Best movies like Air America
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited into it, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Action, Comedy, War
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: exciting, melancholic, light, humorous, semi serious, clever, realistic, witty, cynical, epic
Best tv shows and movies like Air America (1990):
Similar in 87%
Castle Keep (1969)
Plot Summary:
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance, War
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, captivating, suspense, retro, offbeat, serious, realistic, surreal, historical drama
Similar in 85%
Sector 4: Extraction (2014)
Plot Summary:
Action - When an elite band of private mercenaries known as Black Knight gets caught behind enemy lines in a Middle East combat zone, their only hope for survival lies with the team leader, who has escaped but vows to return. - Salman Bokhari, Steven Dell, Eric Roberts.
IMDB Rating: 2.4
IMDB Votes: 889
Genere: Action, War
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, captivating, tense, suspense, rough, realistic
Similar in 90%
Guy X (2005)
Plot Summary:
A black comedy set in 1979, about a soldier mistakenly posted to an Arctic military base.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, War
Country: Canada, Iceland, UK, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, realistic, dark comedy, offbeat, biting, black comedy, suspense
Similar in 78%
The Vultures (1984)
Plot Summary:
April 5, 1943: a battalion of the Foreign Legion arrives in El Ksour, Tunisia, to escort a fortune in gold bars to the home front. A German ambush awaits, and all but four die. Thanks to the street smarts of Sergeant Augagneur, the Legionnaires successfully counter attack. The bank manager and his seductive wife arrive, and so does a German lieutenant, whom the French arrest. Augagneur wants to steal the gold; warrant officer Mahuzard wants to do his duty. A series of alliances form and break apart, the group dwindles in number, and the gold heads south toward Betahoua. But in whose possession?.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Comedy, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: France
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious, feel good, light, suspense, surprise ending
Similar in 75%
Kill Zone (1993)
Plot Summary:
An American colonel will pay any price to defeat the Viet Cong. When his unauthorized fighting force in Cambodia is discovered, he becomes a one man army, fighting a war of his own for a cause he knows is just.
IMDB Rating: 4.1
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Action, War
Country: Philippines, USA
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: independent film, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, cult film
Similar in 85%
The Odd Angry Shot (1979)
Plot Summary:
A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Comedy, War
Country: Australia
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, independent film, cult film
Similar in 81%
Into the Sun (1991)
Plot Summary:
Paul Watkins (Michael Paré) is an American pilot stationed in the Middle East, who is taken away from his normal duties of protecting the skies to show an actor everything he needs to know about being a pilot in the Air Force. The actor, Tom Slade (Anthony Michael Hall), is about to start filming an Air Force movie and wants to "get the feeling" for the part. When Watkins takes Slade for a ride in an F-16 fighter, some other American jets are attacked and the pair comes to the rescue. However, it does not go according to the plan.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 965
Genere: Action, Comedy, War
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: suspense, action comedy, independent film, exciting, humorous, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, semi serious, fast
Similar in 78%
The Walking Dead (1995)
Plot Summary:
Five young marines on a suicide mission in Vietnam, struggle for survival in a jungle minefield. The mean streets of home did not prepare them for this.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 868
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: action adventure, independent film, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, biting, suspense, cult film
Similar in 85%
Hannibal Brooks (1969)
Plot Summary:
A POW in World War II is put to work in a Munich zoo, looking after an Asian elephant. The zoo is bombed by the Americans and the director of the zoo decides it is not safe for his Asian elephant Lucy to remain there. So he sends Brooks to safety with Lucy. They escape and go on the run in order to get to Switzerland.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Comedy, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: independent film, exciting, humorous, realistic, semi serious, buddy comedy, action comedy, cult film
Similar in 88%
Shoot the Hero (2010)
Plot Summary:
A 30-something couple unintentionally become involved in a botched jewel heist while shopping for wedding rings.
