Best movies like Shock and Awe

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The Situation (2006)

Plot Summary:

The first U.S.-made film drama set during the Iraq war, THE SITUATION chronicles the tragic death of an Iraqi teenager at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The incident sets off an "investigation," a cover-up, and complications involving Iraqi mayor Sheikh Tahsin (Saïd Amadis), who has a complex relationship with the Americans.

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Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)

Plot Summary:

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.

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Lions for Lambs (2007)

Plot Summary:

Three stories told simultaneous in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

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Live from Baghdad (2002)

Plot Summary:

A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War.A Directors Guild Award-winning movie for director Mick Jackson, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter. In 1990, CNN was a 24-hour news network in search of a 24-hour story. They were about to find it in Baghdad. Veteran CNN producer Robert Wiener and his longtime producing partner Ingrid Formanek find themselves in Iraq on the eve of war. Up against the big three networks, Weiner and his team are rebels with a cause, willing to take risks to get the biggest stories and - unlike their rivals - take them live at a moment's notice. As Baghdad becomes an inevitable US target, one by one the networks pull out of the city until only the crew from CNN remains. With a full-scale war soon to be launched all around them, and CNN ready to broadcast whatever happens 24 hours a day, Wiener and Formanek are about to risk their lives for the story of a lifetime.

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Rosewater (2014)

Plot Summary:

In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison. Making his directorial debut, Jon Stewart tells the tale of Bahari's months-long imprisonment and interrogation in this powerful and affecting docudrama featuring a potent and performance by Gael García Bernal recounting Bahari's efforts to maintain his hope and his sanity in the face of isolation and persecution-through memories of his family, recollections of the music he loves, and thoughts of his wife and unborn child.

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Kill the Messenger (2014)

Plot Summary:

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

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Thank You for Your Service (2017)

Plot Summary:

A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they've left the battlefield.

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Salvador (1986)

Plot Summary:

A second rated journalist from the US tries his luck in El Salvador during the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

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Jarhead (2005)

Plot Summary:

Jarhead is a film about a US Marine Anthony Swofford’s experience in the Gulf War. After putting up with an arduous boot camp, Swafford and his unit are sent to the Persian Gulf where they are eager to fight, but are forced to stay back from the action. Swofford struggles with the possibility of his girlfriend cheating on him, and as his mental state deteriorates, his desire to kill increases.

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13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)

Plot Summary:

An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.

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Official Secrets (2019)

Plot Summary:

The true story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun, who prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing a joint US-UK illegal spying operation against members of the UN Security Council. The memo proposed blackmailing member states into voting for war.

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The Fifth Estate (2013)

Plot Summary:

A look at the relationship between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his early supporter and eventual colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and how the website's growth and influence led to an irreparable rift between the two friends.

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A Mighty Heart (2007)

Plot Summary:

Based on Mariane Pearl's account of the terrifying and unforgettable story of her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl's life and death.

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Green Zone (2010)

Plot Summary:

During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of Army inspectors were dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that threatens to invert the purpose of their mission.

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Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.

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The Report (2019)

Plot Summary:

The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.

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Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)

Plot Summary:

The story of Mark Felt, who under the name "Deep Throat" helped journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal in 1974.

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Fair Game (2010)

Plot Summary:

Wife and mother Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) has a double life as a CIA operative, hiding her vocation from family and friends. Her husband, Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn), writes a controversial article in The New York Times, refuting stories about the sale of enriched uranium to Iraq, Then Valerie's secret work and identity is leaked to the press. With her cover blown and other people endangered, Valerie's career and personal life begin to unravel.

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The Insider (1999)

Plot Summary:

Tells the true story of a 60 Minutes television series exposé of the tobacco industry, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand.

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All the President's Men (1976)

Plot Summary:

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.

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Spotlight (2015)

Plot Summary:

In 2001, editor Marty Baron of The Boston Globe assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. Led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson, reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents. The reporters make it their mission to provide proof of a cover-up of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

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Truth (2015)

Plot Summary:

As a renowned producer and close associate of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes believes she’s broken the biggest story of the 2004 election: revelations of a sitting U.S. President’s military service. But when allegations come pouring in, sources change their stories, document authenticity is questioned, and the casualties begin to mount.

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The Post (2017)

Plot Summary:

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.

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Snowden (2016)

Plot Summary:

CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.

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Argo (2012)

Plot Summary:

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

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The Hurt Locker (2008)

Plot Summary:

Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

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Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

Plot Summary:

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

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LBJ (2016)

Plot Summary:

The story of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson from his young days in West Texas to the White House.

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Game Change (2012)

Plot Summary:

Based on the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change focuses on the Republican run of the 2008 Presidential election, when candidate John McCain picks a relative unknown, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, to be his running mate. As the campaign kicks into high gear, her lack of experience, in both political and media savvy, becomes a drain upon McCain and his strategists. Directed by Jay Roach, who previously directed the HBO film Recount and the Austin Powers movies, Game Change premiered on HBO on March 10th, 2012.

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Frost/Nixon (2008)

Plot Summary:

For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost's team harboured doubts about their boss's ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.