Best movies like The Yellow Birds

Similar in 85%

Foxhole (2021)

Plot Summary:

Unfolding over the span of 36 hours in three separate wars – The American Civil War, World War I, and Iraq – FOXHOLE follows five soldiers confined in a foxhole as they grapple with morality, futility, and an increasingly volatile combat situation. Casting the same five actors in each episode, the film depicts the shifting roles of race and gender over time against the backdrop of the seemingly endless human struggle for power and domination. (Olivia Belluck).

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Sniper. The White Raven (2022)

Plot Summary:

Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins at Donbass, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy. He’s saved from a senseless death by his instructor who himself gets mortally wounded. The death of a friend leaves a “scar” and Mykola is ready to sacrifice his life.

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The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)

Plot Summary:

Lillie, a determined American woman, ventures overseas to join Dr. Jude at a remote medical mission in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). However, Lillie soon finds herself at odds with Jude and the mission’s founder, Woodruff, when she falls for the titular military man, Ismail, just as the war is about to erupt.

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Camp X-Ray (2014)

Plot Summary:

A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.

Similar in 79%

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.

Similar in 77%

Brothers (2009)

Plot Summary:

When his helicopter goes down during his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, Marine Sam Cahill is presumed dead. Back home, brother Tommy steps in to look over Sam’s wife, Grace, and two children. Sam’s surprise homecoming triggers domestic mayhem.

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Taking Chance (2009)

Plot Summary:

Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a volunteer military escort accompanies the body of Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps to his hometown in Wyoming.

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Stones for the Rampart (2014)

Plot Summary:

To be defeated and not be - a victory. This is the motto that life is guided by three young friends: Alek, Sophy and Rudy. Scouts, high school graduates high school in Warsaw drifting ambitious plans for the future broken through September 1939. Entering adulthood in a very dramatic times, which puts them a choice - to survive at any cost, or to join the fighting for a free homeland, risking everything. The boys brought up in patriotic homes, shaped by the ideals of scouting, they decide to fight. They become soldiers, and although every scrape with death, they can live a full life.

Similar in 75%

Company K (2004)

Plot Summary:

Based on the popular World War I novel by author William March, director Robert Clem's COMPANY K follows a veteran of the first great conflict as he finishes a book about his wartime experiences and reflects on how a man's true character is revealed through his actions on the battlefield. From the German soldier who visits him in dreams to the camaraderie that is forged by fighting together and the true gravity of laying down your life for a greater cause, World War I veteran Joe Delaney will attempt to exorcise his demons through writing while struggling to readjust to small-town life following the trauma of war.

Similar in 81%

Sand Castle (2017)

Plot Summary:

Set during the occupation of Iraq, a squad of U.S. soldiers try to protect a small village.

Similar in 78%

At War as at War (1969)

Plot Summary:

To the young lieutenant Maleshkin the war is a minor obstacle, if compared to his personal battle to command his subordinates, while conducting an armored vehicle at the same time he's trying to impress his superior Soviet officers who put him under extreme pressures, one after the other, fighting the German forces occupying Ukraine during World War II. Here's the story of an impressionable man who learns in the hard way that being a leader is more than just using of his commanding voice to get what he wants.

Similar in 88%

Over There (2005)

Plot Summary:

Gritty, intense, evocative and emotional, "Over There" takes you to the front lines of battle and explores the effects of war on a U.S. Army unit sent to Iraq on their first tour of duty, as well as the equally powerful effects felt at home by their families and loved ones.

Similar in 83%

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.

Similar in 76%

Stop-Loss (2008)

Plot Summary:

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

Similar in 80%

Battle for Haditha (2007)

Plot Summary:

An investigation of the massacre of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq allegedly shot by 4 U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb. The movie follows the story of the Marines of Kilo Company, an Iraqi family, and the insurgents who plant the roadside bomb.

Similar in 90%

Boys of Abu Ghraib (2014)

Plot Summary:

An American soldier deployed at Abu Ghraib finds himself behind the walls of the infamous Hard Site, where he develops a secret friendship with an Iraqi detainee.

Similar in 76%

Generation Kill (2008)

Plot Summary:

Marines prepare to invade Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom; while the soldiers wait to receive their orders, they learn a Rolling Stone columnist will be embedded with them.

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Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed (2012)

Plot Summary:

A group of American GIs work their way through war-torn France during the final days of the Second World War.

Similar in 84%

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.

Similar in 78%

Unknown Soldier (2017)

Plot Summary:

The film follows Finnish army machine gun company in Continuation War against Soviet Union, 1941–1944. Based on Väinö Linna's best selling novel Tuntematon Sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) and the novel's uncensored version, Sotaromaani (A War Novel).

Similar in 83%

American Sniper (2014)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 77%

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.