Viet-Cong guerrillas.

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

Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.

Prime leader of a campaign against a big government project is killed in what appears to be a road accident. An IAS officer is ordered to probe the incident and the veils of falsehood begin to drop.

The Story of a powerful king Kochadaiiyaan, and so does his Kingdom. But on a fateful day, one of his close friends plots against him and acquires his kingdom, while he was driven away. Kochadaiiyaan gets a baby boy Rana, who grows up to become a great warrior, and fights and redeems the kingdom that rightfully belongs to him.

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.

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.

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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.

During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom.

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.

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

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.

In the midst of World War II, a serial murderer appears in the Blue Division, volunteer body of Spanish soldiers who fought on the Russian front with German troops. After finding the body of a Spanish soldier who has been stuck in the shoulder and has a knife inscription ("Look at God looking at you"), an investigation is initiated by the soldier in charge Arturo Andrade (Juan Diego Botto ), police inspector who takes the job with precision and professionalism, aided by Sergeant Estrada (Carmelo Gómez). They begin to suspect that behind this murder dark secrets of the past are hidden .

The story of journalist, Edward R Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

Sandra Brown’s “Smoke Screen” follows newswoman Britt Shelley (Jaime Pressly), who shockingly wakes up in bed next to the dead body of Detective Jay Burgess and is suspected of foul play. Five years prior, Jay’s lifelong friend Raley Gannon (Currie Graham) also woke up next to a dead body. After learning of Britt’s scandal and the similarities between their two cases, he realizes she might be his only chance for vindication. As the two unravel their mysterious cases together, they find themselves caught in a dangerous political cover-up involving arson and murder.

Inspired from real life, this fiery crime thriller depicts the phenomenal rise to power of Paritala Ravi from Andhra Pradesh, a powerful killer. When a man's father and elder brother are murdered in cold blood due to the fatal mixture of caste, crime, jealousy and dirty politics, a fearless young man who has been kept away from his family's violent lifestyle, is left with no choice but to get into the fray. He hides in the forest and begins clinically exacting revenge upon those responsible for the death of his family members. Will he be successful in his mission? How will his future unfold?

In 1853, as the British and Russian empires compete to gain and maintain their place in the dreadful Great Game of political intrigues and alliances whose greatest prize is the domination of India and the border territories, Major Geoffrey Vickers must endure several betrayals and misfortunes before he can achieve his revenge at the Balaclava Heights, on October 25, 1854, the most glorious day of the Crimean War.

A sergeant must deal with his desires to save the lives of young soldiers being sent to Vietnam. Continuously denied the chance to teach the soldiers about his experiences, he settles for trying to help the son of an old army buddy.

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

A troubled hedge fund magnate, desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire, makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.

A mysterious American gets mixed up with gunrunners in Syria.