IMDB Rating: 3.4
IMDB Votes: 864
Genere: Action, Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: humorous, semi serious, exciting, realistic, offbeat, independent film, fast
Similar in 89%
Behind Enemy Lines (1986)
Plot Summary:
Col. Carradine leads a group of American P.O.W.s, battling their way to freedom as Saigon falls to the Viet Cong.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 742
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: independent film, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, cult film
Similar in 83%
Hot Shots! (1991)
Plot Summary:
Recruited to join a top-secret mission for the Air Force, a renegade pilot finds himself coping with an incompetent admiral and a carefully selected squadron of flyers who are either inept or half-blind.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 115000
Genere: Action, Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: parody, humorous, spoof, light, funny, absurd, hilarious, melancholic, talky, not serious
Similar in 85%
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
Plot Summary:
A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 137000
Genere: Comedy, War
Country: USA, UK
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: absurd, offbeat, humorous, black comedy, dark comedy, surreal, light, clever, not serious, parody
Similar in 82%
The Pentagon Wars (1998)
Plot Summary:
From the director of “Made In America” and “The Money Pit” comes a hilarious look at one of the most expensive blunders in military history. Over 17 years and almost as many billion dollars have gone into devising the BFV (Bradley Fighting Vehicle). There's only one problem. . . it doesn't work.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Comedy, War
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, disturbing, semi serious, satirical, dark comedy, clever, biting, suspense
Similar in 82%
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Plot Summary:
A misfit group of World War II American soldiers goes AWOL to rob a bank behind German lines.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 53000
Genere: Adventure, Comedy, War
Country: Yugoslavia, USA
Duration: 144 min
Plot tags: entertaining, light, cynical, semi serious, humorous, realistic, witty, parody, action comedy, relaxing
Similar in 90%
Company of Heroes (2013)
Plot Summary:
American soldiers lost behind enemy lines during the WWII make a horrific discovery: Hitler has a super bomb in development. Against all odds, they set out to find the scientist in charge of the program who is looking to defect.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Action, War
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, exciting, realistic, suspenseful, tense, scenic
Similar in 90%
The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1988)
Plot Summary:
A Marine patrol stops at Firebase Gloria at the start of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam war. With the firebase attacked, the patrol remains to help defend it. The Marines barely hold off the VC (Viet Cong), but in the end, hold the base.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: Australia, USA, Philippines
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, realistic, independent film, cult film
Similar in 76%
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Plot Summary:
After the insane General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, a war room full of politicians, generals and a Russian diplomat all frantically try to stop the nuclear strike.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 511000
Genere: Comedy, War
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: black comedy, black and white, dark comedy, cult classic, political, funny, satirical, absurd, cynical, philosophical
Similar in 79%
Flight of the Intruder (1991)
Plot Summary:
U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Jake Grafton and his bombardier buddy, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Cole, are two soldiers embedded in the Vietnam War growing frustrated by the military's constraints on their missions. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer, Cmdr. Frank Camparelli, to re-engage them, this disillusioned pair decide to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could well get them court-martialed.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: suspense, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, fast, romantic, clever, feel good
Similar in 87%
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Plot Summary:
Radio funny man Adrian Cronauer is sent to Vietnam to bring a little comedy back into the lives of the soldiers. After setting up shop, Cronauer delights the G.I.s but shocks his superior officer, Sergeant Major Dickerson, with his irreverent take on the war. While Dickerson attempts to censor Cronauer's broadcasts, Cronauer pursues a relationship with a Vietnamese girl named Trinh, who shows him the horrors of war first-hand.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 151000
Genere: Biography, Comedy, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 121 min
Plot tags: funny, feel good, clever, political, sentimental, sincere, offbeat, humorous, realistic, parody
Similar in 89%
The Boys in Company C (1978)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: Hong Kong, USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, cult film
Similar in 88%
Catch-22 (1970)
Plot Summary:
A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation. Catch-22 is a parody of a "military mentality" and of a bureaucratic society in general.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 26000
Genere: Comedy, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: dark comedy, surreal, absurd, black comedy, dark, grim, cult classic, psychological, clever, humorous
Similar in 77%
Casualties of War (1989)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 47000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, emotional, realistic, intense, suspenseful, serious, tense, touching, dark
Similar in 88%
Bat*21 (1988)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspense, harsh, exciting, serious, suspenseful, rough, tense, sentimental, light
Similar in 79%
Hamburger Hill (1987)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 27000
Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller, War
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: cult classic, realistic, black and white, action adventure, independent film, rough, serious, suspenseful, gloomy, political thriller
Similar in 87%
84C MoPic (1989)
Plot Summary:
A cameraman embedded with a reconnaissance patrol charts their mission across territory controlled by the Vietnamese. An impressively naturalistic Vietnam film. Impressive performance by unknown actors in this low-budget Vietnam drama. The story is being told in the form of a documentary; a camera team follows an Army unit in pursuit of 'Charlie'. Filmed in Southern California. The movie's producing company itself is called '84 Charlie MoPic'.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, mockumentary, independent film, cult film
Similar in 80%
Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (2019)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: Australia
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, suspense, tense, rough, disturbing, perverse, cult film
Similar in 82%
Operation Dumbo Drop (1995)
Plot Summary:
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!.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Family, War
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: humorous, anamorphic, hilarious, offbeat, realistic, semi serious, light, romantic, clever, touching
Similar in 77%
Fortress (2012)
Plot Summary:
When the commander of the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber is killed in action in a raid over Sicily in 1943, his replacement, a young, naive pilot struggles to be accepted by the plane's already tight-knit Irish American crew.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Drama, War
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, tense
Similar in 80%
We Were Soldiers (2002)
Plot Summary:
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 149000
Genere: Action, Drama, History, War
Country: France, Germany, USA
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: serious, factual, realistic, emotional, suspenseful, sentimental, brutal, epic, suspense, intense